I remember playing this last year for county honor's band. all I could think of was afterwards, " there needs to be a shirt with ' I survived playing clarinet on metroplex'" good memories.
I was first chair alto sax, so I had the two solos in the opening and jazz section, plus the hot mess runs in the last part...my chops and fingers were done...and it was only the third song out of six in our concert lineup ;(((
When I saw the inside pages for the flute part, I could only glare at my director and kept saying that he hated us. A bunch of sevenths and sixths and just....ugh! I find them hard to play. But, overall, this song is very pretty and it sounds like something that could be in a movie
I played this in HS, and every single time we got to 3:42, I ALWAYS thought it sounded like "The Knight Bus" from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Randy Brown I’m a sophomore in high school playing tenor sax. Boy, I’ve got my work cut out for me but I’m sure the song will make me a much better musician.
I absoltely love this piece! It's true that since it is the first movement in our marching show, it wont be the original, but it does capture the basics of it. We do still have those awesome runs though! CLARINETS RULE!
I remember back when I was only a toddler I was accepted into the Tokyo kosei wind orchestra to sightread this piece after their first chair clarinet dropped out...of course I aced every note and had never even held a clarinet before but after that I played it with my 3rd grade band again and got straight 1’s with my double A rating at contest.
in first grade my schools wind symphony went to states competing in double A. after or performance of Armenian Dances, incantation and dance, and Slava! we got the the sight reading room and they passed out this. I nailed the ending! it was so fun and easy on my piccolo but so much fun!! i love this song and such a hard sight read. we played it much faster though :/
I remember watching our Wind Ensemble perform this my freshman year of high school. They premiered it at Carnagie Hall in New York. We performed this piece for marching band my sophmore year.
My band is doing this at IMEA..Can't wait the bluesy section sounds so amazing, our bass clarinets are awesome at it, and our saxophone soloist is so amazingly good at it
Was supposed to play this back in 9th grade but COVID happened but I still play the music when I come across it the solo is so much fun to play to this day
we were in nyc for the band of pride tribute for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 then we played in the veteran's day parade, since metroplex was our marching show we played it in warm up, can i say EPIC!!! : D
my band played sheldons other song Iberian Escapades an the songs are so similar nice broad beginning, slow and shooting middle and big finish . We got a 1 at contest
First horn for this freshman year of high school. A crazy way to indoctrinate a new horn, haha. It's one of my absolute favorite piece's I have ever played. Put it up there with Into the Raging River, American Overture for Band, and American Elegy.
I can't listen to 2:23-2:40 without laughing to myself. My band director told us, "All right, everyone. At measure -insert measure number here-, the clarinets are like the chords on a piano. And the trumpets.. the trumpets are the fat ladies jumping out of a cake."
@laurenkaye17 My band is currently playing Metroplex, and American Elegy is one of my all-time favorite pieces to play. I played it at an honors band and almost cried :)
@fallchild00you did!!!!!! omg i hate you! i did this in honor band. i was chair 1 clairnet. when the runs came along, i was like, "hell yes!" it was so much fun. =) did you have the runs in the marching show?
