Concerts, Concerts, Concerts

Thanks for the comments, friends... er, yeah, it's that time of year...

This weekend is our orchestra/choir tour here in New England. We're going to New Hampshire and Cape Cod. It should be fun, except for the fact that I'm really apprehensive about the orchestra portion of the tour. We just had our fall concert last Sunday (we played Brahms' Symphony No. 2, Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, and Vivaldi's Spring from The Four Seasons), and it's hard to simultaneously prepare two programs; on tour we are playing Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Bartok's Rumanian Folk Dances, the Vivaldi again, and... The Lark Ascending by Vaughan-Williams, featuring me as soloist. So I'm apprehensive about The Lark in particular of course, but I'm also apprehensive about the Mozart and Bartok. It didn't help that the tour coordinator is, well, we won't go there, but he did not do a good job introducing to the choir the fact that the orchestra is sharing this tour jointly... resulting in some upset orchestra members and one upset orchestra conductor who is very loyal to her dear hardworking students. (The person coordinating the tour is so out to lunch that I'm fairly convinced that were it not for my dearest Roommate, this tour would be falling to shambles. She and she alone has been organized and on top of things and aiding tremendously in coordinating and planning all the things that must occur for this tour to take place. Good job, Roommate!)

By the way, the concert on Sunday was nice. Michael Ingram made his conducting debut with the GSO in the Saint-Saens, and the audience loved it. It was great - AJ was really packed for this concert! That has never really happened before. And people whooped and cheered... I felt like I had landed in a rock concert instead of our usual orchestra concerts. Hehe. Kate Malczyk played the horn solos in the Brahms, and she was marvelous, resulting in many more cheers from the audience. All in all it was a very fun concert.

But now I have the Vaughan-Williams constantly on my mind and I am a bit worried about the whole thing. However, I have a wonderful best friend who surprised me by picking me up and taking me out for dessert on Monday night after we rehearsed the piece, which was fun and relaxing. This same best friend also took me out yesterday and bought me new shoes to wear for the performances, shoes that will go with my peach colored dress. I am excited about that. FavoriteBoy is the greatest.

I'm off to practice!