Eric Whitacre is the man
Fairly exhausting day. Had our first rehearsal, from 12:45 to 5pm, with about 10 minutes total of break. But it was awesome. Eric Whitacre is amusing, and mostly he's just adorable. He's totally in love with this musical, as he's been working on it for the better part of ten years now, and he's just really excited any time we sing something that he's been imagining for ages. And he does a little squeal, and we all laugh. It's great.
He kind of showed up out of nowhere. Like, I was just sitting in my seat looking at my music, and then suddenly everyone was cheering, and Eric was on the stage, and it was exciting. You know, I'm sort of surprised how calm I am about this whole thing. I mean, Eric Whitacre is my favorite composer. And yet, working with him is just like, very natural, very ordinary. He's not actually as good a conductor as my college director, but his music is so good that it doesn't really matter. It's interesting, the music. It's definitely Whitacre, but it's different from his other pieces, I think because it's such a huge scale, and his other works are no more than a few minutes long. Also these pieces have intense synths in the background.
But yeah, Eric is really chill, and very personable with us. That's what's great about working with someone you admire, but who isn't actually too famous yet, because they appreciate their fans. I mean, plenty of famous people appreciate their fans, but not conductors usually. He's really happy that every one of us is there, and he lets us know. I'm surprised how intimate it feels, given that there are 420 people. It really doesn't feel/look like 400. It's more like 100 or 150. But there you have it.
So yeah. Taking pictures of the dress tomorrow morning to send in to the contest. At this point I'm so worn out from working on it non-stop all week that I don't care if we do well, I just want to get it over with. I feel bad, because my mom is picking up a lot of the slack. I'm just so pooped... blah.
He kind of showed up out of nowhere. Like, I was just sitting in my seat looking at my music, and then suddenly everyone was cheering, and Eric was on the stage, and it was exciting. You know, I'm sort of surprised how calm I am about this whole thing. I mean, Eric Whitacre is my favorite composer. And yet, working with him is just like, very natural, very ordinary. He's not actually as good a conductor as my college director, but his music is so good that it doesn't really matter. It's interesting, the music. It's definitely Whitacre, but it's different from his other pieces, I think because it's such a huge scale, and his other works are no more than a few minutes long. Also these pieces have intense synths in the background.
But yeah, Eric is really chill, and very personable with us. That's what's great about working with someone you admire, but who isn't actually too famous yet, because they appreciate their fans. I mean, plenty of famous people appreciate their fans, but not conductors usually. He's really happy that every one of us is there, and he lets us know. I'm surprised how intimate it feels, given that there are 420 people. It really doesn't feel/look like 400. It's more like 100 or 150. But there you have it.
So yeah. Taking pictures of the dress tomorrow morning to send in to the contest. At this point I'm so worn out from working on it non-stop all week that I don't care if we do well, I just want to get it over with. I feel bad, because my mom is picking up a lot of the slack. I'm just so pooped... blah.