Carmina Burana

May 02, 2024 21:58

Here it is: The last performance of the year, and Dr. K's last night in Illinois.

I'd lucked out this day: My parents had a memorial service to attend, so they left around 9 AM. This also meant that dad and I had gone shopping Friday night, so I was able to have a relaxing morning to myself for once. I had a bill I needed to pay, so I knew I'd be walking to the post office, and I ended up walking around the subdivision as well since I was out. It was my third walk in a week. I think it helps.

Once back home, it was lunchtime and then I took a shower. My plan was to leave between 4:45-5, so showering around 1 or so meant I'd have plenty of time to do my hair. (It worked: My curls were on fire that night.) I also had a bit of chill time as well after that, and even rested for a bit. Then I got an email: Dr. K was revising the itinerary; when he'd originally sent it out earlier in the week, he'd planned on having us rehearse before the concert, but realized that wasn't necessary. Our call time got moved back to 7 PM, I think it was. I figured I'd leave about 6 then. This worked out, as this meant mom was able to ride with me to the concert. Dad had already called off, bummed that Fancy Band hadn't emailed him the information. I had to go, dad, it's not our concert; you're not getting an engraved invitation from us to come. It's the choir's concert. And then he went and found tickets and they were $30 each and he was like, no thank you. Mom then had to find her own ticket and found some like scalping website where they were over $100! Seriously, mom, what are you looking up? Go directly to the venue's website. They're regularly priced there. Ahem. So, anyway, my parents made it back just before 5, and mom was still able to ride with me. Dad was going to have to bring her otherwise and then I'd drive her home after.

I'd planned to park at the big parking deck originally, but when I got there, I decided to try to park closer. My regular lot was full, but there was street parking nearby, so I snagged one of those spots. I saw a few other band members parking in the general vicinity as well. The parking deck next to the concert hall was already full. Yeah...we kind of forgot to consider that you have, what, 100+ people in the choir, 90-ish people in the band, whomever would come to see us, and just the general population hanging out in downtown Naperville on a Saturday night. When I got to the concert hall lot, I didn't even see Dr. K's car. I looked. I wanted to see it one last time, as it's been comforting to me to know he's there...and I guess even he couldn't get into the lot at that time.

And he was there. The itinerary gave the big band room as our meeting spot, but that was taken over by the choir, so we were relegated to the smaller room at the end of the hall, so I had to pass his office to get there. He did still have access to it that night, which was nice. And he was sitting there at his desk, one last time, and I laughed internally--he must've changed after he got there, because there was a pair of pants in a heap on the floor right inside his door. Oh, gosh. How you doin'? He was not thrilled at the moment, because U-Haul was being a pain; they'd gotten him the wrong truck or trailer, but also hadn't given him furniture covers. He couldn't go get them now, because he was here; and they didn't open until 10 AM on Sunday, at which time he hoped to be on the road. He'd hired people to help load the truck and they were coming at 8 AM.

There was also some crankiness regarding how the band was mentioned on the concert posters. Dr. K's last name is not uncommon, but is a spelling variation, and his name was misspelled on the posters. The other thing was that our band was not mentioned by name, but as the "festival orchestra," which has long been their name for the generic musicians that have been cobbled together to play the accompaniment. (Fun fact, in the piece performed prior to my previous Carmina experience, 25 years ago almost to the day, I played in the festival orchestra.) Dr. K said that the marketing and publicity team for the band was really upset about that, and that the choir had had about a year to make that happen, and they didn't. Oh well. He said he wasn't as upset as the marketing team was, but still it was a bummer. At least on the programs, his name was spelled correctly and we were listed under our band name.

I did let him know that I wanted a picture of us in our formalwear before the night was over, and not to leave the building before he said goodbye to me. He was like, I'm not gonna just bolt before the concert's over! Good, heh. As for the picture, he said, we might want to get it after our warmup, because he tends to get pretty sweaty when he conducts. I went, you're only doing 5 movements. ...Oh, right. (Now, cue me anxiously waiting for him after our warmup to grab his phone and get this picture before the concert starts, and he's disappeared off the stage, and ultimately I realized, this isn't going to happen now, is it? Sigh. After the concert it is.)

