A Vague Cello Update

I missed a week of orchestra and a cello lesson while I was away, and my lesson this weekend has also been cancelled because my teacher is out of town for her birthday. I have no problem with that; I will just work on my Bach gavotte on my own. I will turn it into a celloy operatic aria, and surprise my teacher when we finally do get together again at the beginning of May. (May! Good grief.)

We had a group lesson on Sunday, where only half the older students could make it (the younger ones have their own group lesson just before we do). It was pretty focused, though, and things are starting to come together. My teacher ended up deciding to transpose the accompaniment for one of the quartet pieces, so I'm transposing it on my own, something I do because I think it will be good for me, but I'm always worried I will make tonnes of mistakes.

This past rehearsal at orchestra we went in early. There is a Beaver colony that meets in the church basement right before we use it, and they arranged for us to do a presentation for them. It was a lot of fun. They had a basic intro before we got there, and a chance to explore the timpani, then they coloured some handouts while we all set up. Our conductor introduced the instruments one by one, having the principal of each section play the first phrase of "Twinkle" so the boys could hear how they sounded different. Then we played the first half of the first movement of the Haydn Symphony 83 that we'd done for the last concert so they could listen for the chicken theme, and after that we played one of our new pieces, Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance march no. 4. It was very enjoyable; they were bright and responsive. When things were breaking up at the end their leader told us that they were the biggest group in the West Island; other colonies had between five and ten kids, but they had thirty! "I like to think it's our great programming," he said.

Then we spent the entire night on the first movement of the Mendelssohn, with a play-through of the second movement at the end. Lots of really hard work. Our conductor assures us that the first movement is the hardest thing in the concert. If pressed to name a favourite symphony of all time, I would have to say it is this one, Mendelssohn's Reformation symphony, so I am loving every single moment of this. Playing a piece of music in orchestra means I get to break music down and visit it from the inside out, something that adds infinite richness to my enjoyment of the music both on the stand and via a CD player, and I'm so incredibly thrilled to have the opportunity to do that with this piece.

My back was murderously painful, though. Stacking wooden chairs that slant backwards are not optimal for a cello payer to begin with, but my lower back was moderately screwed up thanks to two train rides and a week of sleeping in a bed not my own. I stretched it out as best I could at the break, and ended up on the floor to try to give it some relief. It had gotten steadily worse after I got home; I finally asked HRH to massage it and get rid of the walnut-sized knot on the left side, and that plus some tiger balm seems to have helped a lot. I really, really need to get one of those firm orthopaedic wedge cushions that a couple of the other cellists in the section use.

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February 2010 Summary

17 February 2010:

After a severe setback yesterday wherein I lost most of the day to researching ways to embed fonts on a Mac, and then finding that using Open Office to make a PDF had resulted in borking my document (it was supposed to make things easier!), I finally finished the cello manual layout and proofing today.

It’s been a really fun six weeks, taking a text document and doing a basic layout, then a copyedit, then the endless tweaking that happens when two people trade a document back and forth once a week for a while. Some of that tweaking was to condense the layout; some fixed things that became problematic; some involved adding material; some fixed errors that popped up thanks to the document format. Still, six weeks from plain text to a finished PDF ready for printing is a really good timeline for two busy people. (I come from a publishing world where three to six months for all this is the norm!) I’m crossing my fingers that there aren’t any problems with the printing process. (That’s what all the PDF and font-embedding strife was about. It was a whole thing.)

And today, apart from finishing the book PDF, I managed to wipe myself out having a shower, scrubbing the bathroom, and doing yoga. The fibro is really in my bad books these days. It would help if it gave me some sort of warning sign instead of just handing me a tonne of fatigue and pain all at once when everything seems to be going well.

