This past month’s issue of National Geographic Magazine was fully dedicated to China, the emerging industrial powerhouse. This issue has several fascinating featured articles to help educate the world on current events in China and offers insights into its many cultures.

Several of our clients who are considering touring to China with their music ensembles have commented on these articles and how they have enforced and increased their interest in touring China.

CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association named maestro Riccardo Muti on Monday as the next music director of the CSO, the 10th conductor to hold the prestigious post.

CSO Association President Deborah Card announced that Muti, 66, had signed a five-year contract to serve as music director beginning in September of the 2010-2011 season. The post has been vacant since Daniel Barenboim retired in 2006.

Click here to read more.

New York Teacher - May 6, 2008
— Sylvia Saunders

In the midst of a Long Island district that struggles with poverty and a poor graduation rate, the Concert Choir at Central Islip High gives voice to the transformational power of music.

The gifted young men and women wowed NYSUT’s annual convention last month, singing everything from the uplifting harmony of the “Lord of the Dance” to the soulful spiritual “Ezekiel Saw De Wheel.” Many in the audience were moved to tears. Delegates spontaneously passed the hat and raised more than $6,500 toward the group’s summer trip to perform in Italy, including the Vatican.

But perhaps the biggest applause came after NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi, who spent 34 years as a teacher in Central Islip, added that last year every one of the choir’s graduating seniors went on to college. This year’s seniors expect to repeat that amazing feat.

“Now that’s music to all our ears,” Iannuzzi said, to a standing ovation from the crowd. The graduation rate at Central Islip is less than 62 percent.

Students in the 70-member ensemble attributed their success to music teacher John Anthony, an energetic leader who cares, pushes them and demands that they do their school work and keep out of trouble if they want to stay in choir. Choir members thrive on long hours and strict structure, complete with military turns as they entered and exited the concert hall.

High expectations pay off: the group was the only Long Island high school choir selected to perform at Disney Honors in 2005 and 2007. In 2006, they represented New York at a music festival commemorating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth in Austria. While in Europe, the group also performed in Prague and Vienna.

This summer, the group will travel to Italy to take part in the American Celebration of Music, with performances in Venice, Milan, Rome and the Vatican. Outside the high school, a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa marks their progress through the year in raising some $180,000 for this once-in-a-lifetime trip.

“You know what people say about this town,” Anthony said. “You’ve got to prove them wrong.”

Returning to school

By Jill Harmacinski
The Eagle Tribune

Methuen High School’s Ranger Band picked up some cash from the police yesterday.

The patrolmen’s union donated $500 to the band, which is headed to Washington, D.C., to perform next month.

The Ranger Band will represent Massachusetts in the National Memorial Day Parade on May 26. It is the only high school band in the state to garner that distinction this year.

On Saturday, the band parents association held a giant yard sale and a baked goods sale to raise money for the trip.

Then, yesterday afternoon, union president and Patrolman Joseph Aiello handed the $500 check to band members. The police then played softball with a variety of hefty professional contenders. Union members faced off against retired Boston Bruins, New England Patriots and Red Sox.

A baseball clinic for kids was held before the game.

By Geoff Roth
KSEE 24 News

Gary Deeter has taught music to Fresno students for 40 years. For 12 of those years he was at Bullard High School and the rest of the time at Fresno City College.

Collin Jackson caught up with him during the rehearsal for his final concert. Click here view the rehearsal and interview.

Gary and the band toured with Music Celebrations to France in 2004 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion and liberation of France. In the summer of 2008, they’ll be heading to Italy to perform in Rome, Florence & Venice.

Best of luck to you, Gary!

Associated Press

NEW YORK - Drivers have long known that slowing down on the highway means getting more miles to the gallon. Now airlines are trying it, too — adding a few minutes to flights to save millions on fuel.

Southwest Airlines started flying slower about two months ago, and projects it will save $42 million in fuel this year by extending each flight by one to three minutes.

On one Northwest Airlines flight from Paris to Minneapolis earlier this week alone, flying slower saved 162 gallons of fuel, saving the airline $535. It added eight minutes to the flight, extending it to eight hours, 58 minutes.

That meant flying at an average speed of 532 mph, down from the usual 542 mph.

“It’s not a dramatic change,” said Dave Fuller, director of flight operations at JetBlue, which began flying slower two years ago.

