First the good stuff. You should be really proud of your children. They were respectful and well behaved the entire trip. I did not hear of one instance of a Mabry student not doing exactly what was expected of them. That’s as important to me as anything we did last weekend.

The GMEA convention is the premier performance invitation in the state for school and community groups. Just the invitation was an honor. I spoke with James Barkett, the GMEA Orchestra Division chair, before our performance and he repeated what he told me on the phone last summer, the recording the Mabry Symphony submitted as application was so superior to anything else they received, our invitation was a no-brainer. So, thank you to the Lassiter Orchestra freshman for their part in our invitation.

In his introduction, Mr. Barkett told the audience that the Mabry Symphony is the first middle school “full orchestra” ever invited to perform at the conference. There are great string and great band programs in GA, but I’m proud of the cooperation and vision of the orchestra and band directors at Mabry and Lassiter that help make this most important ensemble experience a reality from the earliest stages of learning.

We used the performance at Kell to fix things. Mostly, the experience of being on a strange stage, having to use our listening skills and our ‘watching the conductor skills’, allowed our hard work in preparation to come across in performance.

The performance was awesome. It was everything I had hoped for us. I had fun and genuinely ‘enjoyed the moment’. We worked hard in preparation and ‘peaked’ at the right time. Here are some of the comments I received from audience members: “I’ve never heard a middle school string group play so well in-tune”, “From the Concertmaster to the back of the 2nd violins, these kids used there bows with command”, “How do 13 year olds to play so musically?”, “What a great program”, “Where’s the restroom?”

These kids’ hard work and openness to learning new things is what made this a success. They chose to play beautiful phrases. They recognize that playing in-tune makes a better musical experience for them. They appreciate the effectiveness that listening and watching has on precise ensemble playing. It’s not magical or mystical. It’s what every teacher should expect of their students. It’s the same level of rigorous instruction and performance I expect my son’s AP Calculus teacher to offer and expect from him.

The life, and music making experience your kids had last Friday night, and these past 5 months, is impressive. Make them talk to you about it.
The busses showed up right on schedule. Our loading and departure went smoothly thanks to all the wonderful chaperones and parents helping. By the time everyone got settled in and comfortable, things put away, etc. we were headed south on I-75.

I’m a terrible passenger. Ask my wife, my son, anybody. But our bus driver was not good. At one point I wasn’t sure if he was actually awake so I tried conversation. That didn’t help. After what seemed to me like more swerving than necessary I yelped “Hey, let’s keep it between the lines, you‘re scaring me.” He muttered something unintelligible. A few swerves later I said, “You’re still scaring me.” He said, “Well then get your butt to the back of the bus!” Ok.

I’ve never driven a bus. The things are huge. I thought I was just being paranoid. I took his advice and went back to visit with some students, leaving the other adults to ‘white knuckle” in the front rows. We were lucky that traffic was very light. The rest of the trip there was mostly just odd, indiscriminate braking and accelerating, and we made it to Savannah and the hotel. Most of the real problems happened in Savannah. On the way to the performance we ran a red light. Not totally, we just ended up stopped in the middle of a major intersection! Maneuvering the streets of Savannah we clipped a truck we were going by and took off our right side mirror. Then ran it over. We hauled it into the bus and continued to the Trade Center.

After the performance we loaded up and headed back to the hotel on Tybee. I would hate to drive a bus in the Savannah area, lots of narrow streets and bridges and pedestrians everywhere. On the way back to Tybee the swerving continued and going through a construction zone we took out as least one, the bus driver behind us said 4, of those orange plastic barrels used to mark lanes. Someone later said he bumped another car earlier in the day but we didn’t feel that from inside the bus.

In hind site, a decision should have been made Friday night, but everyone was buzzing from the performance and also tired so we unloaded and hit our rooms. The next morning we had breakfast, played on the beach then loaded up at 11:30am to go to the Riverwalk for a few hours before heading home. We all noticed that the bus driver was sitting behind the wheel sound asleep. One of the chaperones thought he was dead. Further investigation revealed that he was not dead. That’s when he got the nickname Sleepy Joe.

I talked to the other bus driver and when she admitted having concerns about our bus driver we counted the empty seats on the other three buses and decided we could fit everyone into those buses. The equipment would have to stay on Sleepy Joe’s bus. This decision was made with the safety of the students in mind. We made the change and headed to Savannah. Jose was the driver on the bus I moved to and the change was apparent immediately. He was good.

Riverwalk was fun. When we returned to the buses we had a surprise! One of the buses had broken down and we were back to three buses. No problem, we’ll leave Sleepy Joe with the broken down bus and head back. Wrong! It seems Sleepy Joe got mad and went home, with our bus and all Mabry’s instruments! The bus line arranged for a bus to come to Savannah from Statesboro to get us. That 50 mile trip took 3 1/2 hours. The kids were great, playing Frisbee and cards. Great bonding time is what we decided to call it.

The new bus came and we headed over to get our stuff from the broken down bus. With that done we headed back to Atlanta. The bus line sent a bus to meet us in Dublin and again we transferred all of our luggage from one bus to another. One of the buses (mine) swung by the bus lines depot just inside I-285 on the south side of Atlanta. The driver of the broken down bus took Sleepy Joe’s bus to Mabry. Since it was missing a mirror no students were put on that bus. Back at Mabry we unloaded and in 15 minutes everyone was headed home, albeit 4½ hours late.

So there you have it. A great trip and an awesome memory for these young musicians.

Things just keep getting better for the Mabry Orchestra. I invite you to be an ambassador for us. There are great opportunities here for young people. Pass the word to friends and neighbors. Your children will be challenged and cared for. Here they will find friends, a source of pride and challenges in which to excel and succeed.

The Mabry Orchestra Rocks!