I have a freelance project due on Friday that I really wanted done earlier this week, but PDFs and fibro are messing that up. I have orchestra tonight, and I fully expect to perform horribly despite practising this week. It occurred to me that I might discuss dropping orchestra with my teacher. Or taking a break. It’s been a really tough winter for me in a lot of ways, and orchestra’s getting trounced in my priority list. I love this new conductor, and I love the music, but I just can’t handle it capably. I know the rest of the section feels the same way, though, so I suspect I’m overreacting in a maudlin self-defeatist fashion borne of fatigue. Still; I really don’t want to drop it, but I feel so stressed about it that I don’t know if the tradeoff is worth it.

Time for winter to be over, I think. The cold and damp is really bothering the fibro.

18 February 2010:

The thing is, if you stick with something long enough, the bad parts usually get better.

Yes, orchestra rocked. Why would I drop something that challenges and rewards me? When it’s going badly it’s bad, but when it works, when everything comes together, it’s glorious. And I wouldn’t give that up.

Besides, Butterworth’s “The Banks of Green Willow” alone makes up for any frustration. (Including the frustrating passage of stormy strings a third of the way through where everything sounds like it’s falling apart, but is actually building before the absolutely gorgeous climax.) I’ve played some very pretty things, but I find this piece absolutely spectacular and it gets me every time. The transition in the middle is throat-clenchingly exquisite, and then the arrangement of the folk song at the end (the same one that Vaughn Williams used as the second movement of his Folk Song Suite, “The Bonny Boy”; Butterworth and Vaughn Williams were both interested in English folk songs, and Butterworth worked with Cecil Sharp to collect them) is gentle and ethereally beautiful in its simplicity.

I loved this piece even before I found out that Butterworth was killed in the First World War, after destroying the music he though unworthy of survival should he not return. His remaining catalogue is slim, and you can’t help but wonder what he destroyed, and what he might have composed had he lived through the war. Knowing it’s one of the few pieces that survived makes it all the more precious.

23 February 2010:

My monthly group cello lesson later that afternoon was great; we had a new student there, and did some good work on the Corelli. I’m having a stupid time counting, for some reason; I got lost in the middle of everything that I wasn’t playing the first cello line for (I’m fine with first and whatever the bottom line is, but I’m wobbly on the middle voices because I’m not sure how the harmonies are supposed to move or sound like yet). Despite this, our first read-through of Joplin’s “The Entertainer” went pretty well. We sight-read a new piece, “Soldier’s Joy,” that will be paired with “The Ashokan Farewell,” as well as getting the official new music for our quartets and trios. I really enjoy my group lessons, and I wish we could do them more often, although I know they’re a tonne of work for my teacher and the scheduling is enough of a nightmare.

October 2009 summary

13 October 2009:

Friday night I had a good cello lesson. We cleared up some fingerings in the Beethoven symphony, then I said I wanted to work on recital stuff instead of my lesson stuff. I’d been playing on Thursday night with the practice mute (a good hour and a quarter of practice, hurrah, although it meant I didn’t sleep well) and was struggling with making an Air by Bach sound properly smooth, and I’d worked on the Mozart duet and Ashokan Farewell too. I also finally said I needed to walk away from the Berceuse, because I was fighting it so much that it was causing more problems that it was solving. My teacher said that leaving it wasn’t a problem; we’d revisit it later. Although, she added, I’d been making progress on it, even though I couldn’t tell. The Mozart duet had good parts in it, and I have notes to help me focus on string crossings and smoother shifts. We worked out better fingerings for the Bach that made it so much easier, so I’m feeling better about that too. I don’t feel as overwhelmed by it all any more.

15 October 2009:

Orchestra was good last night. At least, it sucked less that it had for the past three weeks, so things must be better. I still need to work on some of the Beethoven trouble spots. Some I have down, others I don’t (which is an incredibly helpful statement, I know). We got to play the Schubert, which was nice because I could play it with no trouble even without practice, and we sight-read the first movement of the second Weber clarinet concerto (well, it shouldn’t have been sight-reading, because I’ve had it for two weeks) and that wasn’t as much of a disaster as it could have been once I remembered that we were in E flat major. It always sounds so wrong until you hear everyone else playing.

