Daley Ponderings

Our new church has a youth orchestra that Jon has become part of.  They did a few concerts at local nursing homes last weekend and I got some pictures and videos.  The main reason for this post is to  explain the videos.  Our camera isn't primarily a video camera, so it only takes 60 second clips.  That's great for most of what we take, but doesn't work so well for concerts.  (:    

concert pictures page

All the videos are the full 60 seconds, so they are pretty big files (it's taking me more than 5 minutes each to upload them.)

The guitar duet is for Volus to see if he recognizes the composer. It's also very pretty, but less than a third of the whole piece.

Keep in mind the camera quality isn't great.  Yes, it's a youth orchestra (ages 8-30!) but it really sounded good in real life.  Sorry about some of the visual - Noah was trying to grab the camera in spots.

Jon has the trombone solo you can hear in Russian Sailors' Dance.  He has all the trombone solos (he's the only trombone) but you can hear him distinctly in that clip.  Alas, the video cuts off the very last two notes!

And I can hear people asking already, so I'll post it now instead of in comments.  How did Jon get involved in a youth orchestra?  Well, the second week we visited the church, there was a small (~8 piece)         
orchestra playing the worship music.  Some weeks later, there was a note in the announcements "Orchestra Practice Wednesday 6:30pm."

When we arrived at rehearsal, we found something completely different from what we expected, yet very exciting!  A ~30 piece orchestra, the members of which are the children of the families who attend the
church.  And the music was challenging enough that not only could Jon not sightread it, he had to practice at home, too.  It was fun for the boys and me - they enjoyed listening, and I enjoyed the whole idea of it.  50 times better than our poor little homeschool band that started in my eighth grade year!

They really like having a trombone and Jon really enjoys participating.  It's so neat to see everyone working together in such a vast age range.  (There's even a family where all eight children ages 9-25 are in the orchestra.  And their mom sang a solo to one of the pieces on the concert.)