Jazz Band

The winter concert was performed by the Crescenta Valley High School instrumental music department on Dec. 8 featuring the wind ensemble, the marching band, the string orchestra, the symphony orchestra and the jazz band. Between three and four pieces were played by each group. The program commenced with an introductory number from the jazz band combo, and climaxed with the marching band in full uniform as they entered the MacDonald Auditorium. They marched down the aisles and performed their field show, which was modified for the stage, and ended the evening with their cadence.

Postal service pushing address changes online GLENDALE -- The U.S. Postal Service is encouraging customers to use a system that would make it easier to make notifications of address changes during peak moving seasons. The Postal Service's online MoversGuide system allows customers to file changes of address online. About 44 million addresses are changed each year, but June, July and August represent a heavier-volume season for changes, officials said.

About 30 minutes into watching the Wednesday night dress rehearsal of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at John Burroughs High School in Burbank, I had an unsettling realization. An hour prior, I had been at the mercy of sharp steel, having received a haircut less than a mile away. I shivered and touched my neck, taken in by Stephen Sondheim's over-the-top creepy score, music the play's vocal director Brendan Jennings described - rather aptly, I thought - as “early Tim Burton.” Fortunately, the woman who tames my somewhat unruly mop is not a maniacal, hate-filled murderer.

Glendale High senior Berkeley Everett will perform a piano concert at 7 p.m. Thursday at the First Lutheran Church of Glendale. The concert is free, but donations will assist Berkeley in paying for his travel to a youth conference in Atlanta July 12 to 27. He will perform songs from his first CD "Berkelating" with other Glendale High students. Berkeley is president of the jazz band and heads several jazz combo groups. He also plays at the 10:30 a.m. Sunday service at First Lutheran.

The La Crescenta Woman?s Club turned back time last Saturday night, hosting an evening of dining, dancing, and live music at the group?s La Crescenta clubhouse. The club?s second annual ?Sentimental Journey? event drew a sizeable crowd ready to dance and to listen to the standards of the ?40s performed by the CVHS jazz band led by Mathew Schick , director of the high school?s instrumental music department. The evening?s costume contest inspired several revelers to dress in styles of the era. Jean Bates won first place, though Gloria Lee gave her some elegant competition decked out in a black sequined gown.

Last weekend the Crescenta Valley High School instrumental music department traveled to the Western Heritage Music Festival in San Francisco for its spring tour. The group consisted of 150 students from the school’s concert band, symphony orchestra, string orchestra and jazz band. The Festival is an educational opportunity for student musicians to further perfect their performing skills, achieving an elevated level of excellence. CV’s spring tour took place over two days with nearly 50 highly rated performing groups competing.

A dapper bunch of men in fedoras and ladies in cocktail dresses swing danced at the La Crescenta Woman's Club Saturday night for a 1940s-themed fundraiser. "It was a very innocent and naïve time of life," said Dea McCrory, who graduated high school in 1947. "We were celebrating the end of the war and ladies went from plain dress to fancier." About 80 people came to "Copacabana at the Woman's Club" to celebrate the decade that saw World War II, the birth of rock and roll, the end of the Great Depression and Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane."

Florida is a highly sought-after spring break destination. So, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that students from Crescenta Valley High School made the trek to the east coast shore. However, for 200 students from the CVHS music instrumental department, the trip was not to take in sun-filled days, but to participate in the annual Festival Disney in Orlando. The event, which ran from April 12 to April 14, is a competitive music festival in which instrumental and choral ensembles from numerous junior, middle and high schools from across the country compete and are judged by acclaimed music educators.

The sounds of discos, Disneyland and the movie “Chicago” filled the Glendale High School auditorium Wednesday night during the school’s annual spring pops show. About 250 students performed during the event, organized by Glendale High’s visual and performing arts director Amy Rangel, who won the Los Angeles Music Center’s BRAVO award for her role as a music instructor and department head. The show featured the school’s string orchestra, concert band, jazz band, symphonic orchestra, string quartet, woodwind quintet, brass quartet, jazz combo, percussion ensemble and color guard.

Trombone mega-star Bill Watrous will perform with the La Cañada High School jazz band in a concert at 7:30 p.m. tonight Friday, April 27 at Lanterman Auditorium. Watrous, a band leader, studio musician and club performer, will lead students in songs including "Mama Llama Samba," "Never Let Me Go," "Last Great Georgia Extravaganza" and "Village Dance." The LCHS concert band, symphonic band and wind ensemble will also perform. The concert will be a benefit to raise money for the Patio Project, an improvement project at LCHS in which lunch tables, benches and landscaping will be installed outside the new band room.

