Murray's Blog

An Introduction From Mr. Murray

05/24/2022

Hello Students, Parents, and Helix Community Members,

My name is Joshua Murray and I am beyond excited to join the Helix community as the Band/General Music teacher for the Helix School District for the 2022 - 2023 school year. Currently, I am finishing up my final assignments at Eastern Washington University and my final concert with West Valley High School as their student teacher. Outside of school commitments, my fiance and I are finalizing our wedding plans as that is coming up really fast (August 2nd, yikes!). It was great meeting so many of you when I came down to Helix for the day. I can tell we have a fun year ahead of us and I hope you're all ready for a great year of music making.

Please refer to this page regularly for announcements regarding upcoming performances as well as other going-ons in the music department. As of right now, we have 2 parades on the horizon right when we return to school so please be practicing the music Mr. Butler distributed before the end of the school year. Here are the dates I currently have for parades. More specific details will be released as we get closer to the events.

Westward Ho Parade:

Another opportunity we are working on is taking the Griswold High School Band to Spokane Valley, WA to perform at a football game with the West Valley High School Band on Friday, October 21st. THIS EVENT IS NOT YET CONFIRMED AND IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS. We would bus up to Spokane early Friday morning, meet with Mr. Westlund at West Valley in the afternoon and get set up to perform. We would have a short rehearsal with the WV Pep Band and then walk to the football field for the game. We would stay in Spokane and the next day go have a WV hang with the WV students and explore some of Spokane in the afternoon. Afterwards, the Griswold High School students would go to the historic FOX Theatre in Spokane and enjoy a performance by the Spokane Symphony Orchestra. We would return to our lodging quarters after the concert and depart back to Helix the following morning. The expenses of this trip would include cost of food, symphony tickets, and money for any activities done during the WV hang. Transportation and lodging costs will be covered. Please consider saving some money over the summer to cover these expenses if interested.

If you have any questions pertaining to this, please feel free to reach out to me at joshua.murray@helixsd.org. Looking forward to this coming year!