But the savings add up. JetBlue adds an average of just under two minutes to each flight, and saves about $13.6 million a year in jet fuel. Adding just four minutes to its flights to and from Hawaii saves Northwest Airlines $600,000 a year on those flights alone.

Click here for full article

On behalf of the students of music at Williams Bay High School, we want to express our deepest appreciation for all of your hard work to help make our tour to New York City a wonderful and highly memorable experience. Your efforts have helped us immeasurably in generating enthusiasm for our small, but growing music department. As the students and parents relay to their friends about what a positive experience this trip has been, more people will want to become involved with our music department in the future.

Robert Semanza, our tour guide, was incredible. He really knew his city like the back of his hand and it was obvious that he enjoyed showing people his “town.” The students and parents absolutely loved him.

All of our coach drivers did an amazing job hauling us around. They did their best to make sure our ride was as smooth and comfortable as possible. Tom, our driver in the city, did things with that coach that most people with little sedans couldn’t do. Spectacular!

The clinicians, Ira Shankman and Bill Silvester, were both terrific. It was very kind of them to spend their morning working with us. They were very knowledgeable, professional, and personable. They challenged our ensembles to be better than they were.

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine was a wonderful place to play. It was fun watching the students’ eyes widen in amazement as the reverberation of their sound washed over their ears. One parent was even moved to tears (in a good way) by the emotional strength of our performance.

Really, we can’t say enough about how wonderful the entire experience was. As soon as the bus took off, I felt like I could just sit back and enjoy the ride. All of the many months of fundraising and planning really paid off. We will certainly be using Music Celebrations International for our future touring needs!

Most Sincerely,

David Johnson
Director of Instrumental Music

Kenneth Church
Director of Choral Music / Theater

The Rushville Consolidated High School A Cappella Choir recently toured New York City, performing in the National Festival of the States concert series. The following is quote from Paul Grizzard, choir director:

I personally enjoyed our performance at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine the most. After our performance we were allowed to stay and listen to other choirs, and after the last choir finished they allowed us to stay longer and sing in the great acoustics. The kids had changed clothes and we sang in a circle for ourselves, but were able to perform pieces from our Madrigal Dinners and other previous concerts just for the sheer beauty of music – an experience I will never forget.

Many of the students agree with me as to their highlight, but several others liked our clinic with Ira Shankman
of NYU the best. Overall, a very rewarding musical experience for me and the students.

Keep up the good work, MCI! I will be happy to serve as a reference!

Paul Grizzard
Choir Director

All Things Considered, April 25, 2008 - For 40 years, the International Association of Jazz Education has worked to promote jazz instruction at middle schools, high schools and colleges around the world. This week, the IAJE announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection and shutting down.

Congratulations to all of the marching bands selected to participate in the official National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, D.C.!

Mark you calendars and get your tickets NOW to see Calexico live at Rialto Theatre on Friday, May 23rd. Proceeds of this show will benefit Pueblo High School’s Mariachi Aztlán, helping fund the band’s trip to Washington, D.C. to represent Tucson in the National Independence Day Parade.We can’t think of a better way to represent the Old Pueblo in this traditional 4th of July parade than with a high school Mariachi band. Can you just imagine? I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it.

America’s Independence Day Parade takes place every July 4th, right on Constitution Avenue in D.C., between dozens of national monuments, passing by a street audience of over 300,000 spectators. Not a bad gig, eh?

Joining Calexico for the benefit will be flamenco-folk baritone Salvador Duran, Mariachis Luz de Luna, the troupe Calexico has recorded and toured with through the years, and Mariachi Aztlán de Pueblo High, of course. These artists performed with Calexico a year ago this past January at Rialto Theatre, and the feeling of pride for the community in that room was overwhelming—this second time around is not to be missed. For a taste of what you may have passed up the last time around, check out the Ariel Cramer Live Review, and watch some videos the Tucson Citizen took of the event at Ariel Cramer Benefit Videos. Expect the full Mariachi treatment for this show, as well as some sneak peeks at new Calexico material being recorded as we speak.

As the airlines implement stiffer fines for oversized, overweight, and the amount of luggage, we thought we should take the initiative to educate the traveling public of such policies and offer suggestions on how to best avoid the extra charges.

By clicking on the links below, you will be directed to these airlines’ baggage policies so you may know weight and size limits and the amount of “free checked baggage”.

Southwest, JetBlue, Northwest, United, Delta, Continental, US Airways.

