a moment out of time
This is not really a blog post.
No, really. I'm just going to relate this moment and be gone. Need some sleep and all...
The scene: Holiday Festival Dress Rehearsal.
The characters:
Sam Araya (principal cellist)
Allen McMurray (conductor/mime/artistic director/pompous ass)
Chris Walls (assistant conductor/cellist/nice guy)
and
Myself (section cellist)
We play through Greensleeves for the Second time that night. Chris is conducting. McMurray is not conducting, but is watching from the audience, checking the sound balance. He notices something and begins heading up to the stage.
The orchestra stops for rehearsal purposes.
Sam: "Nevermind the bowings, play the whole thing as it comes."
Chris is about to give a downbeat, oblivious to the fact the the cellos are in the middle of changing a vital bowing.
McMurray: "Hang on Chris, the cellists are working on bowings."
We had just finished actually, but that's fine. The cello section in general gives Chris the go-ahead, and we begin again. I realize rather quickly that Sam had meant something different than what he said--he meant play the PRINTED bowings, not play the whole thing as-it-comes. I begin to change this, gradually adjusting and trying to see in the dim-ish colored lighting on the stage. In this amount of time McMurray has walked right up along side me.
McMurray [scathingly]: Could you play the same bowings as the stand in front of you please?
Me [dumbfounded]: I'm trying!
McMurray walks away without comment. I spend the rest of rehearsal playing correct bowings and mostly incorrect or messy notes, and never again make eye contact with McMurray.
Scene End
The bottom line: I got told how to play my instrument in an orchestra by an "artistic director," and a mime, after he had JUST SAID to wait for us that we were changing the bowing. In HOLIDAY FESTIVAL.
The moral: Don't be afraid to make a scene with the most powerful man in the room if you know you're right--it will all turn out like that scene in Finding Forester where that black kid becomes some great writer and wins against the jackass teacher...after Sean Connery saves his ass...
No, really. I'm just going to relate this moment and be gone. Need some sleep and all...
The scene: Holiday Festival Dress Rehearsal.
The characters:
Sam Araya (principal cellist)
Allen McMurray (conductor/mime/artistic director/pompous ass)
Chris Walls (assistant conductor/cellist/nice guy)
and
Myself (section cellist)
We play through Greensleeves for the Second time that night. Chris is conducting. McMurray is not conducting, but is watching from the audience, checking the sound balance. He notices something and begins heading up to the stage.
The orchestra stops for rehearsal purposes.
Sam: "Nevermind the bowings, play the whole thing as it comes."
Chris is about to give a downbeat, oblivious to the fact the the cellos are in the middle of changing a vital bowing.
McMurray: "Hang on Chris, the cellists are working on bowings."
We had just finished actually, but that's fine. The cello section in general gives Chris the go-ahead, and we begin again. I realize rather quickly that Sam had meant something different than what he said--he meant play the PRINTED bowings, not play the whole thing as-it-comes. I begin to change this, gradually adjusting and trying to see in the dim-ish colored lighting on the stage. In this amount of time McMurray has walked right up along side me.
McMurray [scathingly]: Could you play the same bowings as the stand in front of you please?
Me [dumbfounded]: I'm trying!
McMurray walks away without comment. I spend the rest of rehearsal playing correct bowings and mostly incorrect or messy notes, and never again make eye contact with McMurray.
Scene End
The bottom line: I got told how to play my instrument in an orchestra by an "artistic director," and a mime, after he had JUST SAID to wait for us that we were changing the bowing. In HOLIDAY FESTIVAL.
The moral: Don't be afraid to make a scene with the most powerful man in the room if you know you're right--it will all turn out like that scene in Finding Forester where that black kid becomes some great writer and wins against the jackass teacher...after Sean Connery saves his ass...