Author: Bob Kanygin

Hi all, Here are the rehearsal notes for Tuesday, May 7th.
1) Chorales-Son of Assorted 2) Warm-up Piece-Memento 3) Holst Suite (complete) 4) Oblivion 5) Rescue (new) 6) Fogarty’s Cove (complete) 7) A Walk in the Morning Sun 8) The Red Covered Bridge 9) Welsh Rhapsody (if time)
Thanks and see you on Tuesday. Dave

Hi all,
With the news of John Underhill’s passing, I want to express my great appreciation and respect for the life that John led and, of course his skill, dedication and class that he brought to his music. Reading his obituary, I am struck by his many accomplishments and his unswerving dedication to his family.
I first met John when my own son was part of the Scouts and Cubs movement almost 20 years ago. He was, at that time, his son Jack’s pack leader for Cubs and I  could tell then that his “all in” approach to whatever he stepped up for was total and inspirational.
Although his untimely death has been expected, it comes as a very great loss to our Halifax Concert Band community as well as to all who knew and loved him. John served as our band president for many years and held that position with such dedication and class and we will all miss his impeccable leadership and style. Along with that, his musicianship and skill on the trumpet was such a gift for us all and he was excellent at that.
I also want to say just how impressed I was with your performance on Tuesday night at Kiwanis. Congratulations to you all and especially to Mark Cuming for his beautiful and skillful Chorale and Fugue. Thank you all!
As Becky has pointed out to me and I felt it profoundly on Wednesday, John just waited around long enough to see if we were going to get another Gold Standard. This one’s for you, John.
I will see you on Tuesday. Dave

As posted on HCB Facebook page by Perla
www.dignitymemorial.com/…/john-underhill-11795141 <www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/halifax-ns/john-underhill-11795141?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3LgNtgRE3EI3MElwwe0oAdMNf9F9k0YFZ8Uet3b4Tyeh835EEdgaWnVUU_aem_ARvIHyQivoprm7LOEY-vhzrpwKBVlD8ifhvFDY…>

Hello,
As most people may have already heard, our dear John passed away yesterday morning. As it is for most of us, music was a huge part of his life. I know he was so happy to be able to keep playing during most of his cancer journey and he was so grateful to all of us for, as he would put it “allowing me to keep on playing”. Currently nothing has been posted on social media from his family. I’ll do my best to provide any other updates regarding his service.
Thank you, Perla

Hello, everyone in the band. I want to thank you all for making my composition project a great success. It is very humbling to have such a large group of people do you a great service like this. It’s not just the actual performance, although that’s huge- it’s the time that individual players took to work on their individual parts for the greater whole You are dedicated players and there is no doubt that I owe you all a debt of gratitude. Thank-you all so much, really. I enjoyed this night immensely and you people made it happen. By the way, Cakewalk worked great too. Good steady tempo and individual section work was solid. I know that Dave will have some things to add. No more composing work for now. My car is working too well. However, I have at least one piece for Perla to belt out under construction now (Rescue Me- an R &B hit from 1965) and a Mary Tyler Moore medley going at the same time. Some good old pop stuff that should be fun next season. Cheers everyone and congratulations on a fine performance. Mark

Hi all,
I just received a message from Jane MacConnell that there has been a bomb threat at Halifax West high school and they have closed the school for today (Monday) and cancelled all events for the evening as well.
We have no choice but to *_cancel_* our dress rehearsal this evening at the West so I’m just going to make the decision that we perform tomorrow night at Kiwanis with a cold start.
We’ll spend a little more time on our warm-up chorales on the Seton stage and everything will be fine. I know that we’re ready for our performance.
Thanks and I will see you at Seton tomorrow evening at 6:15. Please note- our warmup rooms at the Seton Academic Centre for tomorrow night are now rooms 401 and 405.
Also, for Michael Klenavic, please call me asap on my cell at 902 266-3365 and we’ll figure out what percussion equipment needs to be collected from the West for our performance tomorrow. I’ll hopefully be able to pick that up when the school is open again on Tuesday.
Thanks Dave