The Moorestown Community Band’s music director and conductor Michelle Gergich leads the Southampton School #3 Warrior Band.
The Moorestown Community Band has unveiled a new logo designed by band member and artist Elli Kocyan.
“I’m very excited at how full speed ahead we are,” said music director and conductor Michelle Gergich of the coming season.
The band’s new logo reflects the heart of its mission: community. It’s something that’s been in the works and came to fruition after the group realized its old logo didn’t represent how the band sees itself.
“One thing I really love about it is how she (Kocyan) really took to heart the fact that we are trying to serve our community and make our community different with our band,” Gergich noted. “It’s simple but it highlights what we’re trying to do.”
The group’s spring composer in residence is Thomas Bourgault, currently the wind ensemble conductor and associate band director at Bridgewater-Raritan High School. The band will perform his “Suite for Band” at its concert on Friday, Apr. 11, but before that, students interested in composition will be able to attend a rehearsal with the band and Bourgault to get a look behind the scenes.
“They’ll be able to see a composer working with a band, (see) what’s important to them and they’ll be able to ask questions,” Gergich said.
The band will hold a conducting workshop for undergraduate music education students at the William Allen Middle School on Wednesday, March 26, at 6:30 p.m. Participants will get personalized constructive feedback on their conducting techniques from Gergich, share ideas and engage in a score study session.
Participants will be limited to the first 10 people who register and submit a required recommendation form. Observers will participate in the score study session and sit and play with the band, but will not conduct.
“When you get in front of your first group as a teacher and you realize that your conducting is inadequate, that can be very humbling and very scary, and you don’t necessarily know what to do or how to fix it,” Gergich explained.
“When I was an undergrad, I had a professor who was willing to put me in front of ensembles instead of just my friends, and that made a huge difference to me, to be able to understand what actually works and what doesn’t.”
The band recently performed alongside the Southampton School #3 Warrior Band, and Gergich joined a clinic with the school’s seventh- and eighth-graders before the show. For the students to perform with the band was, as Gergich described, exciting. Community outreach is something she hopes the group will do more of this year.
“We performed pieces that they were all able to play,” Gergich recounted. “Even the ones that we played for them, they were all ones that, in coming years, they can all be playing. They were able to hear their own level of music at a higher level than they would be able to play as a middle school band.
“It was very exciting.”
The Moorestown Community Band will perform at this year’s township Porch Fest, its Strawberry Festival and at the Perkins Center for the Arts’ world stage concert. The group’s 2 p.m. concert on Saturday, Feb. 22, will be livestreamed on its YouTube Channel. More information is available on the band website.
The group will feature its new logo on concert programs and social media. To see it, visit www.moorestowncommunityband.com.
