Re: extravagant student ensemble trips


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Posted by Mark Heter on June 20, 2003 at 12:54:13:

In Reply to: extravagant student ensemble trips posted by js on June 01, 2003 at 13:09:25:

Back in my HS days (1960s) there was a major scandal in a neighboring town (NJ) involving this business of long trips to festivals. The HS Band had just gone to the Rose Bowl, and, having established the principle of "distance=prestige", announced it was raising funds to take the band to Holland for a Big Festival. This was before Disney made a minor industry of exploiting kids in FL. Anyway, they committed to the festival, got on the plane and went - without having raised the $$ beforehand, and came back NOT having won the Big Trophy. The egomaniacal band director responsible for this insanity lost his band director's job, and ended up teaching elementary school music until they could retire him. And this was in a predominately blue collar town where the working-stiff parents ponied up for private lessons, and kids regularly placed in the All-State competitions, etc./ It nearly wrecked an otherwise fine program. Fortunately, the band program survived, and remains a major source of shcolastic and civic pride today.
In my humble, but correct opinion, this junketing of school bands around the country is just a damned racket. Even our local HS band (NOT the band described above), which sounds like a burning pet shop, managed a junket to Disney World, which my kids declined to participate in, leading to their demotion in the band, and eventual dropping out of the program. One of my kids had the temerity to ask if they were going to paid by Disney World like the union musicians on salary there for the parade... One of the reasons those guys in FL are out of work these days is Disney's ability to get kids for nothing, for their big events, of course.
I personally wonder how many kids, whose parents pony up for the fund raisers, and endless car washes, candy sales, and other sleazy crapola, can play their scales, or sightread "Come to Jesus" if asked of them. This ain't music education, that's for sure.
MH


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