Solo & Ensemble Instrumental Announcement

Greetings Eastshore Region Instrumental Music teachers!

If you become aware that I have missed any teachers of grades 9-12 within our region, please alert me ASAP. 

Our solo and ensemble contest registration site is set up and you are now invited to begin submitting student applications. Your access to the site will close on Saturday, December 21, 2019 so please make sure you have fully completed all entries by that date.

Alert! By state contest rules, if you miss that deadline, I am allowed to try to accommodate your requests on a space available basis, but those entries will be coded as “not eligible for state.”

I have attached a tutorial that will guide you through accessing the site, logging in, and step by step instructions. If you have any challenges, just let me know.

Here is a link to the 2020 State Solo and Ensemble Contest Rules document. As teachers of students choosing to compete, it is our responsibility to understand all rules!

Finally, I have attached two worksheets you can use to gather student entry info if you wish. They are in WORD, so feel free to edit before distribution.  Strictly optional, and I do not want you to send them to me—the entire process is done online. As I mentioned in previous communication, we use a Google form at Mount Si to collect student information. It makes it easy to copy and paste into the online system. However, feel free to use whatever system is most efficient and effective for you and your program.

We are looking forward to hosting our Instrumental solo and ensemble contest this year!  A reminder that it will be held on Saturday, January 25, 2020 at Mount Si High School.

More details to follow in the coming weeks!

All the best,

 

Bill Leather

Band Director

Mount Si High School

425-831-8218

 

Instrumental Eastshore Solo & Ensemble Update

Below is a copy of the email sent to members on Friday, November 30th. The attached documents mentioned in the email are listed as hyperlinks here at the top.

WMEA Regional ENSEMBLE Application Worksheet (General) WMEA Regional SOLO Application Worksheet
Teacher Tutorial 2018-2019

Dear Eastshore music colleagues,

The registration window for our Eastshore Solo and Ensemble Festivals will open on Monday, December 3 and close on Thursday, January 10, 2018.  Please note – The Instrumental Solo and Ensemble Festival will be January 26, 2019 at International School in Bellevue.  The Vocal Solo and Ensemble Festival will be February 2, 2019 at Bellevue Christian School.

We will continue to use the Opus Contest host this year for our solo and ensemble registration and scheduling process at www.opusevent.com.  If you are new to Opus Contest, attached to this email is a tutorial that will guide you with step by step instructions through accessing the OpusEvent website and the first time login process.  Please note – There are two separate contests for Eastshore this year.  The Instrumental Contest is “WMEA Eastshore Instrumental 2019.”  The Vocal Contest is “WMEA Eastshore Vocal 2019.”

There are no rule changes this year to the WMEA State Solo and Ensemble Contest.  You may review the 2019 rules and last year’s changes on the WMEA website HERE.

I have attached two worksheets that you can use to gather student entry information (optional), in additional to the Opus Teacher Tutorial.  As a reminder, the cost is $20 per solo entry and $20 per ensemble entry with an additional $2 per ensemble member.

On behalf of my co-hosts, Anna Silarski (Strings) and Joanne Whang (Vocal), thank you and we look forward to seeing you and your students at the Festivals!

Thanks,

Andy Rubesch | Band Director

International School 445 128th Ave SE | Bellevue, WA 9800

425.456.6553 | rubescha@bsd405.org

Welcome Back!

Hello Eastshore Region!

Please mark your calendar now for our first general membership meeting of the school year:

Monday September 24th – 4:30-6:00pm – Lake Hills Library Meeting Room in Bellevue

If you did not attend the Festival Host Meeting at the end of last year and you are hosting a festival this year, you MUST attend the Festival Host meeting immediately following our general meeting:

Monday September 24th – 6:00-6:30pm – Lake Hills Library Meeting Room in Bellevue

