17 August 2010

Fall Season, Disney Bound~

Hello all Company M members and Fan Club Members!

I'm working on a few things today having to do with our Disney Tour, and that is always super exciting to me.  First of all, I had a sight-singing session with the fantastic Jillian and Miriam yesterday, and we have some great numbers lined up for the fall season.  Boy features (because we have at least FOUR of you talented male performers!!!), girl features, some large group numbers, lots of small solos within company numbers, and a great mix of openers and closers.  Get ready for some tricky harmony work, high energy musical numbers, and some super fun dance stuff.  I think it's going to be great.

Second, thanks to Stephanie (our favorite Overture tech staffer), I can share with you some fun "snapshots" of a day in the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT.  Take a minute or two to preview these videos, because I think you'll enjoy the perspective.




This is a particular type of tilt shift photography that makes everything look like it is in miniature, but actually it's just time lapse photography then animated.  I am fascinated.

In other news, did you check out the previous post wih information about our hotel accommodations & other events planned?  We will still have our evening event to watch the fireworks in EPCOT, and of course will have an amazing performance on Saturday night.  I'm hoping for a Downtown Disney venue, but will hear about that as soon as it is set.

Yesterday I made our arrangements and reservations for the motor coach we'll need to take backstage at Disney, because that transportation is not provided.  Things are coming together!

Early in September we'll have an evening meeting to view the new Disney DVD, answer any questions people may have, and ge o know some of the fan club attending the tour with us.

17 June 2010

Getting organized for tour


Today I called our coordinator at Disney World to get our rooms on the schedule.  Lucky for us, we're planning a little further in advance this year, and I've secured us the BEST RATES YET!  Our hotel rooms are under $100 a night, though we do need to book 10 rooms for the first night.
More fun than that, I've requested the All Star Movies Resort.  We couldn't book in the Pop Century Resort, because that is not a youth group facility.  However, the dining spaces here are designed to look like a movie theatre lobby, and there are film references and equipment exhibits all over the campus.  The main pool is also pretty groovy, with a giant proscenium & Sorcerer Mickey center stage.
Other great things in the works that are a little different than previous tours are:
  • Special event Dessert Reception and fireworks viewing on the island in EPCOT (similar to last time)
  • Pizza party for performers following the Saturday night performance
  • Group dinner event in a casual dining venue (TBD as we get closer to the dates)
Our airline tickets are booked and reserved...but more exciting than that we've booked a few extra seats for folks who weren't positive they could go, and the discounted rates are extended to additional fan club members!

It's going to be a great trip.

15 June 2010

2010-2011 Season updates


We've got a lot to look forward to with our 2010-2011 School of the Arts season.  Not only will we be Disney-bound in January, but I'm looking forward to some great new things throughout the year.  I want us to experiment a little with more diversified harmonies and we'll have an intensive unit in the fall about creating harmonies according to music theory harmonic rules...and then create a few arrangements of our own.  Thalia dabbled in that a little this past year with "I Say a Little Prayer" and I'm looking forward to what else we'll do.

I'd like to focus a little on musical theatre history this year, so we'll look at some of the earlier stuff by Cole Porter, George Gerswhin, and the formative years of Broadway.  Along with that, we'll look at some of the parlor melodramas from the turn of the century and their relation to musical comedy.

In preparation for our performances on tour, we'll be working more closely on balance and blend with a special focus on emoting.  My goal is to assure that all Ensemble members have feature solos that can weave in and out of the full ensemble sound.

Last but not least, DON'T WORRY if you didn't make a deposit for the Disney tour, but think you might later change your mind.  I am booking a few extra seats on the flight which can be cancelled at no charge to us before November 1.  This means that everyone who joins us in the summer or early fall can still have the option to joins us for this tour (as can anyone who initially thought it would not work with their schedules and then learned it might).  Unfortunately, or fortunately, our fan club is now full. 

29 April 2010

Who is excited? Disney 2011.


So, yesterday I got an e-mail from our friends at Disney Magic Music Days.  In an amazingly quick turnaround, they've booked us for performance on Saturday, January 29, 2011!  Another Saturday night, and hopefully in Downtown Disney.  We won't know that until later.

I have checked in with the following 2010-2011 schedules:

  • MMSD Our tour falls in the first few weeks of second semester, just after first semester finals and before you get into large projects in the second semester.  It also does not conflict with any published school events.

  • Middleton I didn't see anything on the school district or Middleton High School calendar that would conflict with these dates.
  • Edgewood High School  I didn't see a thing on the calendar, and it's after your first semester finals.

  • Wisconsin School Music Association I called the WSMA office (they do the Solo & Ensemble festivals) to make sure that nothing was scheduled for any of our area school districts over this weekend.  I wouldn't want to keep you from participating in that!

  • Individual programs Over the past few days I've e-mailed the various teachers and organizations that you are involved in to check on next year's schedule.  Unfortunately, non of them have answered me...but I made the effort.  Hopefully, we can successfully avoid any scheduling catastrophes with this advanced planning.

HOWEVER, since I didn't hear back from the individual programs (West Drama, East Drama, Encore! @ East), I'd like you to follow up with these teachers and let them know that I did attempt to contact them to work around conflicts, and that this is when we are going.  If there is trouble, please let me know ASAP so that I can start working on a solution.

Thanks! ~kj

05 March 2010

Disney Magic Music Days 2010-2011!

The time is upon us...we must start planning and preparing our application materials for our Disney Magic Music Days tour in 2011.

SO....to that end, we had some discussion at the end of last night's rehearsal and came to the following conclusions:

1.  We loved the IllumiNations dessert buffet and would like to do that again, but this time WITHOUT any of the additional stuff (like a dinner before).  We want to spend the time with our group before the fireworks enjoying desserts and not be rushed.

2.  Kira loves Survey Monkey surveys and would like us tot take lots of them for decision making purposes.

3.  We would like to travel in early to mid-March.  (Please, all of you, check your schedules with various activities...school plays/school musicals/show choir/etc)

4.  The Poolside Pizza party following the performance was a huge success and we want to do that again.  It is also a relatively inexpensive and fun thing to do.

5.  There is a workshop available to us now on Musical Theatre--we would like to learn more about it before committing to the full (high) price of this workshop.

6.  We will tape "Keep Holding On" for our formal performance piece and plan to do that March 18 or 25 in full costume.  The other piece we'll send will be a cutting of "Accusations" from "Intervention"

7.  We would like to stay five days this time (instead of four) and will plan ahead with school accordingly.

8.  The Disney Google Group is in the early stages of being ready for you to join.   Click here to subscribe.

9.  No final estimates will be available until September 2010 at the earliest...because the companies we use don't have rates set this far out.

10.  A rockin' fundraising idea for you to organize: MadCAMP days for younger kiddos!  A day where parents can drop off their kids at MadCAP to be supervised and entertained (by you, not me).  You guys are planning to set the dates for that and organize the staffing, etc.  I'll just be here to hold down the fort.

I cannot wait!  It is going to be a great adventure.