US Air Force Academy to Downgrade Band - consequences for our community

From COPPeR Board member Mark Dempsey, Executive Director of the Colorado Springs Chorale:

The Air Force has made the determination to downgrade the Air Force Academy Band designation from Premier to Regional while retaining the Band’s national touring mission. The downgrade is not just in title and stature but will have a very real impact.
The Band will lose 7-10 musicians and the members will have to rotate through other regional bands every three or four years. The ensemble's current strength is based on playing together as an ensemble over a long period of years. They will no longer have as much ability to audition musicians, but will have to consider candidates rotating through the re-assignment pool. In addition, this will leave the Air Force Academy as the only service academy whose band is not a premier band and eliminate the only premier band located outside of the East Coast/Washington, D. C. geographical area.

I see this as a tremendous blow to the Academy, the region’s number one tourist attraction, an insult to Colorado Springs and to Colorado more generally, not to mention the hard to calculate impact on the region as a tourist draw. It certainly impacts our efforts to develop the cultural reputation of the area. The Philharmonic will lose the availability of some top musicians, and regional schools and other clinician, teaching and developmental efforts among kids and adults alike now provided by the bandsman will suffer as band members are regular clinicians with the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Association, Peakharmonic and other youth organizations as well as providing off-duty free clinics in at least six area high schools.

The downgrade will also impact recruiting for the Air Force Academy in competition with the other service academies for top quality cadets and in the long run, has the potential to degrade the quality of Air Force leadership. For comparison purposes, the U.S. Army has four Premier bands, the Navy, two, the Marine Corps one plus a Premier Drum and Bugle Corps, all located on the East Coast.

Additionally, the Band uses the Pikes Peak Center 7-10 times a year, presenting at least five concerts to the community. Twenty-five members of the band or their spouses are private music teachers, reaching over 200 students per week. Two members of the band are contract members of the Philharmonic, three band spouses are contract members, while eight band members are regular performers with the Philharmonic.

The only recourse now available to reverse this decision is for individual citizens to contact their political representatives asking them to intervene. I encourage you to contact your elected officials today! (But please keep in mind that cut and paste of my or others’ remarks suggests an organized mass mailing and has less impact than a simple, short call or letter in your own words as an individual concerned citizen.)

El Paso County Treasurer Sandra Damron has made the following plea to her elected officials, as well:

The community’s concern regarding the downgrading of this band from Premiere to Regional is based on several factors:

The Air Force Academy would become the only service academy without a Premiere Band.
The Air Force Academy band is the only Premiere military band west of the Mississippi. This is a slap in the face not only to the Pikes Peak Region and Colorado, but to the entire Western half of the country.

The reason given (career stagnation and lack of promotion opportunities) is simply not true. Musicians function much as a baseball or football team does: the longer they play together, the better they get. For example, the Stellar Brass, which has had the same personnel for 12 years, is possibly the best brass quintet in the country, military or civilian. As far as promotion opportunities, taking away one of the two Air Force Premiere bands effectively cuts promotion opportunities for all other Air Force musicians in half.

There is no cost savings. In fact, the requirement of adding 45 more AF personnel to the list of those who are transferred regularly will actually increase costs by approximately $1 million annually.

The members of the US Air Force Academy Band are permanent members of the community. Because they feel a connection with the community, during their off hours they teach in our colleges (state-wide), they play in our community orchestras (also state-wide), and they volunteer in our social organizations and churches. The loss of this connection would negatively impact all of these organizations.

It is my hope, and the hope of many others, that you will be able to convince the AF Chief of Staff that downgrading the AFA Band is unnecessary, and that we will be able to proudly keep this band as “The Best of the Best” in representing the United States Air Force Academy.

Elected Officials Contact Information:

The Honorable Doug Lamborn
US House of Representatives
437 Cannon House Office Building
Washington DC 20515
Phone (202) 225-4422
District:
1271 Kelly Johnson Blvd. Suite 110
Colorado Springs, CO 80920
Phone: (719) 520-0055
Fax: (719) 520-0840
The Honorable Mike Coffman
US House of Representatives
1508 Longworth House Office Building
Washington DC 20515
Phone (202) 225-7882
District:
9220 Kimmer Drive; Suite 220
Lone Tree, CO 80124
Phone: (720) 283-9772
Fax: (720) 283-9776
The Honorable John Salazar
US House of Representatives
326 Cannon House Office Building
Washington DC 20515
Phone (202) 225-4761
District:
134 West B Street
Pueblo, CO 81003
719-543-8200
719-543-8204 (fax)
The Honorable Mark Udall
United States Senate
317 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone (202) 224-5941
District:
2880 International Circle, Suite 107
Colorado Springs, CO 80910
P: 719-471-3993
The Honorable Michael Bennet
United States Senate
702 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone (202) 224-5852
District:
409 North Tejon St., Suite 107
Colorado Springs, 80903
Phone: (719) 328-1100 Fax: (719) 328-1129

