USA East Music NYSB BULLETIN - SUMMER 2019 | Page 2

From the Bandmaster
God is Always With Us
As the 2018-2019 New York Staff Band season comes to a close there are
many engagements, rehearsals and events that will stick in my head for quite
a long time.
We started our year with a trip to Lancaster, PA that found us teaching
young salvationists, playing at a local school, doing a concert at a senior’s
community and playing a worship service. Next, we were on to Massachusetts
where we played at a local Adult Rehabilitation Center, did workshops for the
people of the division and did a concert in famed Faneuil Hall. Our Christmas
weekend found us at another Adult Rehabilitation Center and at a local church
once again.
In the new year we started a new recording project with guest Philip Cobb,
hosted our annual Future All-Stars Weekend where we host young people from
all over the USA Eastern Territory, played alongside the other North American
Staff Bands at Roy Thomason Hall in Toronto, did a concert with world renowned
jazz musician Wycliffe Gordon, and was led in rehearsal by Professor David King.
This certainly isn’t everything on our calendar for the year but a snapshot of
what we have been up to.
The major project for the band this year was rehearsing and playing Dorothy
Gates’ new composition, “The Glory of Jehovah”. This 25-minute piece takes the
listener and the band on a journey through the book of Exodus. Just like the
book itself, the piece has its struggles and its difficulties and times where both
the player and the listener are uncomfortable with what is being asked or what
is being heard.
While this is a piece and a story mostly focused around Moses, this can really
be a story about each of us in the band and beyond. We all have our struggles…
We all have our times when we feel there is no hope… We all have our times
when we feel we have been walking through the desert aimlessly… We also
have our times when the Lord has shown himself to us in these situations and
when His presence can be felt in our lives and this is the greatness of God.
Despite our aimless wandering and despite our unending questions, God is
always with us and His presence and glory are always evident around us.
Through all that the band does together or as individuals, this one thing we
know: The Lord God Almighty is with us in all that we do.
Derek W. Lance
Bandmaster, NYSB
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