Thanks so much for your interest! We really appreciate you looking into joining our community orchestra. We do run, perhaps, a little differently than other organizations you may have been in before, so this page is to explain how we work!
Please read all of the information and you can submit your interest using the form below. Thank you!
KEEP IN MIND: We have two seasons per year: from July to December and from January to May. We only accept new members from mid July - mid August and mid January to mid February. When we get close to our official start dates in July and January, all those whom have submitted interest will get an email closer to our start dates with more information about our joining time period for that season! :)
We rehearse every Wednesday night at the Sollers Point Multipurpose Center from 7 pm - 9 pm. If that changes, everyone is updated via email as well as our members-only Facebook and Discord.
We DO request that our members attend as many rehearsals as possible as rehearsing with the group is very important! You must attend as many rehearsals as possible, and should not intentionally/plan to miss more than 3! Your section leaders will be the point of contact for this.
Instrumentalists are required to know how to play their own instrument, and are required to bring their own instrument as well as any accessories you need for it. We highly recommend bringing your own stands, although we do have some collapsible wire stands that can be used. During the season, we also will ask you to print your own music from a link we will share, or you may bring a tablet you can use to download and read it on.
Percussionists will use the limited percussion that the BGSO owns.
We welcome those of any experience level, however, a lot of our music is typically around a high school level, so you may need to be able to practice on your own depending on your own experience.
There are no fees or dues to participate in this group! We also do not hold auditions for entrance, and instrumental parts and solos within a section are determined by your section leader. For larger vocal solos/features within a piece, we will hold auditions as we typically open them to the entire group.
Our goal with this group is to have fun playing video game music! We do not require that you know anything about gaming to join, however we do ask that you take performing with us seriously during rehearsals so that we can produce great music together.
We do have a Code of Conduct with an attendance policy that we ask everyone to follow: Code of Conduct! This also includes our attendance policy. We do expect good communication between members of a section and their section leaders.
We perform two main concerts in a season!
Concerts for the spring season will be in the first 2 weeks of May, and for the fall/winter season the first 2 weeks of December. We really want everyone to attend both concerts!
We also occasionally have some additional performances that are not required, that you will know about as much ahead of time as we can tell you, and while we encourage participation, we only require our main two performances a season.
If you are performing with us in any capacity, we do audio and video record our rehearsals for private learning use. We also audio and video record our concerts to publish publicly on our YouTube channel so that friends and family that cannot make our concerts can share in the joy of our music.
If you are joining us, you understand that you could show up on audio or videos posted for other people to view.