Spring Concert -07
Mr. Slous’s last concert. Ever. Except for graduation. ): I pity all future generations of band kids who will never have him for their teacher. Every band we had played this time, including all five normal ones and a few extras:
- Jazz I (members of Jazz Band in the 8th Grade Jazz class)
- Jazz II (group of people in 7th Grade Jazz that practice Jazz Band songs)
- a drumming demonstration
- the Saxtastic 4 (Tad, Sam, Andrew, and Timothy playing the soprano sax, alto sax, tenor sax, and bari sax)
- There was a surprise guest, an old student of Mr. Slous’s who graduated from high school in 2005 named Timmy (lol our bari is Timothy). He was so good on the bari that he was invited to play for an elite team, and he came back to play a solo during the spring concert.
I made a really ghetto origami card that folds out like an accordion. The two covers were wrapped in gold Ferrero Rocher candy wrappers (apparently if you try to superglue them the paint comes off) and each had a black eighth note decoration. One side said, MR.SLOUS on the top and 35 YEARS on the bottom. The other side said 8TH GRADE JAZZ on the top and 06-07 on the bottom. Then we got every person in the 8th Grade Jazz class to sign it, and there were just enough squares for each person to have on to sign in - except that I forgot to count Ren, so Ezra’s square got cut in half.
We decided to give it to Mr. Slous right before 8th Grade Jazz played during the Spring Concert. And it was going to be a surprise. So April bought flowers and hid them in a locker. I told her that I’d been thinking while I was walking to school about giving a speech, so we started to write one, and then Cameron walked in and he helped us. It was really short because I knew the bleachers really hurt and the audience doesn’t like waiting through long speeches. We got permission to take the mike right before 8th Grade Jazz, I gave the speech, and Cameron handed the flowers and the card to Mr. Slous. Joy! :D
The concert was really great, except for a few things. The keyboard kept randomly skipping, so right in the middle of a song it would stop playing for like, two lines and then start back up again. That was annoying. And the gym is really spacey, so most of the band couldn’t hear each other and we got offbeat a few times.
Otherwise it was a very fun concert. :D Happy retirement, Mr. Slous. Even though you’re not quite done yet. Hehe.