CSU Trombones Perform at International Festival and Release new CD

We are all safely back from the California trip! This photo was taken on the steps of University of Redlands' Memorial Chapel after our performance at the International Trombone Festival on July 1. The Festival attendees were blown away by the performance! We brought 160 copies of our new CD and returned with zero. Thanks again for your help in making incredible experiences possible for these students!

What an incredible campaign! On behalf of all of the students that are making the trip to California, THANK YOU for your support. Your gifts have provided enough funding for:

- Student plane tickets from ATL-LAX

- Ground transportation from LAX to the University of Redlands

- Festival Registration at the International Trombone Festival

- Dorms for 4 nights at the ITF

Even though we fell just short of our $12,500 goal, we have the trip fully funded, and more than half of the cost of the CD production! We are investigating other funding sources, and I am confident that we will be able to close the gap and release the CD in time for our trip to California. Again, thank you for your tremendous support. The students are so lucky to have people like you who believe in them and the importance of what they do!

Thank you so much for your support of the campaign to send the students to perform in California at the International Trombone Festival and to release their new CD. WE STILL NEED YOUR HELP! We need to raise $1,910 by TONIGHT at midnight, so we are asking you to help us make one final push to get us over the finish line. Will you take a moment now to share the campaign using the Facebook and Twitter links, and send a few emails? Tell your friends that you are a proud supporter of these amazing students, and ask if they will consider joining you before midnight tonight. Thanks again for everything you have done so far, and thanks in advance for your help with this final push today. Please share the campaign right now and let's finish strong!

The Trombone Ensemble performance yesterday was a huge success, and we managed to hit the $10,000 mark on our campaign! Thanks to you we are 80% of the way to our goal. Thank you for your support!!!

A week ago trombone student Brian "Brain" Hall issued a challenge on our Facebook page. If our GiveCampus campaign brought in an additional $2500 over seven days, certain things would happen. If the campaign brought in $3000 in that amount of time, other things would happen. Allow me to recap the chaos that will ensue because over $3000 was raised during the challenge period:

Because we hit $2500 in the week, Brain will have various food items (pies, taco bell, etc), slime, and cold water thrown in his face in front of a slow-motion video camera. That sounds bad, but it will be much better because he has to SHAVE HIS HEAD first. Thanks for going all-in, Brain!

Because we hit the $3000 mark in Brain's week-long challenge, Josh Hutchinson will also shave his head and will jump into the Chattahoochee River at Waveshaper rapid (with a personal flotation device of course) accompanied on the swim by Dr. Palmer. We will post videos of the madness as updates on our GiveCampus page and also on our Facebook page.

Your support of this campaign has been tremendous, and thanks to YOU we are on track toward our goal. Please help us by continuing to share the campaign and help us reach our $12,500 goal by May 1! And keep your eye on our Facebook page for more crazy challenges over these final 12 days of the campaign!

We invite you to join us for the CSU Trombone Ensemble spring concert at 4:00pm on Sunday, April 23 in Legacy Hall at CSU. The ensemble will perform 4 pieces from our new CD recording, including Eugene Gigout's "Grand Choeur Dialogué" arranged for trombone ensemble with organ and percussion. The arrangement was written by CSU Trombone Studio alum Joshua Kearney, currently teaching at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and will feature Professor Joseph Golden on organ. If you can not join us in Legacy Hall, we hope that you will be able to tune in to the live stream of the concert. We will post a link to the stream in another campaign update. Thank you for your support of the CSU Trombone Studio!

Thanks to YOU, or supporters, we have reached a milestone in the campaign. We are over 50% of the way to our goal! Lots of work still to be done in the next 18 days, but thanks to your support we feel confident that we can push this campaign over the finish line!

Last night was our next-to-last recording session for the CD project, and it went very well! We now have about 60 minutes of the CD already recorded, and will record the final piece for the CD on May 13. In addition to being Graduation Day here at CSU, May 13 is also very special because we will have several of our alumni back to socialize, rehearse, and record the final piece of the CD with us!