Entry #1 - "Oh what a night!"
Welcome to our blog! Justin here writing our first entry, but you can look forward to seeing writing from each of us in the future. We're looking forward to this being a space for us to share news, thoughts, recaps of special events, and anything else we can think of. We hope that y'all will keep an eye out!
As many of you know, we played a CD release concert/party on 1/31, an event which also celebrated the legacy of Ernestine M. Raclin. Even some time later, we're still coming down from cloud 9! It was a great honor to celebrate such an influential and generous woman who has impacted the South Bend community so deeply - and for us, as faculty at IU South Bend's Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts, we still feel that impact. With many dear friends and members of the Raclin School of the Arts family (and members of Mrs. Raclin's actual family!) in the audience, it was a wonderful celebration of Ernie and her incredible legacy of support for the arts. We presented some musical selections that represented our relationship to her and her legacy, and at the post-concert reception we all raised a glass next to her portrait.
Having walked past that portrait almost every day since arriving in South Bend, this was a great opportunity for me personally to learn more about Ernie and the history of the school, and getting to meet her family and so many friends with fond memories of her was a real treat.
The experience of putting together an event like this was, frankly, a bit nutty! There were a multitude of moving parts we had to juggle and keep afloat, a frantic kind of energy that came to a head at the CD-signing table. The card-reader fiasco (it simply didn't work) and the difficulty of wrangling all four of us to sign CDs were obstacles that we simply did not think about in advance! It was chaos, but a happy chaos.
It had been a long time since the quartet had played in the campus auditorium - until our dress rehearsal, I had never played in that space! Thanks to the incredible work of the IUSB production team, the auditorium was set up beautifully.
We even requested the shell lighting to match the colors of the dots on the album, and they delivered! Setting up the technological/production side of this type of event can sometimes be difficult, but they provided all the support we needed with the projector and all the necessary cables and stands and whatnot. The fact that things went off without a hitch (and looked great!) is a testament to the production team, and we are so grateful for their help.
As mentioned above, I never knew Ernie and, before preparing for this event, knew little about her. So for me, it was great to hear words from some folks who knew her and were around when the School of the Arts was named. Hearing some stories about her character and her generosity made me feel grateful to be a part of community and this school. We also were able to find some great archival photos from the naming ceremony, including some hand-written notes from Mrs. Raclin herself.
Now that the event has passed, we've got some other events coming up in and around South Bend! We'll be doing some performances at local venues, master classes, and of course rehearsing for events further down the road. Check our calendar to see those upcoming dates, and we hope to see you soon!
All photo credits to Michael Caterina, IU South Bend
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