Surprise! the conductor at the spring concert last night at an elementary school in downtown Seattle also conducted at the previous school concert I attended two weeks ago in North Seattle (see post below). He does double duty–whew!  That would exhaust me.

At this school, the music program consists of four parts: beginning strings, brass, and winds; intermediate winds and strings; advanced band and strings; and orchestra. For the concert program,  there were 8 group performances. My fourth-grade cornet student is in the Intermediate Winds group, along with two trumpet players. I recognized his tone. He has progressed so fast and far this year! His group played “Sawmill Creek,” “Regal March,” and “Minor Rock.”  He played well and was very well behaved the entire night.

I was proud of him, but not nearly as much, I’m sure, as were his grandparents, sister, and parents, who filmed the event. They said many musicians from this school eventually feed into Garfield High School. And as we know, Garfield recently won the nationwide Essentially Ellington jazz competition in New York for the fourth time. Is that the direction my guy is headed? Let’s just wait and see what happens next year…one step at a time, please. Remember the adage, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”