Saturday ended up being a warm day, very springlike--but humid. Holy cow, it was humid. I started joking that we were all going to pull a Dr. T and start stripping down in the middle of the concert. I felt bad for the guys in tuxes. We all wear clothes with sleeves but at least the girls don't have the double-layer of a suit jacket and then a shirt underneath. And it's not like this was a sparsely-attended concert, either. I'd checked the seating chart in the afternoon and only 5 seats remained. Yes, 5. In the whole of the concert hall. In part due to the large expected audience and the parking woes, I'm sure, our lead clarinet player-slash-tuner was told not to go to the podium to tune us until 7:35; the posted concert start time was 7:30. We were getting restless, as was the audience, because there was literally no movement or sound on stage for several minutes after we should've started, but at least it felt like the air got turned on. It was just the slightest bit cooler, but it helped.

The performance overall went pretty well. Dr. T walked out, took the applause, and then got right to it. There were no announcements whatsoever.
--On one of Dr. K's pieces, at the very end, one of the percussionists must have accidentally dropped a mallet and it landed on a xylophone bar. Luckily it was on the correct note and came right as he was flourishing his hands, so it almost looked planned...but it wasn't. He kind of smiled/laughed at that.
--The tenor soloist sang on one movement. Just before he comes in, the band has this big "boom!" chord following the really high bassoon solo. (She did pretty well but had a couple minor issues, bummer.) The chord really startled him; he jumped and looked back a little.
--The soprano soloist looked like a princess. Mom thought she looked like Cinderella. She had on this silver-gray dress with pearls on it. It had lacing up the back. I tended not to play on her pieces so I just stared at her dress...and her tattoos. Yep, it's a new generation of singers here.
--The last movement Dr. K performed--which was the last piece he'd conduct as a member of the faculty--is one that I played on, so I appreciated that, but it was also the one that had these piccolo high Es at the end of the phrases. Because the soprano soloist was standing there and blocking his vision, M couldn't see Dr. K's conducting. The first one, he was a little late on it; the second, a little early. But the Es came out. He'd been a bit tentative on them, because they're supposed to be piano, but Dr. K kept telling him, don't worry about volume; just play. So he did.
--B, being the flute soloist, got a couple of acknowledgements and shoulder pats from the directors--easy to do when you're on the end of the front row.

Otherwise I was pretty much in the moment. I think the band was bummed that it didn't appear to be recorded; we're so used to every performance being put on tape, basically. Oh well. This isn't our show; we're just along for the ride. And we'll just have to keep it in our memories. We also had to say goodbye to a longtime member, Eb clarinet D. He'd been with us since the beginning and only missed time after he'd had a heart attack last year. He is retiring in 6 weeks (now down to 5) and moving to Florida. This was his last performance with the band, though he said he still plans on coming up in the summers for the prestigious area summer band where a lot of our members came from. Since Regular Band directly conflicts, I probably won't see him again, so I made sure to thank him for playing with us and wished him luck in the future. He's a good guy.

Speaking of people who are moving to Florida...Dr. K was walking around the band telling people to put their folders on his desk. (Oh, and while the audience was still filing in, he went, hey band! But kind of loudly, to the point where everyone in the area quieted down to listen, thinking it was something important. He went, whoops, sorry, that was my marching band voice...I just wanted to say, we're going to *restaurant* after!) He was going around to the various rows and repeating that to people. I got up to talk to him and he was all, folder on my desk! And I went, do you have your phone on you? Ah, no, he'd left it in his office, so we then went to go grab it. On the way, we passed one of the percussionists, and as we hit backstage he said that our percussion section was really, really good and he's really proud of them. Wow, that's great; it had had many issues in the first couple seasons. He let me know that most of the players this year were great, but there was one person he'd had to have a tough talk with and ultimately they're no longer with the band. Ah, well, do what you have to do. I'm glad to hear we finally have a solid section. It was pretty tough back there for a while.