19 October 2009:

Saturday AM: Awful cello lesson. It’s been a while since I almost broke into tears. I’m at the I-can’t-do-anything-and-I-don’t-understand-why point.

26 October 2009:

An excellent cello lesson always begins the weekend nicely. Things have improved over the past couple of weeks, which is great, but I’m still a month behind where I ought to be. The six-week breakdown of technique while my subconscious implemented the new lesson stuff really crippled my progress in orchestra.

30 October 2009:

On Wednesday M. came over for our first rehearsal together of the Mozart duet we’re playing for the recital in December. Nothing like a practice session with your duet partner to emphasize that you’re really not as bad as you think you are. I sounded much better and steadier than I thought I did, with pretty good string crossings. This piece is all about waves and flow and steadiness, so I’m further along than I thought. There are still places that go ‘crunch’ so there is lots of room for improvement, but I felt a lot better about it than I did going in to the rehearsal. Orchestra that night wasn’t a compete disaster either: I got some of the harder bits but flaked out on the easier patches at the end of the Beethoven. I hate doing that. Just under one month till the fall concert, too.

Orchestra Again

Nothing like being the de facto principal cellist in the absence of the first chair on the first day of orchestra… and not embarrassing myself. Go me!

Yes, it was the first orchestra rehearsal of the season last night, and our principal cellist couldn’t make it. It’s entirely possible that the late notice caught her with a double-booking. Anyway, our new conductor graciously asked if I wanted to move into the first chair and I said, “Oh, no; I’m good right here, thanks.” So everyone else shuffled so as to be closer and the third chair moved up to sit first. And I discovered something: Even though we were sight reading, in general my rhythm and timing is more accurate. We all ran into problems with a badly printed copy of the music and nasty accidental-sown runs (oh, Beethoven, I love you but you’re a bastard, with your notation tricks of slurs across beats and those damn modulations within scale-like passages), but I was pretty reliable in entrances and so forth. I did lose my place more than I’d liked in the runs because everything was squished together, and I have trouble ignoring people who are playing the wrong thing at the wrong time to focus on my own technically correct stuff. Still, it was a good time, and bodes very, very well for the season. Also, yay for my intonation. Lessons and a new cello are working well.

And in related news, I can’t listen to the Schubert ‘Rosamunde’ theme without singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in my head. (Now you can’t either. Ha.)

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Weekend Roundup

I've been low on fibro spoons the past few days. Here's a brief recap of the weekend.

Friday: I moved my office around. HRH stopped by on his way to get more paint, and helped. The window is now at my back. I like the new layout; curiously, there is more room in the office now. We'll see if the fresh perspective helps the writing process. At least now people can't come in the door and watch what I'm doing over my shoulder. I managed to get twenty pages of Orchestrated edited, a minor miracle considering I spent three hours on the first page. I could see that it wasn't right, but I couldn't fix it properly, either. Cello lesson Friday night, the last before fall. The Suzuki book 2 review is officially over (yaaaaay!) although my teacher wants me to further polish the last two pieces on our time off. My summer homework: working through Position Pieces vol 1, working the page of exercises she wrote out, reviewing book 1 in thumb position, and looking at the first piece in book 3. Cool links of the day: Ottawa's NAC Orchestra puts music archive online; and I discovered Kevin Fox, whom I can only describe as a cellist with the voice of Elvis Costello.

Saturday: HRH headed out to do a half-day of painting to finish up Mousme's kitchen, so the boy and I made cookies, painted with watercolours, and watched video of Neil Peart. Friday afternoon I had timed a Craiglist query perfectly and snagged a used Rock Band set for the Wii, and Saturday after the boy's nap we collected it and set it up. The included USB hub, which is supposed to pull power from the Wii when plugged in, doesn't, so we can only use two peripherals at once till we find a powered hub. As no one is particularly moved to do vocals, this is fine for now.





