In this playing challenge your mission is to learn a new song, Panther Rising by Michael Sweeney, record yourself playing it, and send it to your teacher.

All the recordings will be put together to create a full band.

Step 1 - Get the music.

Because of copyright laws we can't post sheet music on this site. Your teacher will let you know where to find the music.

Step 2 - Learn and practice your part.

Step 3 - Record your part.

So that we are all going the same tempo (speed) we have included a recording to play along with. Make sure you are using headphones to listen to it while you record yourself playing. We want a recording of just you playing, not the recording in the background.

Step 4 - Share your video with your teacher.

For instructions on how to do this click here

Shake off those cobwebs from Easter Break and see if you can solve this musical sudoku puzzle. Send your finished version to your band teacher to see if you got it correct!

Listen to Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Easter Festival.

Your challenge is to listen to it and see how many instruments they can identify...? Email your guesses to your teacher...

About this piece....

This 1888 overture is named for the Svetlïy prazdnik or ‘Bright holiday’, as Easter is known in Russia.

An avowed atheist, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that he wanted to capture 'the transition from the solemnity and mystery of the evening of Passion Saturday to the unbridled pagan-religious celebrations of Easter Sunday morning’. The piece paints vividly the explosion of light and colour at the end of a long, hard Russian winter.

Religious and pagan themes are entwined at the very heart of the work: Rimsky-Korsakov borrowed themes from the Obikhod, a collection of Orthodox chants that since 1848 had been a mandatory part of the liturgy for every church in Russia.

These austere motifs shine through the wild textures of the orchestra, no more so than at 8’35 when a solo tenor trombone (‘a piena voce’) evokes the chanting of a priest.