Watch my Stick...PLEASE!

 

Photo by Kelly Fischtein

In this band, the most common command from the conductor is SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

That's because at practice, the banter is as noisy as the bassoons, the talk as loud as the trumpets.

People play in this band - not because they're virtuosos - but because they love to.

And the company 's no chopped liver either.

The band is called Resa's Pieces after its founder and conductor, Resa Kochberg. In 1999, she was an itinerant music teacher with a dream - to bring people back to playing instruments they had left behind, often decades earlier.

At seven o'clock every Monday evening, the band members meet for practice in a room at a North York High School....knowing that every June, they'll have to rein in the kibbitzing, pay attention and play their very best at the annual gala.

This documentary was produced by Alisa Siegel.

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