Jack of All Trades

This evening was Matthew’s last band concert of the school year as well as his last band concert at the middle school. He has been highly involved in a number of different ways during his tenure at the middle school, and this evening he got to participate in most of them. 

Matthew plays in the advanced band and one of their numbers included a trumpet trio of which Matthew was a participant. He played the first trumpet part and those boys all sounded great! The band teacher presented several awards between numbers. Two ninth grade students are selected as outstanding students in each subject, and Matthew was selected as one of those students in band. He will receive a plaque at the official freshmen awards ceremony but was presented a certificate tonight. His name will also go on the plaque that is hanging in the band room. Matthew didn’t know about this beforehand and was surprised but not surprised, meaning that he didn’t know it was coming but wasn’t overly surprised that he was selected. I’m very proud of him for giving his all in the bands. He loves to play and has made a lot of progress in the past three years.

Advanced band was followed by a slide show, after which Matthew got to book it up to the tech booth to help stage crew solve some lighting issues. It seemed as if they could not get the lights to turn back on and after spending a few minutes in the booth, he jaunted backstage to work the problem from that end. He has been on stage crew for two years and during that time, he has worked very hard and proven that he is smart and responsible. Matthew is pretty much the head of the stage crew this year and more than once he has lamented the fact that once he leaves, the kids left behind are going to have a hard time keeping everything up and running. He has spent a lot of time and effort trying to get the younger kids up to snuff before he leaves but is at the point where he thinks things are going to be very rough next year. 

Once the lights were back in working order, the jazz band played. One of the first things we noticed is that Matthew is looks like the tallest trumpet player in the jazz band. (He said there is one kid taller than he is, but that kid plays kind of slouched over so he looks shorter than he really is.) When he was in seventh grade, he had to stand on a chair to be able to see over the sax players seated in front of the trumpet section, so that is proof of just how much he has grown! Matthew had several solos and although he was not particularly pleased with how he played (he got his braces off three weeks ago and is having a harder time adjusting than any of us thought he would), I felt like he did ok. The jazz band baritone sax player was fantastic though, and after the concert, Matthew shared with us the fact that he was the one who taught the bari sax player the music theory part of improvising a jazz solo. Matthew was really pleased that he had been instrumental in helping his classmate develop such a great skill. Matthew also sang a vocal solo for one of the jazz numbers. It was a Michael Buble song entitled “Everything” and I felt like he did a fantastic job. His face is incredibly expressive when he sings, and he was not afraid to let all the emotion of the music play on his face. Matthew is not one to overshare, so I had no idea that he would be singing this evening. That was a pleasant surprise for me. Of late, he has been singing non-stop, belting out showtunes as he goes about his activities here at home. And I love it. He sang all the time when he was tiny but stopped singing for a while as his focus was on other things, so I love that singing has made its way back into his life. He told us he was also supposed to play trumpet solos in the vocal breaks, but his lips were so dry that he was having trouble playing. It was bad enough that his lips just hurt. He is regretting getting his braces off right before all his end of year performances, but like I mentioned before, none of us knew it would be so tough for him to adjust.

It was a fun concert. Mentally, Matthew is completely done at the middle school and can hardly wait to move on to the high school, but I’m glad he has been so involved where he is and has taken advantage of so many opportunities. He wears a lot of different hats as school and each one has helped him learn and grow in fantastic ways.