Welcome to Rushton Elementary Bands

April 4- Shawnee Mission Concert Band Festival at SM Northwest. 6:30 report time in the Northwest cafeteria.  Wear all black dress clothes. Concert begins at 7:00PM and is free to the public. We perform second, but kids are expected to stay for the duration, it should be over around 8:30PM.

April 8- Symphonic and Concert band Contest Concert, to be held in the North auditorium. 6:30PM report time in the band room.  The concert begins at 7:00PM.  Concert band should wear all-black dress clothes, symphonic band should wear their symphonic band uniform.  This should be a short evening, as those are the only two groups performing.  We are also kicking off a huge fundraiser, but everything should wrap up before 7:45 PM.

April 13, Solo/Ensemble festival at Olathe South high school. Specific times and rooms can be found on the attached document.  The large percussion ensemble is still not on there, I’m working on that.

Finally, could everyone please review the schoolfundr document? This is a way for our band to make our $20,000 goal.  All students should begin loading family/friends emails using the provided QR code. Parents, most of your kids have already created an account so you need to ask your child what their password is, if you are planning to help them get 20 emails.  Kids, please make sure your parents can help you get 20 emails of family, friends, etc.  I know many of you have questions regarding the nuts and bolt of this fundraiser, and we will go over all of that at the concert next Monday night.  The vital thing right now is for everyone to create an account, and get 20 emails into their account, so we can start our fundraiser on April 9th.

This can be such an easy fundraiser to help the band make as much as we make hosting the SM North Marching Invitational!  This is that big of a deal! The North track team very recently made over $10,000 doing this fund raiser!

Go North band!

Mr. Reed

Band students, please vote for the band nominees for the 2024 Spring Court.  Use this link and please do so by tomorrow, Wednesday, March 27^th 3:00PM.  Students, please use your SMSD account when voting.  Here’s the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeNRtoXwzoPhvznqCP-7kl2HQ5Bo8Jz0aTyV939bCiWKLn5TQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Everyone, two date changes to the Spring calendar:

Booster meeting Monday, April 1^st at 5:45PM (instead of April 2^nd)

Spring Concert will be Wednesday, May 8^th at 7:00PM in the auditorium (instead of May 7^th).

That’s it for now. Thank you!

Mr. Reed

Monday:

Students need to arrive to school with their instruments, black shirt/dress uniform, concert black shoes (no sneakers), music and instrument.

Students are then dismissed from block 7, to change into uniform and prepare for the bus.

Our bus situation has challenges because of conflicting school bus routes. The plan is as follows:

Bus 1 will leave at 2:15pm- Bus 1 is ALL BAND students- drop off at Grace and Holy Trinity

Bus 2 will leave at 3:15pm- Bus 2 is ALL ORCHESTRA VIOLINS- drop off at Grace and Holy Trinity. Ms. Beasley is chaperoning this bus.

Bus 3 will leave at 3:45pm- Bus 2 is ALL ORCHESTRA CELLOS/VIOLAS/BASSES- drop off at Kauffman. Cook is on this bus.

Please see bus rosters. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A24TlevXu1xo7DrnE8_zJCGVuWp0o4DIetlZR7ZNMhE/edit#gid=0

The issue we had is that Kauffman won’t allow students to enter before 4:30pm.

Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral downtown has graciously allowed our bus 1 and 2 students to be dropped off there where they will be able to eat, use restrooms and rest before reporting to the Kauffman. Bus 3 will report directly to the Kauffman.

These are one-way buses. All students are expected to depart the Kaufman center with a parent or another mode of transportation, we will not have a bus to take students back to North. For safety reasons, construction on Broadway, and liability of instruments, administration has made it clear that ALL students need to ride the bus to the Kaufman center and not provide their own transportation there.  Cellos/basses, please make a plan for transporting your instrument.

Students will be provided a sack meal via SMN cafeteria. Bus 1 and 2 will eat their meal at Grace and Holy Trinity. Bus 3 will need to eat before departure from SMN or on the bus to the Kauffman. The “sack dinner” is being provided by the school (free of charge), which includes PBJ sandwich, carrots, cheese stick and milk. You’re more than welcome to bring something else.

At 4:30pm, Bus 1 and 2 will walk down with Mr. Reed and Ms. Beasley (SMN Band directors) to the Kauffman, where we will meet up with Bus 3. We will enter Kauffman all together, as there is a check in process that starts at 5pm sharp.

Students will get checked in with their instrument/school group, go to their warmup space and drop off instruments before finding their seat in the Kauffman before the concert begins at 6pm.

Tickets:

I have received many emails of people still needing more tickets. After speaking with the organization, they have released the following statement:

The ticket links may start showing “sold out.” This is beyond our control as KCPA dictates which sections they make available when the concert is GA. That said, no concert will be truly sold out, as many people reserve more tickets than they need. Please encourage parents of your students and anyone else to show up for the concert even if they don’t have a ticket reserved. KCPA will release any unclaimed seats with plenty of time before the concert starts, so don’t worry – everyone will get a seat.

The concert begins with Youth Symphony of Kansas City Repertory Orchestra, followed by Staley High School band. SMN band is expected to take the stage by 7:20pm, and SMN orchestra by 8:10pm.

This is a concert festival where students will receive written and audio feedback from clinicians who are in the audience. This is also a huge opportunity for our students to make wonderful memories performing in one of the premiere concert halls in the world. THANK YOU for being so supportive of your student in music. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Hello everyone-

This Friday (3/1) both jazz bands and Hocker Grove jazz band will host our annual Spring Swing!  We’ll play 2 hours of dance music.  This isn’t so much a concert as it is a party.  We will also have appetizers and other food items.  The event is in the North cafeteria from 6:30-8:30PM.  Adults are $15/ea and students are $8/ea and everyone should pay at the door.  This is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the jazz program.  Again, you will have a great time, we hope to see you there!

Here’s the link to donate food items for this Friday’s (3/1) Spring Swing: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C084EA4A92DA5FEC52-48156249-spring#/

Here’s the link to help volunteer for this Friday’s (3/1) Spring Swing: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C084EA4A92DA5FEC52-48163054-spring#/

This is a really fun event, thanks in advance for everyone’s help!

Symphonic bands, our final Monday night rehearsal is today/tomorrow (2/26) on the stage, from 6:30-8:30PM.  Our Kauffman performance is next Monday, March 4^th.  Here’s the link. To get your free tickets, we’re performing during the 6PM performance: https://tickets.kauffmancenter.org/22231?queueittoken=e_waitingroom5~q_152695c3-e539-4914-8da2-a732118c5823~ts_1708899682~ce_true~rt_safetynet~h_c392395fa9cf88d9d7b26e4f750af833858eead6206eb7d672384e2238c9e72b