Community Band Opportunities - Denver/Golden?

[pmeiden]

Hi all

My daughter recently completed her PhD and will be moving to Denver for a post-doc at the US Geological Survey in Golden. Her office will be on campus of Colorado School of Mines, and she has found an apartment in Denver. She plays trumpet.

During HS, undergrad and grad school, she played with various community and university ensembles in NY and CA. She took a lay-off over the last 12-18 months to finish her research and thesis, and is looking for opportunities to get back into it after she moves west.

Does anyone know of any welcoming local ensembles she could look into?

Many thanks

Peter

[JohnL]

Have you checked the Association of Concert Bands Find-a-Band directory?
https://www.acbands.org/index.php?optio ... =2000854#/

[bitbckt]

Dr. Keating down at CSU Pueblo might have some pointers, and perhaps have a spot in one of his brass bands.

[ghmerrill]

Have you checked the Association of Concert Bands Find-a-Band directory?
https://www.acbands.org/index.php?optio ... =2000854#/

A good idea, and potentially fruitful, but they list only members of the Association. So any of the (many) bands in an area not members won't be in the list. In addition, it appears that some bands aren't very good at keeping their information up to date. I see one I used to play in whose information is close to ten years out of date.

This isn't a knock on the Association of Concert Bands (which I've encouraged conductors to join on a couple of occasions), but rather the nature of these "lists" of bands that appear on the web and (of course) aren't updated with any regularity. Overall a web search for something like "community bands near ..." (where you fill in the ... with a zip code or address) will be more productive and up to date. Such a search also ends up casting a wider net and will return references to community orchestras and other ensembles.

Be aware that many community band web sites are grossly out of date, and so don't be put off by what you might see on them. Use the information on them to contact them directly. The same is true of Facebook sites, and Facebook has generally fallen out of favor as an information source for community bands.

[JohnL]

Be aware that many community band web sites are grossly out of date, and so don't be put off by what you might see on them. Use the information on them to contact them directly. The same is true of Facebook sites, and Facebook has generally fallen out of favor as an information source for community bands.

Lack of current information is definitely an issue for some bands. You have to have someone who is willing to put the time in to keep things up to date, and it's a somewhat thankless task. I've run into bands that had multiple sites and multiple Facebook pages, all frozen in time.

Used to be that you'd just open up the Yellow Pages (remember them?), find a music store that looked like it handled a fair volume of band instruments (remember them?), and ask.