  • Please check the Eastshore website to see if you and your colleagues’ contact information is up to date and correct. If there are any mistakes, please email me back with the corrections ASAP! https://eastshoremusic.org/members/
  • On the documents page of the website you will find an updated Eastshore Calendar for this year. This is our most up to date calendar document at this time. Remember, some schools are hosting events “outside of the festival rotation,” so please refer to the calendar for WHO is hosting a festival in addition to when they are hosting it! Be sure to mark all these important dates in your calendar now! https://eastshoremusic.org/documents/
  • The “annual festival invoice” is also up on the documents section of the website. Please fill that out and start the payment process ASAP!
  • Don’t forget All-NW audition materials are now available on the WMEA website: https://www.wmea.org/
    • All NW (High School) closes October 3rd
    • Junior All-State (7-8) closes October 4th
    • Youth All-State Choir (5-6) closes October 2nd

If you have news you can share for the “news from around the state,” please shoot that my way over email ASAP as well. If you have a new teacher at your school, maybe take a picture of your new “team” and share a few pieces of information about them and what they’ll be teaching. Let me know if you did anything cool with your groups over the summer. Of let me know if you’ll be doing anything exciting coming up, or any guest clinicians you’ll be having. ANYTHING you can think of that would be fun to share about, send it my way. Pictures are always fun, too, if you have them!

That’s all I’ve got for now! Can’t wait to see everyone and catch up!

All the best,

Haley

Sub-Committee Persons for 2018-2020

Eastshore Music League members,

We are excited to be expanding our board to include sub-committee chairpersons. We are hoping to improve representation on the board while building and fostering more active sub groups within our region.

There will be 3 sub-committee chair positions; one for band, choir, and orchestra. The duties of the sub-committee chairs will include planning, organizing, and facilitating sub-committee meetings among their cohort, reporting back to other board members any updates and changes from cohort meetings, checking in with cohort festival hosts and assisting as needed, facilitating any commissions or special events among a cohort, attending general membership meetings, and attending occasional board meetings as needed.

These positions will last for two years (on the same term length as other board positions). If you have any questions, please be sure to email one of the current board members! Thank you!

Hello Eastshore Members,

Believe it or not… we are coming up on our LAST MEETING of the school year! Please mark your calendar now (if you haven’t already) for:

Monday, April 23rd
4:30-6:00pm
Lake Hills Library, Bellevue

We will be having some important discussions and be making important decisions about next year at this meeting and would love to have as many members of our region represented as possible.

Topics that will be covered include:

  • Calendar
    1. Dates for all festivals and events next year
    2. Changes to band festival dates/format
    3. Band festival volunteer hosts (instead of rotation)
    4. General membership meetings
  • Board Positions
    1. This is a voting year for next year’s board (president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer). All of your current board members (myself, Chandra, Cory, and Kathy) would like to run for our current positions again to help continue to move things in what we hope is a positive direction. That being said, if anyone is feeling called to run for any of these positions PLEASE know your willingness to run would completely welcomed. If this is you, be sure to let me know at your earliest convenience so we can add you to the ballot!
    2. We would like to add sub-committee chairs for band, orchestra, and choir (3 positions) to the board. These positions would help plan and facilitate sub-committee meetings, check-in with festival coordinators, and report back to the board and general membership about sub-committee “happenings.” If this is something you would be interested in applying for, please let me know at your earliest convenience!
  • Solo & Ensemble
    1. Location of hosting
    2. Festival costs (potential of raising fees)
  • General Feedback
    1. We will be welcoming any feedback or proposals for us to consider and start preparing to have discussions about as we move into next year.

I will be sending out a survey and RSVP opportunity before the end of the week, so please keep an eye out for that. Additionally, 2 action items:

  • If interested in a board position (pres/vp/sec/treas) please e-mail me ASAP
  • If interested in a sub-committee position (band/orchestra/choir) please e-mail me ASAP

I’d be happy to provide more information about any of these positions if you have any sort of interest at all. Just reach out and I’d be happy to fill you in and answer any questions you have! I hope you’ll thoughtfully consider if you might be able to help our Eastshore region continue to move things in a positive direction by taking on any of these positions. J

Thank you again, as always, for your support!

All the best,

Haley