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Pyrrho, born about 360BC

1) Certainty is unattainable
2) The wise man will suspend judgment and will seek tranquility rather than the truth
3) Since all theories are probably false, one might as well accept the myths and conventions of his time and place

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Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.
Confucius

I’ve never known a musician who regretted being one.
Virgil Thompson

Received this from a friend at our Brigadoon show yesterday. A photo from the orchestra pit and a poem:

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take -
but by the moments that take our breath away.”

I do not have information on the writer of this quote - seems a bit of a mystery with several different stories about it….

“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity”

- Louis Pasteur� (French Chemist and Microbiologist, 1822-1895)

Tenacity is a pretty fair substitute for bravery, and the best form of tenacity I know is expressed in a Danish fur trapper’s principle: “The next mile is the only one a person really has to make.”

� - Eric Sevareid

Our ideals resemble the stars, which illuminate the night. No one will ever be able to touch them. But the men who, like the sailors on the ocean, take them for guides, will undoubtedly reach their goal.

- Carl Schurz

Exceedingly rare and vintage pit band photos of the musicians for Disney’s High School Musical presentation at McIntyre Hall 2007. These musicians were VERY fun and intense to work with. When we get a tight groove going on it feels more like we’re cruising down the street with the subs cranking.

UPDATE - MORE BAND PHOTOS HERE!

Most of the musicians I’ve worked with before on other productions and they are all my first choice players to work with right now. They consistently rise to the occasion and raise the bar where most others would have folded and settled for “just ok”.

These photos are courtesy of Gary Brown at Stage Images - he’s doing a lot of photography for live shows now and prints are available online. Gary is kind enough to spend a little time taking pictures of the musicians which they REALLY appreciate. Pit orchestras are usually overlooked when it comes to photo opportunities, so players rarely have pictures of themselves playing their instruments.

But Gary, I think I should point out that all of these musicians are devlishly handsome except for me. I think you accidentally hit the “ugly” button when you took my photos. Does anyone know a good photoshop airbrush artist?

UPDATE 04/07 - Gary took some new pics of me and I really like them. Check out the KEYTAR PHOTOS - Thank you Gary!

HIGH SCHOOL MUSIC BY DISNEY - PIT BAND PHOTOS

Oscar De La Rosa - Percussion
Oscar is the “mojo” of our group

Luke Hansen - Guitar
Luke grows guitar amps in his backyard

Kyle McInnis - Guitar and Saxophone
Plays the best “Mario Brothers Theme”
this side of the Mississippi

In the Orchestra Pit
Throw a flank steak into the pit - we’ll keep playing

David Bridgman - Drums

with Peter Bridgman - Bass

Conrad Askland - Conductor and Keyboards
Five keyboard rig for fast changes

Conrad warms up the crowd for Act II
with his “Keytar” - a keyboard that wishes
it was a guitar

View from the Drums looking up at the Balcony
in McIntyre Hall - Skagit College Campus

The Band is Focused and Intense

Brianne Weaver - Keyboards

Hope, like the gleaming taper’s light, adorns and cheers our way; and still, as darker grows the night, emits a brighter ray.

- Oliver Goldsmith

Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous.

There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind. We owe it to a few writers of antiquity (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) that the people in the Middle Ages could slowly extricate themselves from the superstitions and ignorance that had darkened life for more than half a millennium. Nothing is more needed to overcome the modernist’s snobbishness.

- Albert Einstein

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.
~William Temple

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
~Benjamin Franklin

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
-Unknown

From The Art of Being Humble by Gemcee on RapDogs.com

Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.

- PARKER PALMER, Let Your Life Speak