About 30 minutes into watching the Wednesday night dress rehearsal of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at John Burroughs High School in Burbank, I had an unsettling realization. An hour prior, I had been at the mercy of sharp steel, having received a haircut less than a mile away. I shivered and touched my neck, taken in by Stephen Sondheim's over-the-top creepy score, music the play's vocal director Brendan Jennings described - rather aptly, I thought - as “early Tim Burton.” Fortunately, the woman who tames my somewhat unruly mop is not a maniacal, hate-filled murderer.

The sounds of discos, Disneyland and the movie “Chicago” filled the Glendale High School auditorium Wednesday night during the school’s annual spring pops show. About 250 students performed during the event, organized by Glendale High’s visual and performing arts director Amy Rangel, who won the Los Angeles Music Center’s BRAVO award for her role as a music instructor and department head. The show featured the school’s string orchestra, concert band, jazz band, symphonic orchestra, string quartet, woodwind quintet, brass quartet, jazz combo, percussion ensemble and color guard.

Last weekend the Crescenta Valley High School instrumental music department traveled to the Western Heritage Music Festival in San Francisco for its spring tour. The group consisted of 150 students from the school’s concert band, symphony orchestra, string orchestra and jazz band. The Festival is an educational opportunity for student musicians to further perfect their performing skills, achieving an elevated level of excellence. CV’s spring tour took place over two days with nearly 50 highly rated performing groups competing.

Student bands jammed Friday to popular songs by Michael Jackson and Rage Against the Machine at Glendale High School’s first-ever Battle of the Bands. Seven groups performed in front of a small audience of fellow performers and friends at the Glendale High auditorium for the set of two-song acts, which was held on the same night as home varsity basketball games against Crescenta Valley High that may have drawn some potential audience members away, Principal Deb Rinder said.

The annual Crescenta Valley High School Instrumental Winter Concert was held last Friday night Dec. 19 at the school’s MacDonald Auditorium. More than 600 people gathered to hear their favorite holiday tunes performed by more than 250 talented students of CVHS wind ensemble, jazz band, string orchestra, symphony orchestra and marching band. This year, the symphony orchestra featured CVHS choir in two of their songs, “Christmas Day” by Gustav Holst and “Hallelujah Chorus” by George Frideric Handel.

GLENDALE — Cathy Green has been feverishly cleaning her Spanish-style home in preparation for the dozens of people who will be walking through it today for Hoover High School’s 51st annual Tour of Homes. Green’s fingers were crossed that the event would turn out as planned because she said she spent her Friday making her home perfectly clean. “I am hoping it’s dark enough so they don’t see the piles of dust,” she said. Green will be allowing dozens of people, who purchased tickets for the tour, to walk the halls and rooms of her three-bedroom, one-story home, built in 1929.

The 2007-2008 Crescenta Valley High School Instrumental Awards Banquet was held at the La Cañada Flintridge Country Club a few days before graduation. Music director Mathew Schick handed out several awards to his music students. Throughout the evening the members of the musical departments including jazz, orchestra, string, percussion and marching band joked with each other and Schick. It was an evening to recognize the accomplishments of the award winning musicians as well as a chance for Schick and graduating seniors to say goodbye.

?This is the best restaurant in town!? Hoover High School student Josh Deaktor said, placing sausage links on a hungry attendee?s plate at the Tri-School Pancake Breakfast in front of Keppel Elementary on Saturday morning. Parents, friends and teachers from Hoover, Toll Middle and Keppel Elementary schools gathered to enjoy pancakes and listen to the sounds of the schools? choir arrangements. ?I decided to help out at the event because I wanted to volunteer in the community,?

Members of the community donned their dancing shoes to take part in a swing dance fundraiser last Saturday night at Crescenta Valley High School’s cafeteria. About 100 people attended the dance fundraiser that was organized by the C.V. Instrumental Music booster club moms, led by Lisa Heflin. Although the dance itself started at 7 p.m., a warm-up swing dancing lesson was given by C.V. students Erin Gustafson and Tucker Chase and La Cañada YMCA swing dance instructors Frank and Selia Weiss at 6:30 p.m. “I initially went because of my friends in Jazz Band, but ended up having an amazing time,” said student Amelia Munson.