Sam hazo ride marching band

If you are a music educator, then this part of the summer most likely has you researching programming options for your 2015-2016 ensemble(s).  As someone who wears the educator, composer, and conductor hats, I implore you to please consider the following:

1.

 The music we program IS the music education our students receive.  Hence, if we claim that our students learn about “life & music” in our classes, then our repertoire choices must back that up.

2.  Be very selective.  For Wind Band alone, there are 2,500 pieces published every year.  98.5% of those caused the needless death of a tree.  Yes… that means approximately 37 (across all grade levels) actually deserve to be bought, taught and performed.

 We have all summer plus the use of Internet to find them.  Find them!  

3.  Pursue compositions with both musical layers and symbolic layers.  The pieces themselves should be doing a