About the Band Program
Welcome to the website for the Chaparral Middle School Band Program. We are located in in Diamond Bar California. In 2015 and 2016, our music department received a SupportMusic Merit Award from NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) and Exemplary Arts Status by the State of California. In 2017 and 2018 and 2019 our district received NAMM's Best Communities in Education award, distinguishing WVUSD as one of the top districts in the country for Music Education!
The school has approximatlely 200 students in the band program which is comprised of 5 band classes, ranging from beginning to advanced levels. Two of these are Beginning classes, (Cadet Band) where students are grouped by brass or woodwind instrument. At the intermediate level, students further their ensemble skills in the Concert or Symphonic Band.Our Wind Ensemble is the most advanced band and entrance is by application and audition. Students are placed in the band at the level where they will most successful.
About the Program:
The focus of the band program is to develop technical and muscianship skills within a framework of balanced instrumentation within a concert band setting. Students are held accountable for improving on their instrument, and learn proper rehearsal and performing behavior. Students learn about the many styles of band music including film, patriotic, multicultural, pop, classical, marching and pep band. Emphasis is placed on each student becoming their best, summed up in the following quote.
("I do not dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself." )Mikhail Baryshnikov
Students are encouraged to reach their individual potential within a nurturing learning environment, and develop a lifelong love for learning and an appreciation of the arts. Students are challenged to not only play their instruments well, but to develop music literacy, make connections between music, art, and other academic subjects, reflect on their practice and performance. The music classroom is inherently tied in with common core strategies, in fact, music teachers like to think that we have been doing common core before the term was even coined!
Performances:
Each of the bands performs at school concerts. These are generally held in the evening and are a mandatory part of membership. The bands also attend a yearly concert band festival. The Wind Ensemble participates in collaboratons with Diamond Bar High School and community performances. The Wind Ensemble also takes a yearly trip. Past trips have included performance at the National Invitational Festival of Gold 2019 in san Franciso and 2018 at Chicago Symphony Hall, the Festival of Gold 2017 at Segerstrom Auditorium, National Sousa Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in May 2015, Percy Grainger Festival in Chicago in 2011 at Chicago Symphony Hall, and other performances in Washington D.C, Williamsburg, VA, San Francisco, San Diego, and Anaheim, CA. and the local community. In 2018, the Wind Ensemble was the only ensemble chosen to perform for the California School Board Convention. In March 2020, The Wind Ensemble will be performing at Carnegie Hall in New York.
About the Director:
Leslie Schroerlucke received a Bachelor's of Music and Performance Certificate at the Eastman School of Music as a student of the late clarinetist Stanley Hasty. She received a Master's in Clarinet Performance from Florida State University and a Master's in Music Education from Boston University. Teachers have included Peter Hadcock, Frank Kowalsky, Mitchell Lurie, James Campbell, and Ron de Kant. She as a member of the Florida Philharmonic and Miami Opera and has performed as a chamber musician and soloist in Italy, United Kingdom, Brazil, and the former Yugoslavia, and most recently at the 2013 Clarinetfest in Assisi, Italy. She has recorded with the Florida Philharmonic and Eastman Wind Ensemble. In the L.A. area, she has performed with the Moscow Ballet, Pasadena Symphony, Longbeach Symphony, and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and is currently Principal Clarinet with the Orchestra Collective of Orange County and an active freelance clarinetist in the Los Angeles area. She is also the clarinet instructor at UC Riverside and a woodwind coach at Scripps College and Pomona Colelge in Claremont. In July 2019, performed with the Assisi Chamber Players in Assisi Italy.
The school has approximatlely 200 students in the band program which is comprised of 5 band classes, ranging from beginning to advanced levels. Two of these are Beginning classes, (Cadet Band) where students are grouped by brass or woodwind instrument. At the intermediate level, students further their ensemble skills in the Concert or Symphonic Band.Our Wind Ensemble is the most advanced band and entrance is by application and audition. Students are placed in the band at the level where they will most successful.
About the Program:
The focus of the band program is to develop technical and muscianship skills within a framework of balanced instrumentation within a concert band setting. Students are held accountable for improving on their instrument, and learn proper rehearsal and performing behavior. Students learn about the many styles of band music including film, patriotic, multicultural, pop, classical, marching and pep band. Emphasis is placed on each student becoming their best, summed up in the following quote.
("I do not dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself." )Mikhail Baryshnikov
Students are encouraged to reach their individual potential within a nurturing learning environment, and develop a lifelong love for learning and an appreciation of the arts. Students are challenged to not only play their instruments well, but to develop music literacy, make connections between music, art, and other academic subjects, reflect on their practice and performance. The music classroom is inherently tied in with common core strategies, in fact, music teachers like to think that we have been doing common core before the term was even coined!
Performances:
Each of the bands performs at school concerts. These are generally held in the evening and are a mandatory part of membership. The bands also attend a yearly concert band festival. The Wind Ensemble participates in collaboratons with Diamond Bar High School and community performances. The Wind Ensemble also takes a yearly trip. Past trips have included performance at the National Invitational Festival of Gold 2019 in san Franciso and 2018 at Chicago Symphony Hall, the Festival of Gold 2017 at Segerstrom Auditorium, National Sousa Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in May 2015, Percy Grainger Festival in Chicago in 2011 at Chicago Symphony Hall, and other performances in Washington D.C, Williamsburg, VA, San Francisco, San Diego, and Anaheim, CA. and the local community. In 2018, the Wind Ensemble was the only ensemble chosen to perform for the California School Board Convention. In March 2020, The Wind Ensemble will be performing at Carnegie Hall in New York.
About the Director:
Leslie Schroerlucke received a Bachelor's of Music and Performance Certificate at the Eastman School of Music as a student of the late clarinetist Stanley Hasty. She received a Master's in Clarinet Performance from Florida State University and a Master's in Music Education from Boston University. Teachers have included Peter Hadcock, Frank Kowalsky, Mitchell Lurie, James Campbell, and Ron de Kant. She as a member of the Florida Philharmonic and Miami Opera and has performed as a chamber musician and soloist in Italy, United Kingdom, Brazil, and the former Yugoslavia, and most recently at the 2013 Clarinetfest in Assisi, Italy. She has recorded with the Florida Philharmonic and Eastman Wind Ensemble. In the L.A. area, she has performed with the Moscow Ballet, Pasadena Symphony, Longbeach Symphony, and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and is currently Principal Clarinet with the Orchestra Collective of Orange County and an active freelance clarinetist in the Los Angeles area. She is also the clarinet instructor at UC Riverside and a woodwind coach at Scripps College and Pomona Colelge in Claremont. In July 2019, performed with the Assisi Chamber Players in Assisi Italy.
Leslie has been teaching for Walnut Valley Unified since 2001 and has been the band director at Chaparral since 2005. She has been featured Who's Who of American Women and was invited to be a stakeholder in developing assessments tools for arts testing in Sacramento in 2015. Leslie is one of two Lead VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Teachers) for WVUSD and is an active advocate for arts expansion in the elementary grade levels.