Flash Mob for Poetry

Perhaps you've seen the Improv Everywhere "Food Court Musical" and thought to yourself, how cool is that? Can we do something like that here? Check out this video for how these spontaneous performances can surprise and delight. Well, just in time for National Poetry Month (April), here's your chance to get involved in a poetry flash mob. Calling all with dramatic flair, a passion for poetry, and/or video skills [BYO camcorder], the mission is to make poetry happen, in sync, all over Colorado Springs. We'll gather to assign groups and tasks on Saturday, April 10 at high noon. Come to the offices of COPPeR, the Cultural Office of the Pike's Peak Region. Missions will include visual and spoken performances of predetermined poems at prearranged places throughout the city. The hope is that we take Colorado Springs by surprise with poetry. Examples of group missions include: -holding posters along sidewalks and across parks, mapping out famous lines of poetry -erupting in spontaneous choral recitations in grocery stores and shopping malls -videotaping crowd responses and enjoyment of spontaneous poetry Deployment of the missions happens on Saturday, April 17th. We want lots of footage so we can gather later to celebrate our success! If you're interested, please come down to our office tomorrow and we'll be sure to post videos of the deployment after they happen.

Art Creates Community Winner announced

Yesterday, the winner of the new the 2010 ART CREATES COMMUNITY $10,000 Award sponsored by the Bee Vradenburg Foundation and the Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado was announced. Congratulations to Community in Unison: Chamber Orchestra of the Springs and the Gospel Music Workshop of America!

Community in Unison will combine chamber music virtuosity with the explosive energy of gospel choir in a concert of original arrangements of traditional spirituals and gospels. Chamber Orchestra of the Springs and Gospel Music Workshop of America - Colorado Springs Chapter will present this inspiring concert at the downtown First United Methodist Church on September 10, 2010 in association with a Volunteer Fair. If you want to learn full details of the project and/or play a more active role in its realization please contact chamorch@gmail.com.

Spotlight: Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Association

This is the second in our Spotlight series in which we have invited folks from some of the Pikes Peak region's diverse arts groups to tell us what they do, who they work with, and what they're all about. You may have seen the banners in downtown Colorado Springs advertising the 30th anniverary of the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony. Today we give you a behind-the-scenes snapshot of this venerable institution. This post was written by David Sckolnick, Marketing Consultant for the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony.

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At the age of 30, we reach a time in our lives when the previous three decade's trials and tumbles make way for genuinely powerful and consistent accomplishment. The Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Association is celebrating that birthday this year, but the experiences and accomplishments of many of the aspiring musicians who have been a part of our program go beyond what is considered normal in the classic model of the human growth curve.

"I love being able to play with people that share my passion for music."

For three decades the CSYSA has been shaping young musicians. As part of this year's celebration we're reaching out to our musicians, folks in their 40s, 30s, 20s and teens to see what our program has meant to the lives of our musicians. The Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Association provides high quality, diverse instrumental music education to youth and is a resource to the community. CSYSA is comprised of 7 auditioned groups (2 full orchestras, 2 bands and 3 string orchestras), a Mozart String outreach program and a chamber ensemble program. CSYSA serves over 450 musicians a year in these programs (once a week rehearsals/classes minimum). Musicians come primarily from the Pikes Peak Region and musicians come from more than 60 different schools and outlying communities.

"What I like best about Youth Symphony are the friendships I've made. Through tours, rehearsals and concerts, the other musicians become your second family. I'm thankful to the organization for integrating wonderful musicians from many different schools--without Youth Symphony I never would have met these amazing people. The music is great, too!"

The Colorado Springs Youth Symohony provides an experience outside the schools to offer outstanding musicians real-world orchestral experience. Unfortunately, in our society, money is more frequently alllocated for ahtletics programs than music programs in public schools. It's true that athetic team experiences inspire great camaraderie and growth for young people as they move through the ups and downs of a competitive season. Some of the athletes even spend hours practicing on their own in weight rooms and working on their sport. But the hours spent mastering a violin, trumpet or bassoon may match and in many cases exceed how a high school linebacker or a point guard in basketball gets his or her body and mind prepared for a challenging opponent. And alongside the discipline, devotion, camarederie and growth nurtured by the experience of playing in an orchestra, a crash course in Bach, Mozart and Beethoven expands the minds and spirits of young people.

