Welcome (Back) to Mesa Music!

Greetings Parents,  

Welcome back to school! My name is Kurt Gray, Music Director at Mesa Verde. The purpose of this email is to both introduce myself to the new families, and bring everyone up to speed future happenings, and needs of the Mesa Verde Music program. I’ll divide this into sections and try to be brief, so feel free to skip to what is pertinent for you.

Parent Help/Music Boosters/Requested Yearly Donation

While I have your attention near the top of the email, we are in need of parent volunteers. Our awesome Booster Board, which helps to coordinate fundraisers and concerts that fund our coaching staff and instrument/equipment purchases, is in need of event volunteers and general involvement. In the very recent past, we have run a budget that enabled a robust array of experiences and instructors, and we need your help to get back to full strength! The last two years of parent involvement has helped to keep us running in the black, and we want you to be a part of this year’s effort!

Please email mesaverdemusicboosters@gmail.com if you are interested helping to coordinate any of our events, or just want to provide day-of people-power. Meetings are held once a month, over Zoom. Over the last couple of years, we’ve gotten our meetings down to about 40 minutes!  The potential of your son or daughter’s experience at Mesa is huge, made even better by *your* involvement! 

In order to get the year off to a good start prior to any fundraisers or concerts, we do ask for a yearly donation. We have a donation goal of about $35,000, with about 180 music students enrolled in a musical ensemble. We need to avoid asking for a specific amount, but the math is pretty easy on that one! Any amount you can donate goes to specialist coaches, equipment, instruments, repairs, music and many other things.  

6th Graders

Welcome new families! We are so excited that you’ve chosen music as part of your middle school (and beyond) experience. There’s so much to tell you about but I’ll limit this email to the most pressing matter: instrument selection and acquisition. 

During these first two weeks, we have gone through a process of introducing instruments in both band and strings. In Band, students will be placed on flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, trombone, baritone, tuba, or percussion.  In Strings, we have violin, viola, cello, or bass. We balance a few things when making a final selection: 1) student preference, 2) instrument specific aptitude, and 3) ensemble balance, or having a good blend of all available instruments. Students are guaranteed one of their top two choices, given reasonable aptitude and behavior appropriate for their instruments; unruly percussionists are a danger to themselves and others! AS OF WEDNESDAY, you have the green light to go ahead and rent or purchase an instrument, if that’s your plan. Your son or daughter should know what they are playing at this point, as both beginner groups have done a great job adapting their preferences for our needs.

Here are the three options to acquire an instrument:

Purchase: Please contact me directly if you have your eye on an instrument already. Price is just one factor in purchasing an instrument. While inexpensive instruments can look great online (especially the colored ones!), they are often poorly made and have issues soon out of the box. Reliability, repairability, availability of parts, and sizing can be easy to overlook. If you don’t know where to go, I can point you in the right direction as well. 

Rent: We work closely with Nick Rail Music in Agoura Hills (by the IHOP on Kanan), who provide new or near-new instruments and good service for our students. They have an easy online rental process, a rent-to-equity program, and a designated pickup night on September 8 at Mesa Verde, from 6:00p to 8:00p. Please note that this night is for rented instruments only, and not for instruments borrowed from Mesa (see below).

Borrow: Mesa Verde has a limited number of instruments we can loan out for the year for a nominal cost of $50 for the year. The instruments are clean and ready to go, but have seen several years of use. An initial survey of students reveals that we may have trouble filling all borrow requests this year. Please consider renting if at all possible.

More information will come, and very soon! While I will communicate with you directly for very important, time sensitive matters, I do try to instill that it’s important your kids initiate communication with you, so feel free to try and decipher the information that comes through them, and email me at kgray@mrpk.org if you have any questions. You can also check www.mesaverdemusic.com for the latest updates and for any mass-emails you might have missed.

Ventura County Public Health and MUSD Policies permitting, we again plan to run a full slate of concerts and events this year, perhaps with some modifications due to COVID. See the attached document for dates.  More detail will be available in the weeks that precede each event.

There is a dress code for concerts at MV, per ensemble. We’ll review in detail as we get a little closer, but the short version for both 6th grade groups is all-black below the waist with our Booster-provided black Mesa Music t-shirt on top.

7th/8th Graders

We’re off and running! All of the 7/8 groups have instruments and have begun playing. Mrs. Madsen, Mrs. Salgado, and our awesome MVMS counselors have seen to it that all students have been placed in the appropriate ensembles (no small feat!). This allows instruction to be tailored to a more narrow band of ability, ensuring the best experience for everyone involved.

I know it can get confusing so here’s a quick rundown of all the ensembles at Mesa Verde: 

Wind Ensemble: Select Gr. 7/ All Gr. 8 Band students

Wind Symphony: Gr. 7 Band students

String Orchestra: Gr. 7 String students

Chamber Strings: Gr. 8 String students

Puma Band: Gr. 6 Band

Puma Strings: Gr. 6 Strings

Jazz Ensemble: open to all students with at least 1 year on an instrument at Mesa (see below) 

Ventura County Public Health and MUSD Policies permitting, we again plan to run a full slate of concerts and events this year, perhaps with some modifications due to COVID. See the attached document for dates.  More detail will be available in the weeks that precede each event.

There is a dress code for concerts at MV, per ensemble. We’ll review in detail as we get a little closer, but the short version for all groups is all-black below the waist, black button up shirt for 7/8 Strings groups and Wind Ensemble, white button up shirt for Wind Symphony, tie of your choosing.

Jazz

Jazz Ensemble will once again be an audition-only group. Musicians with at least one full year on their instrument, or 6 months with private lessons, will be able to sign up for an audition slot. Once each of the core ensembles is in a rhythm (just a couple more weeks), I’ll post music for a jam session, ahead of actual auditions. Look for music to be posted in late September for an early October start date.  We’ll again be taking all instruments this year, not just the traditional jazz instruments. We are looking for drummers, guitarists, and pianists especially, since we don’t teach these instruments from the beginning at Mesa. Rehearsals will be AFTER SCHOOL this year, length and days TBD, but we need at least 3 hours a week to be successful. Be on the lookout for more information soon!

______

Of course there’s more info to come regarding concert and fundraiser specifics, but that’s all for now. Please email me directly at kgray@mrpk.org if there’s anything pressing that I didn’t address in this email or at BTSN.

Musically yours,

Kurt Gray