There may be some differences in allowed sizes (noted in linear inches - height + width + depth) of baggage as well as weight of baggage between each airline. Be sure you know the restrictions BEFORE you pack!

Here are some websites that give tips on packing light:

RickSteves.com
OneBag.com
SmartPacking.com
SnapShotJourneys.com

Pack smart, pack light, and pack appropriately. A good rule of thumb is to spread everything out on the bed/floor that you plan on packing and then putting half of it back in the closet. Nobody has yet said, “I wish I had packed more” while on tour.

by Richard Ruelas - Apr. 7, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Lunch with the principal of Dobson Academy had attracted a respectable bid of $55. Then, in the closing hours of the auction, two people started placing dueling bids, raising the price to $75, then $80, then $100 and, finally, $110. Sold, to the person clicking the mouse.

The two bidders did not eye each other warily or hover over bid sheets. Instead, the two squared off online, with one of the contenders possibly unaware of the eleventh-hour bidding war.

Dobson Academy, a private school in Chandler, has joined a growing number of non-profits moving their fundraising auctions online.

The hope is that the longer bidding time, wider pool of potential bidders and lack of social pressures present at a live auction can boost prices.

“It’s a great source of frustration for fundraisers to know that 50 percent or 90 percent of their donor base isn’t in the room,” he said.

Besides the boost from people wanting to give to a certain charity, the company offers groups the chance to list items on an umbrella site, www.biddingforgood.com, where they can attract bidders who don’t know a thing about the charity but who want a particular item.

Carson said 25 percent of winning-bid revenue comes from biddingforgood.com members.

Charities can put up items they procure themselves or choose from big-ticket items provided by cMarket. Carson said some of the latter items, such as an afternoon in a fighter jet and cruises, can serve as window dressing to gin up excitement in the auction.

Those big-ticket items are sold on a consignment basis. It costs nothing to post them. And the charity pockets any cash above the minimum-bid amount.

For its trouble, cMarket takes 9 percent of the auction total, although Carson said the company is considering a new fee structure that would lower that percentage based on volume of sales.

HERE for full article

Today marks the 100th birthday of arguably the 20th century’s greatest conductor (and perhaps one of its most controversial), Herbert von Karajan.

Click here to listen to a great bit from NPR on Karajan today.

Here is an excellent, yet exceptionally short and randomly-selected discography:

Wagner - Die Walküre, Act 3, EMI
R. Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra, Deutsche Grammophon
J. Strauss - The Blue Danube Waltz, Deutsche Grammophon
Leoncavallo - Pagliacci, Deutsche Grammophon
Bartók - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, EMI
Beethoven - All the Beethoven Symphonies from ‘63, but particularly Symphony Number 9, Deutsche Grammophon
Puccini - Tosca, Deutsche Grammophon (includes an amazing version of Qual Occhio Al Mondo arietta and Mia gelosa duet between José Carerras and Katia Ricciarelli)
Puccini - Turandot, Deutsche Grammophon

Also, I highly recommend this awesome video of Bizet’s Carmen, filmed at the 1967 Salzburg Festival.

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) — Your ginger-ale doesn’t come in a glass anymore on most US Airways flights. On Delta you’ll find yourself in a thinner, lighter seat. If you fly JetBlue cross-country, you’ll get a dainty bag of 100-calorie crisps in place of the original snack box of cookies, crackers and spreadable cheese.

With jet fuel prices so high, airlines have no choice but to scour their planes for ways to lighten the load. There’s no room for even the smallest bits of dead weight, from redundant wing lights to extra wires in the walls. Manufacturers also are using lighter materials in plane construction.

“The pressure is immense” to cut weight, said John Heimlich, chief economist for the Air Transport Association of America, an industry trade group. “Every penny more per gallon adds $195 million to the industry’s expenses per year.

“You simply cannot make all of that up with fare increases.”

Jet fuel, which the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration tracked at $3.17 per gallon in New York on Tuesday, has doubled since the beginning of 2007.

Continue reading, click HERE.

MCI is pleased to announce that the annual National Memorial Day Choral Festival is officially recognized by the White House Commission on Remembrance. Music Celebrations is honored to have this event recognized. The goal of the National Memorial Day Choral Festival is identical to the purpose of the White House Commission on Remembrance -
“educating this and future generations of Americans to remember the sacrifices and costs in human life made to preserve our liberties, and to instill in them an understanding of what it means to be an American.”

