it's a community band (albeit one with a number of professional musicians, and which plays at a pretty high level), and the concert schedule was emailed out, along with a google form to say if you can do certain concerts or not. i signed up for all three. so rehearsals begin in a few weeks, and i'll have basically weekly rehearsals for a few months. whew, feels like i'm young again. except i'm not struggling to learn shostakovich and saint-saëns this time.
something i think about a lot these days is how compressed time was when i started playing music, and i how i didn't really appreciate that. i played in a youth orchestra for two years. my university wind ensemble for five. high school band for four. another year and i'll equal my time in the most formative ensemble i played in, the one with the final concert that'll forever be my measuring stick.