welcome my name is Evan Feldman a music professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where I conduct the Wind Ensemble the symphony band and also teach classes in conducting and in music education participating in a collaborative music setting is such an important part of developing as a musician as a member of The Ensemble we have certain responsibilities to the full group as a conductor of the Ensemble we have the same responsibilities but it's also incumbent upon us to make sure that we make the experience Musical and meaningful CU really as conductors the most important work that we do happens inside the rehearsal Hall over the course of this Muk we'll be presenting the components of a good rehearsal because in order to rehearse effectively you have to for example understand the basic process of rehearsals how to say take a musical idea break it down into its component parts work on them and then put them back together together again there has to be a certain command of conducting technique and although this is not a conducting class per se there are certain skills that can help us reinforce and support what we do in rehearsals we have to have a basic understanding of the skills and the pedagogies that are involved in making music as a member of The Ensemble have the ability to quickly diagnose problems and then solve them efficiently it's not all about technique though it's also about taking a large group of musici and crafting coherent musical point of view or a musical statement or a musical argument and doing it in a way that's compelling and expressive and it's always about picking great literature learning it thoroughly and coming to rehearsals completely prepared this course will actually have two tracks the first is meant for the experienced conductor this is for someone who regularly works with an ensemble now the second track is meant for the aspiring conductor this is for someone who has performed in an ensemble is now looking to work towards your leadership role most of the content in the class will be presented from the perspective or the cont context of the conductor but really all the ideas can be applied to any sort of group music making whether it be a string quartet a brass quintet or a small vocal ensong ultimately we're talking about the intersection between musicianship conducting and teaching and we hope to see you there thank you