“Ordinary kids transformed by and extraordinary musical experience since 1993”

The Louisville Leopard Percussionists
Handbook

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Welcome to the Louisville Leopard Percussionists!

This is your guide to the group. Everything you need to know should be in here. You have the opportunity to participate in the 2024-2025 LLP ensemble season. Here are some things you need to know about LLP. Let’s get started!

The Louisville Leopard Percussionists is an independent, non-profit community based organization.
LLP Mission Statement: The Louisville Leopard Percussionists provide a comprehensive musical experience for children that enriches lives and builds community.
LLP Vision Statement: Participants of diverse backgrounds develop music appreciation, performance skills, proficiency on a variety of percussion instruments, learn to improvise, compose and teach music, and to care for their instruments. These skills build creativity and self-confidence and teach life-long values of discipline, cooperation, leadership, responsibility and community.

Member Responsibilities
Being a member of the Louisville Leopard Percussion ensemble means that you agree to:

• Act like a professional – listen, help pack and unpack, load equipment, and represent the group with pride and maturity.
• Be persistent – You must try, and no whining!! Have a positive attitude – smile, share, cooperate, help and be nice to your fellow Leopards!
• Be dependable – Know your part and come to rehearsals and performances ON TIME!

You can be dismissed from The Louisville Leopard Percussionists if you do not comply with the criteria in this handbook.

Behavior
It’s very important that kids come to rehearsals and gigs with their best behavior.  Any time you are with the Leopards in rehearsals, at performances, or any time you are wearing a Leopard shirt, you are representing our group. We pride ourselves on professional behavior. Individuals with consistent behavior problems can be dismissed from the group.

Parents – it’s not okay for kids to run and be wild at gigs. If you see that happening, please step in and remind the kids of their gig behavior. Your help is greatly appreciated here.

Weekly Rehearsal Schedule
Rehearsals are not optional! You must attend rehearsals in order to participate in the ensemble. It takes an enormous amount of practice time and a very strong family commitment to produce a quality group.

Steel – Monday 5:00-6:30 or 6:30-8:00

Advanced – Tuesday & Thursday 5:00-6:45

Beginners – Tuesday & Thursday 6:00-7:30

Studio – Monday 6:30-8:00

MSE – Wednesday 5:00-6:30

LEAP  2nd/3rd graders – Wednesday 5:00-6:15

LEAP 4th/5th graders – Wednesday 6:30-7:45

You must attend the rehearsals of the group to which you are assigned. If you have questions about the assignment, ask Diane. Students are expected to be at the rehearsal space ON TIME. When rehearsal is over, and any equipment that needs to be put away has been stored, then students will be released. There may be times when extra rehearsals are needed to prepare for an upcoming performance. In that event, advanced notice will be given.

**In some cases, rehearsals do not take place on days when JCPS is not in session, including days when school is cancelled due to inclement weather. Sometimes on snow days the roads are fine after the sun comes out so we will rehearse those days. We will always confirm with you on those days if there is rehearsal or not.

Practice, practice, practice – Students are expected to practice at home. If you do not have anything at home on which to practice, please let Diane know so she can try to help with instruments, or help you with information on where to get instruments. You can practice on a piano, electric keyboard, or piano app on your phone or iPad.  Remember…practice at home, rehearse at rehearsals!

If for some reason you must miss a rehearsal, please let the teachers of your ensemble know as soon as possible. Staff contact info will be emailed to you.  Please save your instructor’s contact number in your phone.

Performances
We will have public performances in and around the community from time to time. As soon as possible after a performance is scheduled you will be notified.  Gigs are mandatory.  Please let teachers know ASAP if you have a conflict with a performance so they can work something out with you.  If there are conflicts, in many cases kids can show up right at hit time or leave right after the last note but we need them there to perform.  Not showing up for a performance without prior notice can result in dismissal from the group.  All gig info will be communicated as soon as it is available.  Please be on time to all performances.  If you have a conflict and must be late, please let teachers know.

Please read all emailed communications to see what to wear to a gig. Clothing requirements can change with the type of gig it is.  Advanced and Steel kids are responsible for setting up and tearing down equipment before and after their gigs. They will all be assigned a job and are expected to do their job at each gig. Please do not take your Advanced or Steel kid from a gig until all the equipment is packed and loaded on the truck. Parents are sometimes needed to help move equipment but not very often.  Parents should not attempt to help set up, tear down, or move equipment unless we ask for assistance. We know you want to help out but sometimes it’s better that the kids and teachers do everything themselves.

Parents should not enter our performance space during a gig. You MUST remain in the audience. Often we have very limited space so having parents enter the performance space creates issues. If you have someone else picking up a child from a gig, please let teachers know. Also makes sure they know the “gig rules”.