These young people also act as ambassadors for our community. The Youth Symphony tours internationally every other year as an ambassador of our city and country-they have performed in China, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Spain, Czech Republic, Carnegie Hall, and others!

For some of the musicians, playing with the Youth Symphony is the only chance they have to play with other musicians. One young musician says, "The Colorado Springs Youth Symphony is the highlight of my week. It is well worth the 200-mile drive each week. I have really grown as a musician being able to play with such talented kids. Gary Nicholson is an outstanding conductor who challenges me to do my very best." This student drives TWO HUNDRED MILES every week! That's dedication.

"I like losing myself in the music. When I play with all of the instruments, I feel like I am all of the instruments!"

But the benefits of being part of our program extend beyond their time in the ensemble. Although some alums do choose to pursue professional careers, many continue playing their instruments in a part-time community setting. But more importantly, our musicians go on to become one of the most vital component of the arts - the audience! Our cellists and trombonists of today will go on to attend symphony and chamber music concerts and other arts events in the future. The love of music they learn while in CSYSA will make sure that classical music keep sounding off on their loudspeakers and earbuds. It's just a little truth we have learned at Youth Symphony - music is a lifelong "sport" in which its players just get better and better, regardless of how their bodies wear down over the decades.

Spotlight: The Club of Arts

This is the first in our new Spotlight series in which we have invited folks from some of the Pikes Peak region's diverse arts groups to tell us what they do, who they work with, and what they're all about. This post was written by Jessie Pocock, Development Director at the Club of Arts.
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Facts:

There are 54 million people with disabilities in the United States making it the largest minority group. -Colorado Springs Independent

The unemployment rate for those with disabilities in the United States is 63.1 percent. The El Paso County rate was close to 80 percent in 2008. -The Resource Exchange, Cornell University

In 2009 alone 232 people with disabilities in El Paso County participated in art at TCOA in over 7,500 artistic interactions.

From Jessie:
Before attending the grand opening of The Club of Arts in 2005, I rarely considered why I almost never encountered people with developmental disabilities in the community. As a sociology major at Colorado College, I didn’t notice that there were no class offerings in my department that focused on the social issues concerning disabled people. It wasn’t until I entered the community of people with disabilities that I learned how powerful their voices can be.

Since I have been associated with The Club of Arts, (a nonprofit art organization reaching people with disabilities through artistic education, expression, and performance) I have learned so much about the strength, endurance, and power of people with disAbilities. For example, there are students like Allicia, who was on the waiting list for services she had been deemed eligible to receive for fourteen years. Allicia came to The Club of Arts hungry for independence, in need of a safe place to express herself. She is an incredibly talented silk dye artist. Her parents believe that art and TCOA have saved her life.

There are students who had never engaged in the arts previous to TCOA, like Marty, who is in his forties and started taking classes at TCOA a couple of years ago. Marty began experimenting with gluing wine corks to wooden boards and has now created intricate cork cities and has discovered a fine talent for diorama.

And there is Joe, an incredible oil painter who cannot physically speak because of his disability, but has found that he can communicate powerfully through art. In his self-portrait series, “Beyond My Wheelchair,” Joe paints his body trapped inside of a bottle demonstrating how the world occurs for him as a young man with a disabled body inside a world that is uncomfortable with difference. For Joe, art has become a way for him to communicate and a way for people to listen. Here's Joe at Exposion in summer 2009.
Joe wrote a poem about his experience of showing the world what he can do through his art.

Trapped in a Bottle
I am trapped in the bottle that is my life.
Always on the inside looking out
My bottle does protect me
All the while restricting me.

My bottle doesn’t allow friends
Nor does it allow climbing mountains.
It keeps me from being a drummer
And it doesn’t permit surfing.
My bottle doesn’t like babies
Nor does it like motorcycles.

But I have found a way around my bottle.
My bottle does allow art.
What my bottle doesn’t know
Is that by letting me paint,
It is losing control over me.

Painting frees me from my bottle.
I can paint thoughts my bottle won’t permit.
I can paint peace and frustration
And I can paint love and hatred.
I can paint spirituality and freedom
And I can paint hope and majesty.
I can paint patriotism and pride
And I can paint security and stereotyping.
I can paint good and evil
And I can paint alienation and connections.

Even though my bottle tries to protect me,
I still have all these thoughts.
And because my bottle allows art,
The world will know my thoughts.


Today, TCOA serves over 200 artists with disabilities, who through the artistic process are finding their own unique form of expression, a place to be heard, and a tangible artistic contribution to make that is appreciated and respected.

For more information about The Club of Arts please visit us online or stop in and visit. Our students love visitors! We are located at 505 E. Columbia St., 80907.