We need another guitar peripheral so I can play bass while the boy rocks out on guitar (perhaps we won't plug his in). I'm not enamoured of the fret keys on the guitar; the red one seems to be stubborn on the lower frets, while the green is stubborn on the higher ones. I suppose I'll get used to it. (I am amused that I refer to them as 'lower' and 'higher' when they have nothing to do with the frequency of sound produced. Well, they'd be lower or higher if it was a real guitar.)

Saturday night HRH and I were supposed to break the Rock Band set in properly, but I was too tired and he couldn't really drum while the boy was asleep because the kit sounds exactly like my cousin Iain's practise pads used to sound when he practised for pipe and drum band (in other words, loud and sharp).

Sunday: We ran errands. Looked for a powered USB hub but couldn't find one for less than $50 so left it for now; picked up the silencer pads for the drum kit; bought Tal and Kristie's housewarming present (breadmaker!); bought an ice cream maker for us (something I've been on the fence about for two years). Picked up a couple of 4 litre jugs of water because despite promising there would be news on Friday, LaSalle still has us all under a boil-water advisory. Early lunch and nap, then off to beautiful, bucolic Hudson for a Very Important Orchestra Meeting, at which we did a recap of the year and the conductors we've evaluated. We chose our new conductor (thereby also approving the substantial fee increase) by unanimous vote. We'd intended the vote to be by secret ballot, but people were just so enthusiastic that it wasn't necessary. While the orchestra met, the boy ran around and around the gorgeous property, played with the dog and counted frogs in the waterfall/pond. Back home, made dinner, put boy to bed, set Blade up as the Responsible Adult On Site (Now With Rock Band) and headed out to an RPG, which hadn't met to play in, um, very long. Hurrah for fully-assembled parties, and action finally beginning. Feels like things are underway at last.

I'm so very excited about this new conductor. I think he can do a lot for us, and I'm looking forward to seeing how we can be better integrated into the local music scene.

The only bad thing about the weekend (other than being short on spoons) was buying rechargeable batteries that would only work in a proprietary charger not once, but twice. Two different brands; two different sets of tiny tiny fine print. Not amused.

Right; on to editing.

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All Cello, All The Time

Yesterday was all cello, all the time. Well, not precisely; I did three hours of errands and grocery shopping and such in the morning. But I had an excellent two-hour duet rehearsal with my partner, then had half an hour to tidy up, and headed then off to my cello lesson. It was great to hear my teacher say that it was really coming together, and there were just twiddly things to do to the duet. When I was packing up she said that in general I was sounding good: my bow was more confident, and my intonation was really improving. It put me in a great mood as I left, and it stayed with me for the rest of the day, even through the traffic from hell on the highway that nearly made me late to collect the boy from the caregiver. (Hello, construction season. I have not missed you.)

The night before had been orchestra, so in effect I had five hours of cello in the space of eighteen waking hours. *flexes her callouses* I have to find a way to keep my left hand relaxed through the Vaughn Williams; I'm using way too much pressure. It's not like I have to press any harder with my left fingers if I'm playing louder, after all. It's all about bow speed.

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Photos!

Photos have been posted of the spring LCO spring concert, featuring a remarkable number that include the second cellist.

That's really a pretty cello. I like it up close, but it's nice to see that it carries itself off quite respectably from a distance, too.

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First Rehearsal With The New Guest Conductor!

First rehearsal with the new test conductor last night, and what fun. He had us playing the Schubert passably in pretty much no time at all. He's younger than I thought (by quite a bit) and an oboist. We were missing an oboe so he pulled his out and wandered around playing the oboe theme while conducting. It was mildly alarming to have an oboist wander at you at various points, but it certainly encouraged each section to play out when they were supposed to. He greeted us in French and talked to us equally in both languages, which impressed us. I already like his musicality and his personality. There were grumpy people making their grumpiness known, but that's not unusual, alas.

Best news of the night: One of the pieces he's considering programming is Ralph Vaughn Williams' English Folk Song suite! I bounced in my chair with excitement. (Otherwise I sat there in mild pain, because the particular chair I was in slanted nastily toward the back. Ugh. Time to look into one of those firm wedge cushions.)

