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Planning content for a tour

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Tammie Moore
  • Air Force District of Washington Public Affairs
ANN ARBOR, Mich. --  The U.S. Air Force Band's Singing Sergeants vocalists and Concert Band instrumentalists are wrapping up their 2014 Spring Tour of the Midwest featuring two themed programs.

Preparing two full-length musical programs for the tour took months of planning and coordination between the performing ensembles. Master Sgt. Joseph Haughton and Senior Master Sgt. Brian G. McCurdy, both enlisted musical advisors, led the coordination effort.

Haughton, a tenor vocalist with the Singing Sergeants, started planning the spring tour in November. It was his responsibility to provide theme recommendations for the programs and he recommended the theme, "Currently on Broadway," for one.

"In the original conception there were four shows: 'The Lion King,' 'Cinderella,' 'Wicked' and 'Mary Poppins,'" Haughton said. "After we figured out the theme I researched all of the shows."

Haughton worked with a team of vocalists to recommend songs for the programs though the chain of command. In the process of practicing the program, the vocalists realized they had too much material for their allotted time so they cut the "Cinderella" portion of the program.

"Selecting songs for the opera program was easier because a lot of that repertoire was already arranged," Haughton said.

However, the team decided they were not going to perform all of the opera songs in the traditional formatting. Haughton and Tech. Sgt. Tate Armstrong, a tenor vocalist with the Singing Sergeants, worked together to arrange the selections in a manner that allowed them to feature several vocalists.

"(Armstrong) has great operatic expertise," Haughton said. "In the past we have done a lot of half arias, an operatic solo piece cut it in half so you had enough time to fit more things in. Instead of doing that this time, I thought it would be more effective for us to do duets, trios or ensemble pieces because we could feature more people at one time and we could present the full pieces because the operatic composers did such a great job with the original material."

Once the song sets were approved in the middle of January, McCurdy took over and began coordinating the instrumental portion of the program. For McCurdy, the most challenging part of coordinating musical selections for the programs was in selecting songs that could resonate with audience members.

"In our field that can be very challenging," McCurdy said. "The singers are very engaging so it is very easy for them to connect with the audience because there is that eye contact factor. For us it is a little more challenging because we only have the medium of the musical notes, not the spoken word, not the written word, not the singing.. So we try to pick music that either compliments what they have to perform or is a little bit more contrasting with what they do."

In the end McCurdy decided to theme the instrumental selections, "Destinations." For the Broadway-themed show, he chose American composed pieces and for the opera show he decided on global selections. Still, he needed to select additional instrumentalists for solo and ensemble features.

"I enjoy collaborating with the Concert Band to figure out who is going to be the tour soloist, who we are going to feature and then getting that person out in front of the band," McCurdy said. "It was really special for me when we went to Northwestern University to see Tech. Sgt. Kristopher Westrich, who is one of our fairly new trumpet players, get out in front of the band and just nail the Arutiunian 'Trumpet Concerto' where he went to college for his professors."

The decision to prepare two programs provides the team the ability to maximize their performance at each venue.

"We have been pretty lucky in this tour to have a lot of good venues," Haughton said. "It has actually worked to our advantage on this tour to have two programs because we got to some venues and we were planning on doing Broadway at and it would not have of worked because of the acoustics and the singers were a big wash. So luckily we have more material prepared and ready to go."

When the spring tour ends, the material prepared for this program will not be put away. The Broadway medley is planned to be part of the next tour and the Concert Band will record some of the show's selections later this month, which will eventually be available on the Band's website for free download.