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Congratulations are in order for Mike Forbes and his studio at Illinois State for the really fine job they did with MWRTEC this past week. The line up of artists that they had was truly outstanding and there was a really great feeling of community at this conference that I have experienced at very few others. The attendance was very encouraging and I urge all readers of this board to support their local regional events.

The performances were really quite fine. Although the hall was not the most tuba/euph friendly, everyone really played well. Although I will leave it to others to discuss their favorite performance and/or aspects of the conference, I am very thankful to Mike for making the Ed Livingston Tribute possible. It was nice for those of us who love Ed dearly to see his work and contribution recognized publicly.

For those of you who have not yet heard Carol Jantsch play, please believe me when I tell you that she is 100% the real deal. I have never heard bettter playing in my entire life. I am a fan for life and will aspire to emulate her technical mastery and beauty and ease of playing for the rest of my days.

Thanks again Mike, for a job really well done! I'm sure that you are breathing a sigh of relief!! Can't wait for March 27th myself!!

I'll second that! It was a very *dense* and ambitious program, but everything came off more-or-less on schedule.

I drove 10 hours each way...and it was worth it.

Most educational, for me, were the mock auditions. These should be a nearly-mandatory part of any future TEC.

The only thing missing, from a rank amateur's point of view, was an open reading session - but I can't really think of a single session from this event that I would cut in order to make room.

One lesson to carry forward, in my opinion, is the need to *schedule* some slack time between sessions. Even though Mike did a great job of keeping everything flowing smoothly from one session to another, the slight run-overs tended to add up by the end of the day, and I noticed some people leaving some sessions early because they were afraid they would miss the start of the next session. And...delaying the euph mock audition until after the tuba mock audition finished inevitably meant that the euph session ran out of time and wasn't as informative as it might have been.

But, these are nits - the overall impression of the conference was overwhelmingly positive (but, next time I'll fly...)