concert weekend
Overview of what was supposed to happen: Concerts Saturday night and Sunday night, both with four smaller pieces for the first half, a break, and then Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Variations" with a cello soloist (Delphine) from Paris for the second half. I was playing the solo I mentioned here on Sunday.
The first thing that happened was that I woke up sick on Saturday. Headache and sore throat. My host parents made me tea with honey, gave me medicine, and told me to stay put. I was a bit better by the evening, but I was a bit out of it for the rehearsal before the concert. Strange thing, though: orchestra has been a bit like pit in the sense that they've been progressively bringing in the instruments that they need ("It's '76 trombones', and we have... none..."). They brought in another percussionist the day of the concert. Not cool ("How do you know when a percussionist is at the door?" "His knocking slows"). We went to the theatre cafe for a snack, and then started the concert.
The first half went by without incident, as far as I can remember, except for one thing that had nothing to do with the music: see, at Ithaca, we always rehearse how everyone has to stand up every time the conductor comes on stage, and I've always laughed, but apparently this has its uses. Like this weekend. The second time Stéphane came out, half the orchestra stood, which made for an awkward situation and an unhappy conductor.
The second half went okay as well, save for one botched variation (not quite sure what happened there). So we were standing at the end during the applause, and Stéphane and Delphine were going on and offstage... and then Stéphane came back up to the podium and called up an encore of Variation 10: the variation with the cello solo followed by the English horn solo. Oh, if I was playing that on Saturday instead of Sunday, I don't quite know what I would have done with myself. As it was, I was quite bemused at the idea and made a mental note to find out of he planned on pulling that on Sunday as well. We did an encore of the final Variation as well, and failing to find Stéphane after the concert, I just went home (forgetting my jeans that I'd changed out of before the concert in the process, so I had to wear black pants around on Sunday :P).
On Sunday, I slept in in the case that I was going to be sick again, but fortunately, I didn't have a headache, even though the sore throat remained a bit. I managed to get to church at the end of the service to say goodbye to people there, came back home for lunch, and got a ride from Alex to the church in St Sébastien (after he stopped being disfunctional and having to pick up his house keys from his wife's choral concert to get his stuff from inside their house). I was reeeeeeally hoping that during rehearsal, we'd go through Variation 10 so I could play it once with the orchestra before the concert. The only other time I've played it was during one rehearsal when Alex offered it to me and I took it just for fun - wasn't working on it at that point or anything. Nope, Stéphane cuts us off right before my entrance to work on other things. Mfhglafphaf. I asked him if we were going to do "that thing with Variation 10 again, like yesterday," but he didn't know. I kind of figured that if we didn't do it, he hated me, and if we did, the first time wasn't good enough, so he was giving me a chance at redemption OR that he was hoping Alex would take it that time, even though it really would have had nothing to do with me at all ;).
So after another smooth first half, I was sitting there trying to figure out PHRASING while meanwhile trying to keep my clarinet from freezing in the stone church that didn't have much heating. But when I went to play Variation 10, I learned a little something about solos: you have to play them LOUDLY.
Now, the longest solo I think I've had during a concert was 8 measures long and at kind of a fast tempo (I'm thinking Second Suite mouvement 4 here, if that helps anyone). This one was slow and was 32 measures long. It was also almost as exposed as the solo in second suite, so overall volume didn't really even occur to me. But when I looked up right after I started, I saw Stéphane and Alex frantically making upward motions with their palms: "play louder". I played louder. Then I looked up again. Touch the ear, raise the palm again, shrug. "can't hear you". And thus it went. At the end, Alex told me to pull my barrel out. Was I out of tune. Yeah. Crap. So I got cranky that I blew it, but finished the piece without incident. I heard later that the flutes were out of tune as well. Then we were standing for the applause.... "Variation 10". Alex asked if I wanted him to do it. I just made a face and pulled the barrel out a little bit more in defiance. I was going to get that thing. And I did :). No complaints from the podium or my left side this time. Scoooooore.
I did go ask Stéphane about the tuning for the first run through after the concert, but he didn't seem to notice a problem there, so either he was paying more attention to volume, or it wasn't that far off (I didn't really notice it myself, so hopefully the latter). He was happy with the second run-through, so that's all that matters.
