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Euphonim player Steven Mead will play with the Salvation Army Chicago Staff Band November 25, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, at 7:30, in Wheaton, IL at Wheaton College.

Sounds of the Season 2006
The leaves have started to fall and a chill in the air makes it clear—winter will soon be here. As you make plans for the upcoming holiday season be sure to include the annual Chicago Staff Band Sounds of the Season concert. This year’s concert will feature euphonium soloist Steven Mead. It’s a tradition that’s not to be missed!

Mark your calendars:

November 25, 2006 7:00 p.m.

To order free tickets or to sign up as a CSB Patron, complete the online CSB ticket order form. You may also request tickets by sending an e-mail to csb_tickets@usc.salvationarmy.org.

http://www.usc.salvationarmy.org/usc/WW ... enDocument

If I was in town, I would pop over and see that for sure.
You reminded me that it is time for us Creekers to to get together and try to remember what keys we did the Christmas material in (dangled participle) and tighten up for our seventh annual "John Reno and the Half-Fast Creekers Eastern Shore Christmas Tour". Yea buddy, it's gonna be fun.
We get to leave our usual venues (meaning bars) and play for school kids and old folks. This is so refreshing. Gotta be on your toes to play for kids but the fun starts right away and continues for the teachers for the rest of the day after we stir them up and leave.
Old folks give us good feedback as well as an occasional fart. "I liked that one. Play it again." Last year the coolest Santa showed up at Rosemont nursing home. He sang with us and really rocked the joint. Hope he shows up this year.
Happy Christmas, fellow tubatooters.
Dennis Gray
www.johnreno.com/

Thanks for the heads up! I live in Lombard, so I'll be there!

Bump as a reminder, it's this Saturday !

Superb concert. Steven Mead was awesome. Haven't seen him live since the '95 ITEC @ NU - I forgot how funny he can be. A highlight was when the band put down their horns and sang "Give Me Jesus" accompanied by Steve on Euph, a pianist and the Eb tubist as vocal soloist. Truly magical.

I was impressed by the bandmaster William Himes both in his conducting, but also his nice sense of humor and his ability to kindly poke fun at the Salvation Army's view of the world. I had to laugh when he said that they would view a song such as "How dry are we" and instead see it as "Happy Days Are Here Again".

Edman Chapel, on the campus of Wheaton College is a nice accoustic hall with a really nice pipe organ played this night by Rudolph Zuiderveld professor of music at Illinois College and a native of the Netherlands. Combined with brass band it was - WOW! There is nothing like a live concert with a big pipe organ. I don't care how good your stereo is - you can't replicate this.

Thanks to the original poster for listing this as it was a great concert I would have never known about if not for Tubenet!

I second TOFU's enthusiasm. This has to be one of the best concerts I've seen in a number of years. Selections included music from Mead's CD Locomotion including Locomotion, Slavische Fantasie, Banjo and Fiddle, and Journey into Peace. The last particularly moving as the composer (William Himes) was also the conductor. The euphonium choir allowed for us to hear Himes on euphonium as well.

Mead's unaccompanied encore was freaky good. I could see what he was doing, I just didn't know how it was possible, including a multiphonics rendition of Carnival of Venice.

As the original poster, I'll concur with the assessments of the concert, a fine concert indeed. Director Himes indicated that they try to have something for everyone, so there was the brass band, and the organ, and the chorus, and the euphonium choir, and of course, the soloist, Steven Mead. I'll give a big thumbs up to his unaccompianied solo, he just wanted to show everything that he can do, and the instrument can do. A tremendous range of playing.

I attended Wheaton College and have heard the organ many times, and last night was a fine hour for that instrument. I've always felt that the hall wasn't as conducive to a pipe organ as it could be, but it sounded great last night.

I think for me the 8 piece euphonium choir was splendid, a wonderful balance of sound, and certainly this forum could produce more choirs like this. Maybe we sometimes just overlook the beauty of that sound, except once a year at Tuba Christmas.

Overall, the attendance was very good, I've been to 3 of these concerts, and this was by far the best attended. Phil Smith played trumpet with them about 3 years ago, also a great concert, and I wondered how people would respond to a crazy Brit Euphonium player who most people I talked to have seemingly never heard of. They responded well, lots of people.

Parting thought, I can't stop wondering if Steven Mead isn't actuallly the guy from the Six Flags commercials.

dunelandmusic wrote: Parting thought, I can't stop wondering if Steven Mead isn't actuallly the guy from the Six Flags commercials.

Ha! Ha! Ha! I had the exact same thought cross my mind last night!

The Salvation Army does record all of these concerts, and the CD's are usually available for a $25 donation. I believe Saturday night they were also still selling CD's from the Patrick Sheridan concert a few years back, for $15. To hear my bootleg copy of Shenandoah, to get a feel for what will be on the CD, go here:

http://jeffreyhuish.podOmatic.com

Should be the top episode, yes the levels aren't great, just a small MP3 recording to give an idea of the sound. I've already ordered the CD.

I posted tonight the file of the encore solo, if you want to hear Mr Mead tear it up a bit. Keep in mind he was quite theatrical, which accounts for the audience laughter at different moments

http://jeffreyhuish.podOmatic.com