Resa's Pieces Concert Band

Beth Tzedec Hanukkah Party with Story Time

Lorraine Sandler graced many children and their parents with her beautiful story of Hanukkah which took place at Beth Tzedec this past Sunday December 6, 2009.

Resa's Pieces played Hanukkah tunes to accompany Lorraine as she told the crowd about King Antiochus, Judah the Maccabee and the Miracle of the oil burning for 8 days. A good time was had by all!

 

 

 

Baycrest Concert Highlights and Pictures

On Sunday, November 29, 2009, Resa's Pieces returned to play in the Winter Garden Atrium of Baycrest’s Apotex Centre. The sound soared to the upper floors – everyone  had fun! People danced and enjoyed Fiddler on the Roof, Mama Mia, Sholom Aleichem and Waves of the Danube Waltz; clapped along to the beat of Latin Gold; enjoyed hearing What a Wonderful World sung to them by the talented Al Fitleberg; joined in singing along to The Sound of Music and finally, were treated to an early Hanukkah celebration with the tunes Hanukkah Highlights and The Three Moods of Hanukkah.

 

Playing for the Baycrest Community is such a rewarding experience for the Band’s members.  

Resa’s Pieces will be back at Baycrest on March 7, 2010.

And some pictures of our illustrious percussion section:

Linda Soudack and Al Fitleberg

Tom Gluck and Al Fitleberg

I was at Baycrest yesterday with my wife, visiting her Bubby (age 101).  Your band did a great job!
Here's a photo (phone camera quality, unfortunately), from an unusual angle.

D.G.

Superheroes 'R' Us

Resa Kochberg, conductor of the Resa's Pieces Concert Band, speaks to the audience at the 10th Annual Gala about the band - her Superheroes.

Superheroes R Us 

No matter what age you are, everyone has a super hero in their life.  Your superhero might be a fictional one - Spiderman or Batman - but sometimes it’s someone we know who we look up to or a kind of person we inspire to be. To us, these people have extraordinary powers and/or abilities and sometimes we see them as living duo lives – doing one thing during the day and another at night. Many superheroes work independently. However, there are also many superhero teams.  I believe that the "Resa’s Pieces" band members truly are superheroes!

They may not be the kind of superhero that puts their life in danger to protect us but they each have their own story that explains the circumstances by which they became motivated enough to start back playing an instrument they hadn’t played for some 25-30 years. As you can imagine this was not easy.

It’s been with determination that they’ve practiced, practiced and practiced to achieve their skill level and it’s with this willpower that they keep practicing to improve. Every year Resa’s Pieces band members learn a whole new repertoire and every year their playing has improved. They’re individually remarkable people and together they create a remarkable team. We need people like the Resa’s Pieces band members to inspire us so that we might hope we can be better than we are and also be motivated to realize that it’s never too late to do something we yearn to do.

It’s obvious to me that with our repeatedly sold out audience that there are a lot of people who are also very proud of them. As the Resa’s Pieces tag line says – "Recall those sounds, Reawaken that talent, Rediscover playing music" all the band members certainly have. I’d like to dedicate “Superheroes R Us” to my Superheroes.

10th Anniversary Gala Concert Pictures and Videos

We've got lots of pictures and videos/audio coming in, so I will place just a few pieces for you to enjoy over the next few weeks. The Photo Gallery will always have a "shoebox" of all of our pictures, and there are some new ones there now to check out.

First off is the Mexican Hat Dance at the Sound Check before the concert... You can tell that we are "ready to give it our all"!

 

In the video below, Resa thanks all the band members and awards plaques to 3 members of the band for their contributions.

 

I managed to tape a bit of Concerto de Aranjuez, here for your listening pleasure. This will give you a bit of an idea of what it's like to play right in the concert, up close and personal. Are you a musician looking for a band to join? Contact us today.

And a bit of "In the Mood", too. For RP band members, if you'd like I will put the camera on your music stand next concert. After all, this is where my little camera was when I was recording!

 

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What a wonderful evening - 10th Annual Gala Concert is a huge hit!

The audience was popping actual paper bags during 1812 Overture and it sounded like a cannon went off like it should! The band was giving ovations to their director, Resa Kochberg. And the crowd went wild at the end of our show. All in all it was an absolutely stellar finish to the 10th year of Resa's Pieces Concert Band! Soon we will have musical highlights from our concert on the Listen Up page, but for now here are some fun pictures before the show, during the show and afterwards. More pictures will be loaded soon into our Photo Gallery.

John and Itz before the concert.

Al and Harvey pal around before the show.

Resa at her best, introducing another piece with style, grace and wit.

The Original Resa's Pieces sings along with the band on their Anniversary Medley.

John Liddle plays a wonderful, Spanish-themed song.

Making music happen, and growing young while doing it.

North York Concert Band plays "Spring Celebration" on May 30 2009

On Saturday, May 30th the North York Concert Band will be presenting their "SPRING CELEBRATION" Concert at the Al Green Theatre - Miles Nadal Community Centre - 750 Spadina Ave. (corner of Bloor and Spadina) at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15.00 each.

 

Programme highlights include a Salute to American Jazz, music from Sound of Music (I'd like us to play this arrangemnet next year), selections from Hairspray and a Bernstein Tribute!

 

This is going to be a fabulous concert and it would be wonderful for Resa's Pieces members to come out and support our ringers (and your conductor) as all of us play in the North York band.

Baycrest Concert - March 1, 2009

What a concert! Resa's Pieces played their hearts out in snappy, black-on-black outfits to a standing (and sitting) audience at the Baycrest Retirement Home this past Sunday, March 1 2009. The whole concert lasted over an hour and a half featuring a klezmer break from KlezConnection. The audience was excited to see us again, as we were here in several previous years. Most of the audience were the elderly who are living in the home along with their loved ones listening to a concert together on a bitterly cold February Sunday afternoon. What could be better?

We played new selections including some of our new big band numbers, and received wonderful ovations. Reas received compliments about how we played. We're invited back again soon, and that's always a good thing.

After we played several songs, KlezConnection played some great klezmer as well as had a few of the Resa's Pieces members feature their singing and playing chops. Al Fitleberg hammed it up as always and their rendition of "By meer bis du schoen" was amazing.

Here are some pictures and videos of the successful gig at Baycrest.

Hanukkah Concert @ Beth Tzedec

Resa's Pieces performed a Hannukah Concert at the Beth Tzedec Synagogue on December 7 2008. Lots of families with lots of kids filled the room. The kids got a great education on the different families of instruments and of course there was lots of great music. Here are a couple of pictures of Resa and the band. There's also a video of the kids at the concert keeping the beat with maracas during "Star Wars." Good times were had by all at the Hannukah Carnival afterwards as well.

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Upcoming Concert on Dec 7

Beth Tzedec synagogue has announced the Dec 7 2008 Hanukkah concert online. Feel free to take a look at the listing. The details on the concert are available here as well.