Alton D. Wheelhouse- Arranger/Composer

Larry Blackburn who has arranged music for our concert is getting ready to go to Europe and we had some more music with some deadlines, and I didn't know of anyone to ask for help. I prayed that someone would come into my life that could do this if it were possible because even brainstorming brought no names.

One day, a young man rode Evan's bus and they had a conversation about my concert. I got a call from Evan from his bus, and he was telling me about this young man and his talents with music. He thought he might be able to help us. I paused for a minute trying to see if this was the direction to go in and felt good about it.

Evan made the arrangements with this young man. I didn't know what to expect, but got a call the next day a few minutes prior to the set arrival time from a very friendly voice. He arrived not too much after that and after only 15 minutes with him, I knew he was the one to help. He also told us he was looking for a job and I could tell this might be a win win situation for both of us, timing and everything. What a blessing. I could tell that he had what we needed and miraculously, he had the time. I had other promptings about him, but will save those as they unfold, but feel so blessed to know him and feel grateful to be on the receiving end of his many talents. God truly watches over us and answers our prayers through other people.



This young man's name is Alton D. Wheelhouse. He plays over 50 instruments. He is a singer and composer. The oldest of nine. Placed first in a National championship for Robotics. A fine young man.

Brainstorming the Possibilities

One night while researching cello music on the internet, I found the neatest video clip of a woman who found her passion with the cello and went professional. She calls herself Cello Diva. She played the Bed of Roses by Bon Jovi and for days I couldn't get it out of my head. I pulled out my cello and learned to play along with her. I kept waking up in the night thinking about the song. I knew somehow I needed to do something like this in the concert. After hours and hours of exploring possibilities, I figured out how I would do it. I am so excited for everyone to hear it.

Bed of Roses - Cello Diva

A few days ago, I received a return call from Richard Mooney, president of the National Cello Institute about some music I had wanted to see if I could purchase from them. I did not see it in their music for sale. He said he had gone out of town with my contact information and didn't end up having time to contact me and when he got back he forgot. He just remembered and left me a message. I was so grateful. He referred me to a lady at Old Time Music in Pasadena California. I googled them and found their email and made a request. She worked on it for entire month and was not able to find it for me. Thank you for working so hard for me. I was very pleased with my service from this store.

Hiring a photographer for cello pictures

Brianna Dickerson is an amazing High School young woman who lives in my neighborhood, who loves photography and wants to do it professionally. She once asked if she could shadow the photographer for our sons wedding so she could get some more experience. I loved her pictures so much, I decided to hire her to do the pics for my cello concert.





The first thing we did was have her get some pictures of my new cello. I had been on google image searching for pictures of cellos and have 3 ideas come from that search that I wanted her to try. One was a bunch of cellos of various sizes on a tropical back ground. I liked that because it was dramatic, AND I since I wanted it to have a group of cellos since the concert would have many. I liked the tropical back ground but really wanted a background from somewhere local. Brianna told me that she had taken some pictures of Mt. Timpanogus. It it the mountain I look out my front living room window at every day. The concert is in March so she showed the picture she had taken in March so the picture will show the mountain and how it looks about the same time as the concert. She placed the cellos on the picture of the mountains and this is what she came up with.

Kudos Brianna. It exceeded my expectations. Thanks for using your passion, photography to make my passion, the cello SHINE! I look forward to our other ideas that we are doing soon...
briannanicholephotography.blogspot.com

Riverbottoms Photo Shoot

Kathy Adams a professional photographer got the rest of the pictures we needed with the remaining cellists. The group arrived around 4:00 pm at the location on River Run Drive and unpacked their cellos ready to go. They were told to have 3 poses picked out. I brought pictures with ideas and some props. Kathy arrived and we were ready to go.





Debora went first!




Waiting for their turn! Lyndi, Maddie and Rosie.

Rosie

Dalton

Nathan

Cello players waiting!

Estaban

Maddie

Lyndi

Me and some of the cello players! Great photo shoot!

Cello Photo Shoot for Advertising Posters

My photographer goes to college in the fall so I have needed to move up the plan and get all the pictures I need before she leaves. I had the first photo shoot planned in April but had to cancel due to bad weather. I schedule it again the end of May thinking that by then we would have good weather. A few days before the photo shoot, I checked the weather and it said that it was a 70% chance of rain/snow on Saturday afternoon. For some reason, I just felt like it would be clear for that one hour so I held off canceling it. I told the cellists that I would let them know by 2:30 that day whether or not our 4;30 photo shoot would happen. At 2:00, Brianna the photographer and I talked and decided it was a go. The weather was clear and she said that this overcast was actually the best for pictures so I called everyone and told them it was a go.

As I was calling everyone, I was surprised that a few of the kids I was counting on, bugged out last minute. I needed 14 cellos and ended up with 9. I was a little disappointed but knew that I should always count on things like this happening. Rather than get discouraged, I thanked Heavenly Father for blessing me with so many that did come through, for that was an even greater blessing. I put on a smile, picked up Brianna the photographer and a few cellists that needed rides and off we went. On the way, I did get calls from a few parents and cellists seeking better directions to where we were at.

When I arrived, it was pouring rain. I had a feeling inside that it would clear and had a real peace about it so I went from car to car telling the cellists and those whose parents drove that if it were okay with them, we would just hang out and wait a little longer until it cleared and then have the shoot. Everyone, was really great about it.


About 15 minutes later, the rain did stop. We had all the cellists leave their cellos and come to the orchard where the photo shoot would be and line up in poses by height.


We gave them an idea of what we were doing and then we had them go get their cellos. I had them put garbage bags over them until the last minute just in case. I didn't want to have any instruments damaged with water.

We then headed into the orchard and Brianna took these pictures. She is amazing and the cellists did an amazing job following her direction.












At the end of the photo shoot, I wanted pictures of each person with their cello. I wanted them to have one themselves and I wanted one to show the stars of the show in the lobby as people go in the concert. We let them choose their pose. Here are a few of them.



There are more amazing photos but I wanted to just show a little bit of what we were doing. Come to the concert to see it all.