Calendar updated

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Our events calendar has been updated with the times of the final three games of the season.  Games at Baylor and at OSU kickoff at 7:00 PM CST; the final home game (against Iowa State) kicks off at 11:00 AM CDT. The gameday schedule for Iowa State is also online, including the 5:30 AM rehearsal—yikes!

All three games will be telecast by ESPN on ABC.  I’m sure the OSU game will be nationally televised, given the BCS implications, but you can check here after Thursday of each week to see how ESPN/ABC plan to handle national and regional coverage in your area.

Coming later this week: more on “Band Bedlam,” notes about Monday’s final symphonic wind concert of the semester, and whatever else comes up that we find and you might want to know. BCS expert Jerry Palm now predicts, on his subscription site CollegeBCS.com, that the BCS National Championship game will be LSU vs. Oklahoma. In New Orleans. Talk about a classic case of good news-bad news!

That deserves more good news, so here’s another poster for “Band Bedlam:”

Texas A&M gameday schedule is up

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You can find it in your calendar program if you subscribe to our events calendar, or find it on the Web here.

Kickoff is at 2:30 PM. The game will either be on your local ABC station (as it will here in Oklahoma), or on ESPN2. Check here later this week for ESPN’s full coverage map and exact Dish Network/DIRECTV channel numbers. (Satellite customers get several “ESPN Alternate” channels because, unlike local cable companies, the satellite providers can’t switch what you seen on “ESPN” or “ESPN2″ based on your region. In those cases, you can usually at least see the game in standard definition on one of the “alternate” channels. If not, you’ll have to use ESPN3 or the pay-per-view ESPN GamePlan.)

Got photos of Homecoming? [updated]

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If you’ve got photos you’d like to share of Homecoming 2011, post the URLs here (to Flickr, or TwitPic, or wherever you share your pictures).

[Update: Fellow alum Matt Horton alerts us in the comments that videos from the press box of 2011 OUBAA pregame and halftime performances are available online now!]

And if you have any you’d like to see added to the rotation of photos that show on every page of the site, just E-mail them to me and I’ll get them into the mix at some point. Due to the design of the site, photos are cropped to exactly 1000 pixels by 288 pixels, so please make sure your pics are at least 1000 pixels wide or we can’t use them (stretching shorter pictures to fit just looks awful). We don’t need super-hires photos or anything, just at least 1000 pixels wide. Most phone cameras these days shoot at least twice that resolution, so you should be fine. :)

Homecoming 2011 open thread

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I’ll start with the bad:

  • The weather
  • The delays
  • The final score

And now the good:

  • Section 29
  • Section 36
  • Pregame
  • Halftime
  • Never quitting
  • Being a Sooner

Despite the final score, I was very proud yesterday to be associated with both The Pride and OUBAA. No one who was there could doubt how traditions and champions are built.

Tell us what you think—add your own comments, no registration required!

Weather for homecoming

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Here’s the Weather Underground forecast for this weekend: a high temperature in the low 70s, but kickoff is at 7:00 PM, so pack some warmer clothes!

Weather for Norman, OK
Today Sunday Monday Tuesday
It is forcast to be Partly Cloudy at 10:00 PM CDT on May 19, 2012
Partly Cloudy

88°/64°

 It is forcast to be Chance of a Thunderstorm at 10:00 PM CDT on May 20, 2012
Chance of a Thunderstorm

86°/61°

 It is forcast to be Chance of a Thunderstorm at 10:00 PM CDT on May 21, 2012
Chance of a Thunderstorm

82°/59°

 It is forcast to be Chance of a Thunderstorm at 10:00 PM CDT on May 22, 2012
Chance of a Thunderstorm

84°/64°

Homecoming 2011 schedule now online

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The Homecoming 2011 schedule is now in our online events calendar, so if you subscribe, you should already have it.  If not, you can see the Web-based version right here.  Note that since the calendar combines Pride of Oklahoma events with OUBAA events, it can be slightly crowded.

If we have your E-mail address and you’ve registered for Homecoming 2011, you should have gotten an E-mail message from me about why the music isn’t up, and one from Rita with the more exact schedule.  If you did not, let one of us know so we can get it to you (and, hopefully, figure out why you didn’t already get it).

Keep in mind that, as always, the time for pregame marching is extremely approximate because it depends on network television timing, when the teams clear the field, other homecoming presentations that may come first (homecoming royalty follows us at halftime, so that’s not an issue), and perhaps more. The time on the schedule is an estimate based on how these things often work. On Saturday, you’ll get clear communications on when to be ready to march, so basically keep in mind that sometime between 6:00 and 6:20, you’ll need to get your instruments, and shortly after that you’ll need to be in position. I think. We’ll know for sure on Saturday. Don’t stress out about it.

The music is here!

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If you are particularly industrious, you may notice that there’s a “Homecoming 2011 Music” page in the “Homecoming 2011″ menu just under the page-wide picture. You would then be disappointed in your industry, because the page is password-protected.

If you’ve registered for Homecoming 2011 and we have your E-mail address, you should have received a message from me with the password for the page.  If you did not receive this message, contact Rita at secretary@oubandalumni.org so she can see if it’s a problem with the delivery (which gets passed back to me), or if we don’t have your E-mail address or some other problem.  When we see problem this week, we think immediate solution, so let us have a chance to fix any problems you may see.  Thanks!

OU Bands in Concert Monday Night!

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What better way to get started with Texas week than by supporting our student musicians in the first concert of the Fall 2011 semester?  You can do exactly that Monday night at 8:00 PM by hearing the Wind Symphony and Symphony Band in concert!

The Symphony Band, directed by Dr. Debra Traficante, begins with Dana Wilson’s Shortcut Home fanfare, followed by William Schumann’s 20th-century masterwork George Washington Bridge, and John Mackey’s latest composition for band, Hymn to a Blue Hour (2010). The program concludes with a Charles Ives work. Circus Band March (1894) is a march, originally for piano, touching on many American themes. It’s not as wild as Ives’ Country Band March, but then again, he was only a freshman at Yale when he wrote this.

The Wind Symphony, under the direction of Dr. Wakefield, will perform John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, an adapted short orchestral work that has become very popular for symphonic winds in its current orchestration by OU graduate Lawrence Odom (upon request by the United States Air Force Band). That’s followed by H. Owen Reed’s Michigan Morn, and Profanation from Symphony No. 1 “Jeremiah” by Leonard Bernstein, adapted from his first large form symphony and another popular collegiate symphonic wind work. The program concludes with French composer Florent Schmitt’s Dionysiaques, Op. 62, a 1913 original band work from the impressionistic period. Think Debussy, Ravel, lush orchestration, and wild dance-like rhythms.

As noted, the program begins at 8:00 PM on Monday night (October 3).  It’s a Sutton Series Concert, and because they’ve really been that good, the price has gone up to $9 for most people, but remains $5 for senior citizens and for all OU students, faculty, and staff.  And worth it, too.  You can click the poster above to get your own PDF version of the poster, and you can get more info and program notes at the OU Bands Web site.