Music Al Fine is an extracurricular instrumental ensemble that has been meeting every Monday morning at 7:45 until 8:15 since the beginning of the school year.
During their sophomore year, Junior violist Calvin Beyers and junior violinist Alyssa Thompson discussed how they wished there was something year-round for an orchestra extracurricular.
They noticed that band and choir has multiple year-round extracurriculars, but orchestra only had ones that would last for a couple of months.
“Alyssa and I thought about Joy because they’re probably one of the best orchestral instrumentalists here at West, and we knew they had conducting experience,” Beyers says.
Senior cellist and student-conductor, Joy Rattan, had been looking for a way to teach students conducting, and Ratan thought the Al Fine Club would be the perfect place to do it.
“Over the summer, we talked it over with [them], and they said they had been wanting to do something exactly like what me and Alyssa had talked about; And there Music Al Fine was born,” Beyers explains.
The name of the club, Al Fine, means “to the end,” so the whole title of the club means “Music to the end.”
“I think it’s a cute way of saying that music is something that we all [in the club] take to heart and are very passionate about, and even if some of us don’t continue to play music post high school, it will always be a part of us,” Beyers explains.
At first, the Al Fine Club was only for orchestra students (originally called Strings Al Fine); however, Beyers, Thompson, and Rattan decided to broaden the club to string and band instruments, resulting in more students joining the club.
There are now a variety of instruments people play in the club, currently with a couple of violins, many cellos, a saxophone, clarinet, and bassoon player.
Beyers is the only viola, but is actively trying to get more to join the Al Fine Club.
The first Monday every month, Rattan has a conducting day, where they teach students how to conduct. Rattan has conducted many orchestra performances, but only a song or two; the Al Fine club is the only place where they’re the sole head conductor. “A lot of people look at a conductor and think they’re just there a human metronome, but it’s a lot more complicated than that, (…) [there’s] different time signatures that you can conduct and the fancy Italian language of conducting and different vocab words,” Rattan explains.
However, the conducting comes with a challenge because Rattan isn’t familiar with conducting band instruments.
“I’ve had to learn how to transpose music from the key of (…) string instruments land to band instrument land, so it’s been a learning experience,” Rattan states.
The Al Fine club is working on songs from the Halloween/fall season, including Skeleton Waltz and Night Shift.
However, they plan on shifting to play winter-themed songs.
The club hasn’t performed for anyone yet, but they’re hoping to set up to play at a retirement home or somewhere in the Bloomington Normal community.
“I love that we are all able to share a love for music, even though there may be differences within everyone’s abilities, we’re all just there to try and get better and have fun,” Beyers says.
“You should join Music Al Fine because it’s a really tight-knit community, there’s not a lot of pressure to it, and if you can’t go to a meeting, that’s okay,” Rattan states.
About 8-10 people actively go to the meetings, but they have about 30 people in the google classroom.
However, they are always looking for more people to join the club, and welcome everyone. If you are interested, you can contact Rattan and Thompson on email, and they will add you to the google classroom.