We get to his office and he's ready to do a selfie, and I said, no, I want a full-on outfit picture. Okay, then, let's go find someone to take the picture. We went back on stage and he grabbed clarinet K, one of the board members, to take the picture, but before I can walk over there, there's this petite male choir member walking past us. We let him pass--we were near the stairs down to the audience--and Dr. K put his hand on my shoulder and we took a few pics. Director A was standing next to K and asked to have some pictures taken with Dr. K as well, so K took A's phone and I took Dr. K's phone and we got a few pictures of them together, which was nice. A and Dr. K started talking a little, and I told her, don't worry, I'll be nicer to you than I am to him, and she went, I'm gonna hold you to that! I told her she was welcome to tattle on me as necessary. I think at that point I took my leave so I could go put my stuff away...and oops, my folder ended up in my flute bag...

I went out in the hall to run to the bathroom before leaving, and a group of people were outside Dr. K's office. One was bassoon V, the college student in Indiana. She was apologizing for not making it to the dress rehearsal, but her car was part of a crime scene. ...Holy cow, I'd heard about that, that there was some guy in, I don't know, a barricade situation not far from camp. It just so happened that V was in that area and her car was parked where the police blockade was, so she wasn't able to leave. She felt bad about it. Oh, gosh, don't apologize for that; I'm glad you're safe. Understand that the guy involved in the situation did not make it out alive. It might have been at this time that flute B came by to let Dr. K know that the original post-concert gathering place was not ideal; only 3 tables remained and the rest were cleared to make room for a dance floor, and the place was packed. Flute M and big clarinet T were already there and let her know. Dr. K then gave a second location and said he'd email everybody. (I felt my phone go off on the way to the car.) I probably said something to him at that point, and I know I gave him several hugs, like maybe after the pictures were taken on stage, and maybe that particular visit to his office. I did finally go to the bathroom, and when I came back people were still hanging around, so I poked my head in and said one last goodbye--only it came out, bye, hon.

I'd already let mom know prior to arriving that it was in her best interest to go find a seat and wait for me in the lobby after the performance; I wasn't sure what things would be like afterward. I fully expected to be completely in tears, to be honest with you, and surprised myself by keeping it together that night. (The grief comes and goes in waves. I will have a full-on breakdown just out of the blue, whenever a particular thought hits me, or when I pass a car like his on the road.) I found her sitting by the big windows, and flute K was there with her parents, and she asked if Dr. K was still there. I mean, he was a couple minutes ago! So she went to the back hallway, and mom and I followed her, but by that time his office door was closed. It was entirely possible he was simply changing, but it's also possible he'd left. K then went back to her parents in the lobby and mom and I went out the back door.

Now, after we took the pictures on his phone, I asked him to send them to me, but then he immediately got bombarded by other things. I get it. Lots of people wanted to say goodbye to him. I ended up texting him a reminder just in case, and he said he'd seen it during my middle office visit (that must have been the last hug I gave him) and he'd send the pictures once he got a moment to himself. That didn't happen before I went to bed, which was fine; I hope he had a good time having one last hangout with the band. That's not something I've ever done, so it wasn't a big deal for me not to go, plus I had mom with me and she'd had a long day. I fell asleep before midnight but woke up when my TV turned off a bit later, and thought to check my phone, and there was his text. Seven pictures, with the caption, we even got the little guy! So there were two pictures of the short-statured choir guy, four of the two of us, and one of him and Director A. Thank you. I appreciate those.

Post script: I also had asked him to reach out to me when he got to his hotel on Sunday. He said, if you don't hear from me after 7-9 hours, reach out. I did, about 7:30 PM; he replied that he had 1.5 hours to go. Sheesh. It was about quarter after 9 that he let me know he'd made it. I didn't hear from him on Monday and didn't want to bother him--plus it was a late night with Regular Band--but on Tuesday morning I asked if he'd arrived and he had; he was unpacking at the time. Okay. Phew. I'd said I'd be in a heightened state of anxiety until I knew he got there safely, so that was a relief. I've left him alone since then since I'm sure he's tired and got a lot of stuff to do, but I plan to reach out over the weekend to see how things are going.

dr. k, band, concert

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