Performance Attire
Each performer will need to purchase a new performance T-shirt, black dress pants, and black dress shoes.  Ensembles will order their shirts in the coming months.  You will be emailed this order information.  Ordering a performance shirt is mandatory.  All percussionists must have the following:
• Solid black dress pants
• Solid black shoes (no other colors on shoes, please)
• Performance T-shirt for your ensemble

Please do not deviate from this uniform as everyone is expected to look alike!

Optional Attire:
• Black shorts (for outdoor gigs only)
• Black turtleneck or long sleeved shirt (to wear under LLP shirt for cool weather, outdoor gigs)
• Black casual pants (not faded pants or sweats – dark black jeans are okay)
• Black skirts

If you have a question about your performance attire, text a picture to Diane and she will let you know if it’s okay. If you are in need of black shoes or pants, we do have a small selection of gently used hand-me-downs that you are welcome to check out. If you have pants or shoes that your Leopard has outgrown, please consider donating them to our supply! The performance shirt will be ordered early in the season.  Please consider ordering two shirts for your Leopard when you place your order. It’s always nice to have an extra and shirt or shirts for the whole family!

Tuition
Any question regarding tuition or payments should be directed to Caroline Taylor, our Operations Director, at caroline@leopardmusic.org. No child will be excluded from the LLP due to inability to pay. Special circumstances will be considered. Limited financial assistance may be available. Families who are having financial difficulty should reach out to Caroline, even if it is the middle of the year.  Everyone’s tuition will be paid with an automatic monthly credit card payment which you will setup during the registration period in August.  If paying with  credit card is an issue, Caroline can help you make other arrangements if you contact her.

Who’s Who – LLP Staff
Executive & Artistic Director: Diane Downs
Operations Director: Caroline Taylor

Ensemble Directors:

• Luke Anderson
• Elijah Smith
• Wes Greer
• Dani Markham
• Demond Smith
• Pete Jones
• Jackie Royce
• Max Neblett
• Zoey Mullins

Please go to our website and read all teacher bios so you know about the people teaching your kids.

Board of Directors
Founder: Diane Downs
President: Tricia Williams
Vice-President: Laura Wheeler
Treasurer: Trent Stigler
Secretary: Taylor Garver
Legal: John Scruton
Members-at-Large: Colleen Conley, Kristin Wingfeld, Adam Loewy

Your volunteer LLP Board of Directors works behind the scenes to help provide a quality musical experience for your Leopard. We are a parent/volunteer based organization, and we solicit your help to make things run smoothly! Please ask a board member if you have any questions or what you can do to become involved today! We need parent volunteers from time to time for special projects. If you see a need that you can fill, please let us know.

Social Media: LLP FaceBook Fan Page; Instagram & TikTok
Please make sure you “LIKE” our fan FB page and follow us on Instagram.  We have a social media plan to maximize our impact with our fans. You are free to post pictures and videos from gigs on your personal social media but please DO NOT upload videos on YouTube without approval from Diane. We try to make sure we get good quality videos so that we represent ourselves in the best way possible. We know you are proud of your child when they perform but when the videos involve the entire group, we have to make sure they are high quality. We also hold some videos back to release for different purposes. We like to be able to retain the “element of surprise” with our videos. Anything that we post on our official fan Facebook page or Instagram can and should be shared on your page.  When posting photos, please tag us and use the hashtag #louleopardpercussionists

We are very conscientious about not posting children’s names with their photos on these public social media pages.  Please do not mention names if you choose to comment on any of our posts.  Please let others, such grandparents, know this as well.

Parent Portal
We have a private password protected parent portal on our website. This portal is for PARENTS ONLY. On this portal, you will order t-shirts, access ensemble registration, register for events, find info, . . . The password changes yearly. Please do not share this password with anyone not in our immediate Leopard family. We will send the password in newsletters or emails.

Communication
Newsletters and Emails – We do all of our communication through emails and newsletter.  Beginners, Advanced, Steel and Studio groups will receive a weekly newsletter (usually Saturday or Sunday) of everything going on and coming up for the week. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you read the ENTIRE newsletter weekly. PLEASE READ THE NEWSLETTERS BEFORE you ask a teacher questions. Please DO NOT ask about gig times, what to wear, where gigs are, . . . until you look for the information in the newsletters.  MSE and LEAP do not receive weekly newsletter but will be emailed information as needed for upcoming events.  If anyone else in your family needs to receive Leopard emails, please send their email address to leopardpercussionists@gmail.com and they will be added to the list. If you don’t normally check your email, please make an effort to check for Leopard emails. Make sure you have leopardpercussionists@gmail.com in your address book so our emails don’t end up in your spam folder. Our newsletters come from a different email address. When replying, please make sure you are replying to  leopardpercussionists@gmail.com or we will not receive your message.

We hope you and your family have a fabulous time in the 2024-2025 Louisville Leopard Percussionists!