To: All current and prospective 2008 Crimson Express members.

From: Michael Moreland

Dear Student,

I am very excited to announce that plans for the upcoming 2008 Crimson Express season are well underway. The show music, drill, and visual package are all in the process of being designed and the staff is developing a schedule and program that will hopefully provide you, the student, with the most rewarding Marching season yet.

The program for this year is entitled “EL Sueno” or “The Dream” and will include some musical and visual elements from the program’s 15 history as well as many new and innovative concepts. The music itself will be a little darker than in the past utilizing some very strong and powerful Latin styles. It will be a very challenging program, of course, and should provide you the students with plenty of opportunities to display and expand your music and marching skills.

To achieve the highest level of excellence for this program requires many hours of dedication and rehearsal. Since we are not doing a summer trip (which will hopefully change in the next year or so), we will need to get a jump-start on the music and marching basics with some spring training. Realizing that there are many commitments for students already, I do not want these rehearsals to be a burden, so I feel that we can accomplish what we need to get done with one rehearsal a week starting at the end of March. I have tentatively set up the following dates as “Spring Training”:

COLORGUARD ONLY!	BAND/PERCUSSION
Tues April 1st/Thur April 3rd 6:00-8:30 pm	Thur April 3rd 6:00-8:30 pm
Tues April 8th /Thur April 10th 6:00-8:30pm	Thur April 10th 6:00-8:30 pm
Tues April 15th /Thur April 17th 6:00-8:30pm	Mon April 14th 6:30-8:30 pm
Tues April 22nd /Thur April 24th 6:00-8:30 pm	Mon April 21st  6:30-8:30 pm
Tues April 29th  6:00-8:30pm	Mon April 28th  6:00-8:30pm
******Thur May 1st Spring Concert!!*****
Tues May 6th /Thur May 8th 6:00-8:30 pm	Thur May 8th 6:30-8:00 pm
Thur May 15th 6:00-8:30 pm	Mon May 12th 6:30-8:30 pm
******Tues May 13th Awards Banquet!!*******

As with any activity, to be successful you need a 100 % commitment to excellence from 100% of the people involved. I understand that there will be conflicts and that there are other aspects of your lives that require your time. However, there needs to be a dedicated effort to be at every one of these rehearsals prepared and ready to work. Since we cut back rehearsal times last fall, I think it became very apparent that attendance at rehearsals is a necessity to achieve what we expect from this program. Many rehearsals were “Wasted” by reviewing the same material repeatedly in an attempt to “catch-up” those who were missing rehearsal for whatever reason. THIS HAS TO STOP!! Successful attendance will result in a successful program.

Tentatively, we will be planning on having our August camp on the following dates:

All students will need to be signed up for band since we will be rehearsing periodically during band class. Also, it is not a problem to be in band and sports or other activities at the same time. Hundreds of thousands of students do it every year with a tremendous amount of success. I and the coaches at MHS will work together to provide you with every opportunity to achieve the best experience possible at MHS.

I ask that you go ahead and start clearing these dates of all personal plans (vacations, etc), so that we may provide you with the best opportunity to achieve excellence possible. If you have any questions or concerns, PLEASE contact me ASAP as 687-2336 ext 1334 or 565-8113.