Quoi de Neuf (Saturday)
Not awake, up, and down to breakfast, perhaps, quite as early as I'd have liked, but no matter... I didn't catch Cecilia Eng's workshop, but did catch the meetings after it.
The NMC had a rehearsal after lunch, and our set was first of the afternoon. It seemed to go reasonably well; one false start, but most of it felt reasonable, though some pieces (inevitably) felt as if they'd gone better during that final rehearsal.
An Auction slot and then the Main Concert followed the NMC. Jackie's conventional set rounded off the afternoon. It all seemed to run smoothly, which from the tech and con-com point of view is the bit that's important; it allows "This is fun!" to take the place of "This will have been fun...".
There were two hour-long sets in the evening. The first was Cecilia Eng's "Fantasy and Miscellania" set, which mixed a few familiar songs with quite a few new-to-me ones, and was delightful. Cosmic Trifle had the second slot, and gave a most enjoyable performance. We gave them headset radio microphones, which substantially reduced the wall of stands, and, it turned out, also did a reasonable job of picking up Silke's violin, which was a bonus.
The evening was rounded off by circles in both rooms, but I was again tired enough that I didn't stay long.
The NMC had a rehearsal after lunch, and our set was first of the afternoon. It seemed to go reasonably well; one false start, but most of it felt reasonable, though some pieces (inevitably) felt as if they'd gone better during that final rehearsal.
An Auction slot and then the Main Concert followed the NMC. Jackie's conventional set rounded off the afternoon. It all seemed to run smoothly, which from the tech and con-com point of view is the bit that's important; it allows "This is fun!" to take the place of "This will have been fun...".
There were two hour-long sets in the evening. The first was Cecilia Eng's "Fantasy and Miscellania" set, which mixed a few familiar songs with quite a few new-to-me ones, and was delightful. Cosmic Trifle had the second slot, and gave a most enjoyable performance. We gave them headset radio microphones, which substantially reduced the wall of stands, and, it turned out, also did a reasonable job of picking up Silke's violin, which was a bonus.
The evening was rounded off by circles in both rooms, but I was again tired enough that I didn't stay long.