Poetry Out Loud

Last night I had the distinct privilege of serving as a judge for the Palmer High School Poetry Out Loud competition. Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest, was founded in 2006 by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. I've been aware of the program for several years, but I didn't get to actually experience it until last year at COPPeR and the Chamber's Business and Arts Luncheon, where Colorado state champion (and Palmer High School student) Kaleena Kovach stole the show with her moving recitation of a Margaret Atwood poem. It's not easy to captivate a room full of 300+ business people, but this 17-year-old did just that, and left the room hungry for more. As one luncheon attendee put it, "I am still amazed that the highlights were local opera singers and teen aged poetry performers."

Last night's competition was brief, with only three competitors, but there was a decent crowd of people to support the contestants, and the evening was carefully and lovingly executed, including incidental music. There were five judges: Aaron Anstett, the reigning Pikes Peak Poet Laureate, Jim Ciletti, poet extraordinaire and owner of Hooked on Books, Slam Poetry Mistess Karen Sucharski, Molly Gross, co-director of the Colorado College Writing Center and candidate for an MFA in poetry at Bennington, and yours truly. The reciters were of varying ability, but all were enthusiastic. The coach, Heather Brown, has done a phenomenal job of inspiring her students to appreciate poetry. But after my experience last night, I think she's gone beyond that; in fact, she has given each of her students a truly profound gift.

My grandfather was born in 1903. One summer when he was well in his eighties, we went on afternoon walks almost daily. On these walks, he told me all about his education in the small town in Texas, where he grew up on a farm. He went to a one-room school and eventually worked his way up to earning a scholarship to Oberlin. One of his favorite memories, and thus one of the stories he liked to tell again and again, was how his teacher required him to memorize poems. Numerous poems. Later, as his health declined and he became more senile, he had trouble remembering how to complete simple tasks. But he never forgot a poem. Those poems that he was forced to memorize in that little schoolhouse gave him a sense of peace that could never be taken away.

I was reminded of my grandfather last night. Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins and Carl Sandburg, which I'd read on the page many times years ago in class, came alive. It was as if by hearing them so lovingly recited, I was able to truly understand the poems, without having to parse or dissect them. It took the labor out of poetry appreciation and left all the joy.

One of the goals of Poetry Out Loud is to help students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage. But they also gain fundamental understanding of individual poems and they will take those poems with them for the rest of their lives. For lack of a more poetic way to say it, that is just really, really cool.

Want to learn more about Poetry Out Loud? Click here.

For your enjoyment, one of the poems from last night's competition.

The Cities Inside Us by Alberto Rios

We live in secret cities
And we travel unmapped roads.

We speak words between us that we recognize
But which cannot be looked up.

They are our words.
They come from very far inside our mouths.

You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city
Inside us, and inside us

There go all the cars we have driven
And seen, there are all the people

We know and have known, there
Are all the places that are

But which used to be as well. This is where
They went. They did not disappear.

We each take a piece
Through the eye and through the ear.

It's loud inside us, in there, and when we speak
In the outside world

We have to hope that some of that sound
Does not come out, that an arm

Not reach out
In place of the tongue.

Bob Lillie, 1937-2010

ROBERT CLAUDE LILLIE - Obituary
Robert Claude Lillie, "Bob" or "Bobby" as he was called by family and friends, was born on August 2, 1937, in Hammond, Indiana, and passed away peacefully on January 15, 2010, in Colorado Springs. Bob was an accomplished musician, especially on the pipe organ, and played for 15 years for the Sacklunch Serenade concerts at the City Auditorium, in downtown Colorado Springs. He was a founding member of the Colorado Springs Chorale, and was a participant in many local musical events. He also founded the Friends of the City Auditorium group, and served as its first President. Bob was preceded in death by his parents, Robert M. Lillie and Chlotielde G. Lillie, and his wife, Charlea. He is survived by his son, Robert Douglas (Gloria) Lillie, two daughters, Lisa Ann Fox, and Margaret (James) Hopkins, and a brother, David A. Lillie (Kate O'Boyle), a sister, Coral (Lonnie) Mings, six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, two nephews, four nieces, and great-nephews and great-nieces. A memorial service will be held at the Colorado Springs City Auditorium, 221 E. Kiowa, on January 25 , at 1 p.m. Gifts of flowers will be gratefully accepted (please have them delivered to the Auditorium before 1 pm on the 25th), or, in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Pikes Peak Area Theatre Organ Society (PPATOS http://www.theatreorgans.com/ppatos), or to Friends of the City Auditorium http://www.cityauditorium.org . Bob will be greatly missed.