By Dan Reed, USA TODAY

Like poker players dealt a bad hand, they’re trying to act calm, but $100-plus oil is starting to really scare the people who run the USA’s airlines.

Record prices for both crude oil and refined jet fuel are threatening to send U.S. carriers spiraling toward deep losses, drastic service cutbacks, job cuts and, perhaps by year’s end, an industrywide cash crunch.

A year ago, airline managers were talking about the return of a profits cycle in 2007 that would grow larger this year and extend into 2009 or even 2010. Now, they’re grounding and selling planes, trimming service on marginal routes and eliminating it on others where there’s no hope of making money. They are cutting jobs, rolling out more service charges and — to the consternation of travelers — raising fares almost weekly by amounts never seen before. They’re also watching their cash balances closely and nervously.

Prolonged oil prices above $110 a barrel could do what all the airlines’ long list of problems in the last seven years have not — drive one or more out of business. That’s a worst-case scenario, however. The government’s Energy Information Administration forecasts crude oil prices will average $94 a barrel this year. And airlines have a well-established record of surviving the most horrible business conditions.

Click here for full article

By Rick Steves
Tribune Media Services

(Tribune Media Services) — Siena seems to be every Italy connoisseur’s pet town. More than a sum of places to see, Siena itself is the sight. Grab a gelato, join in the evening stroll, and end up at the town’s glorious red brick main square, Il Campo. Lean up against a pillar as the setting sun plays games with the colors of the stone and the sky. At twilight, first-time poets savor that magic moment when the sky turns into a rich blue dome as bright as the medieval tower that holds it high.

Seven hundred years ago, Siena was a major military power in a class with Florence, Venice and Genoa. With a population of 60,000, it was even bigger than Paris.

To say that Siena and Florence have always been competitive is an understatement. In medieval times, a statue of Venus stood on Il Campo. After the plague hit Siena in the 14th century, the monks blamed the pagan statue. The people cut it to pieces and buried it along the walls of Florence. The dirty trick didn’t work and the plague was disastrous for the town. Siena’s loss became our sightseeing gain, as its political and economic irrelevance pickled it Gothic.

Today, Siena’s thriving historic center, with traffic-free, red brick lanes cascading every which way, offers Italy’s best Gothic city experience. Most people visit Siena, just 30 miles south of Florence, as a day trip, but it’s best experienced after dark. While Florence has the blockbuster museums, Siena has an easy-to-enjoy soul: courtyards sport flower-decked wells and alleys dead-end at red-tiled rooftop views.

Click here for full article

Don’t forget to do research on available grants for music ensembles! A couple that we have come across is the “Music Matters” from the Muzak Heart & Soul Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Click on the links to learn how you can apply for these grants and be sure to search for other available grants to fund your projects and ensembles.

Travelers to Europe face ‘triple whammy’ as U.S. carriers raise surcharges

CHICAGO - American Airlines and Northwest Airlines have raised their fuel surcharges for flights to Europe by an additional $20 per round-trip, an air fare expert says.

The surcharges take effect Wednesday.

The total fuel surcharge on U.S. flights to London on those carriers now totals $242, says Tom Parsons, who operates the travel Web site Bestfares.com. That is on top of fares that are surging as U.S. airlines try to recoup some of the extra expense of soaring fuel prices.

Parsons says Americans traveling to Europe this summer will face a triple whammy of higher fuel surcharges, higher air fares and the high cost of the euro.

He says total costs of U.S.-to-Europe flights this summer will be two to three times what they are now.

BY R. NORMAN MOODY
FLORIDA TODAY

COCOA - The American Veteran’s Color Guard has drawn salutes, applause and appreciation from spectators at the parades and special events it has participated in since the group formed in 2001.

Often along parade routes, different generations of veterans will rise, stand at attention and salute as the group marches by.

“One thing you’ll see a lot when we’re in the parades is people coming out in front of us to take pictures,” said Gary Cassell, who co-founded the group with George Hoggard.

Now the marchers are preparing for what could be their biggest parade yet — the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, D.C. Last year, some 250,000 spectators lined the streets.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

I just wanted to say thank you for a wonderful trip! Everything went very well from the tour guide, to the bus, to the sight-seeing to the places to eat. Our concerts went well, and we had everything that we needed. The kids had a fantastic time. I think they will remember this trip for a long time to come.

I would love to work with Music Celebrations for our next trips. I was very impressed.

Amy Womack
Mt. Brook Junior High