Unfortunately, they only recorded Saturday night (to my knowledge), but I'm going to go listen to it tonight after getting a preview of next semester's music that I'll never play. Hopefully, that will be put online soon.
The first thing that happened was that I woke up sick on Saturday. Headache and sore throat. My host parents made me tea with honey, gave me medicine, and told me to stay put. I was a bit better by the evening, but I was a bit out of it for the rehearsal before the concert. Strange thing, though: orchestra has been a bit like pit in the sense that they've been progressively bringing in the instruments that they need ("It's '76 trombones', and we have... none..."). They brought in another percussionist the day of the concert. Not cool ("How do you know when a percussionist is at the door?" "His knocking slows"). We went to the theatre cafe for a snack, and then started the concert.
The first half went by without incident, as far as I can remember, except for one thing that had nothing to do with the music: see, at Ithaca, we always rehearse how everyone has to stand up every time the conductor comes on stage, and I've always laughed, but apparently this has its uses. Like this weekend. The second time Stéphane came out, half the orchestra stood, which made for an awkward situation and an unhappy conductor.
The second half went okay as well, save for one botched variation (not quite sure what happened there). So we were standing at the end during the applause, and Stéphane and Delphine were going on and offstage... and then Stéphane came back up to the podium and called up an encore of Variation 10: the variation with the cello solo followed by the English horn solo. Oh, if I was playing that on Saturday instead of Sunday, I don't quite know what I would have done with myself. As it was, I was quite bemused at the idea and made a mental note to find out of he planned on pulling that on Sunday as well. We did an encore of the final Variation as well, and failing to find Stéphane after the concert, I just went home (forgetting my jeans that I'd changed out of before the concert in the process, so I had to wear black pants around on Sunday :P).
On Sunday, I slept in in the case that I was going to be sick again, but fortunately, I didn't have a headache, even though the sore throat remained a bit. I managed to get to church at the end of the service to say goodbye to people there, came back home for lunch, and got a ride from Alex to the church in St Sébastien (after he stopped being disfunctional and having to pick up his house keys from his wife's choral concert to get his stuff from inside their house). I was reeeeeeally hoping that during rehearsal, we'd go through Variation 10 so I could play it once with the orchestra before the concert. The only other time I've played it was during one rehearsal when Alex offered it to me and I took it just for fun - wasn't working on it at that point or anything. Nope, Stéphane cuts us off right before my entrance to work on other things. Mfhglafphaf. I asked him if we were going to do "that thing with Variation 10 again, like yesterday," but he didn't know. I kind of figured that if we didn't do it, he hated me, and if we did, the first time wasn't good enough, so he was giving me a chance at redemption OR that he was hoping Alex would take it that time, even though it really would have had nothing to do with me at all ;).
So after another smooth first half, I was sitting there trying to figure out PHRASING while meanwhile trying to keep my clarinet from freezing in the stone church that didn't have much heating. But when I went to play Variation 10, I learned a little something about solos: you have to play them LOUDLY.
Now, the longest solo I think I've had during a concert was 8 measures long and at kind of a fast tempo (I'm thinking Second Suite mouvement 4 here, if that helps anyone). This one was slow and was 32 measures long. It was also almost as exposed as the solo in second suite, so overall volume didn't really even occur to me. But when I looked up right after I started, I saw Stéphane and Alex frantically making upward motions with their palms: "play louder". I played louder. Then I looked up again. Touch the ear, raise the palm again, shrug. "can't hear you". And thus it went. At the end, Alex told me to pull my barrel out. Was I out of tune. Yeah. Crap. So I got cranky that I blew it, but finished the piece without incident. I heard later that the flutes were out of tune as well. Then we were standing for the applause.... "Variation 10". Alex asked if I wanted him to do it. I just made a face and pulled the barrel out a little bit more in defiance. I was going to get that thing. And I did :). No complaints from the podium or my left side this time. Scoooooore.
I did go ask Stéphane about the tuning for the first run through after the concert, but he didn't seem to notice a problem there, so either he was paying more attention to volume, or it wasn't that far off (I didn't really notice it myself, so hopefully the latter). He was happy with the second run-through, so that's all that matters.
Unfortunately, they only recorded Saturday night (to my knowledge), but I'm going to go listen to it tonight after getting a preview of next semester's music that I'll never play. Hopefully, that will be put online soon.