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In Which She Chatters About Cello Stuff

It's confirmed: we're trying out a third conductor tonight! And I am very happy because there was a bit of kerfuffle about memberships dues not covering what this conductor requested as his fee, but the majority of members were okay with paying a supplement to obtain his services for this concert. If we decide he's the one for us then membership fees will go up, and I'm perfectly fine with that; we pay a ridiculously low fee as it is, and more than doubling it only brings us to ten dollars per month the orchestra plays each year. If he's as good as his reputation suggests he is, we'd be getting a real deal. Also, audiences would increase because of his affiliation with other musical events and organisations, and our recruiting of new members would also increase. There's a lot of potential here.

Apparently we are playing Schubert's third symphony as the main course for the July concert. So naturally, while looking for audio reference, I discovered that I own only the first, second, and fourth symphonies. I went away and thought about it for a while, then remembered that I'd bought a full six-symphony set the last time we did a Schubert symphony (the fifth?), because the set was less expensive than a single CD with the fifth on it. I had to hunt it out, though. It wasn't with my other Schubert CDs. I blame the boy, who used to pull CDs out and then reshelve them in interesting new places. I checked my records and apparently I've played Schubert's third before. I have no memory of it, but then, it was in 2003, which was six years ago. However I played it then, chances are rather good that I'll play it much better now.

I am so very excited to be working with this conductor.

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Spring Concert Review

Fabulous weekend!

I freely and cheerfully admit that I was completely and utterly wrong about the quality of performance at this concert. It was a most excellent evening -- it blew us all away, musicians and audience alike. This conductor really knew her stuff; she trusted us more than we trusted ourselves. And what astounds me is that she didn't know us, beyond observing a rehearsal or two previous to her turn at bat. We pulled it off, thanks to her, to her faith and her leadership and her solid preparation. In the end, this was not in fact the concert to miss if you had to miss one, as most of my regular concertgoers ended up having to do thanks to other responsibilities.

There were over a hundred people in the audience, which was wonderful too. I'm glad so many people got to experience it. My deepest thanks go out to MLG, HRH, and the boy, who were my own personal cheering section in the back corner. I saw the boy standing on his seat to applaud wildly after the first half of the programme, which made me grin so hard I thought I'd strain a muscle. And on the way home he was singing to himself in the back seat. We asked him what he was singing and he said, "I don't know." We listened closely and realised that he was singing the bell theme from the Carillon at the end of the L'Arlesienne suite. My heart just about burst. I was extremely proud of him and of how he behaved.

The only mishap on the part of the celli (and the biggest musical mishap concert-wide, I think) was that we completely and utterly missed our cue for the celli treble clef solo in the middle part of the Carillon. We were counting, and then we heard the oboe playing, and I thought, Hmm, I don't remember the oboe playing here. And then the principal and I suddenly looked at one another out of the corner of our eyes, because we realised that we'd missed our entrance. It would have sounded awful if we'd jumped in, so we all let the oboe have a lovely solo. Who knew they played the same line we did? The conductor laughed about it once we were done, as did all of the celli. No harm done, but terribly amusing after weeks and weeks of work on that line and hitting the entrance every time. I think this version was nicer anyway; much gentler and more nostalgic. (Ha!)

I will be very interested in hearing any recordings made of this concert.

I had a group cello lesson Sunday afternoon, at which some of us incredulously dissected the previous night's successful concert before settling into the group pieces. It's nice to have all the heavy orchestral stuff behind me so that I can focus on lesson and recital work now. We got the final lineup for the recital and the official assignment of who's playing what part in the trios and quartets, and my duo partner and I are making plans to meet to rehearse our piece. I love our group lessons, although I suspect we tax our teacher's patience when we all get together and there's variously missing music and giggling and rhythm issues.

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Not Dead

Bizet, why do you hate me so?

Actually, that exposed bit in the Overture? I sound surprisingly good. I suspect I am playing D sharps where I ought not to play D sharps, however, and am about to check with the CD. I am dragging my feet and muttering "don't wanna" about practising that tenor/treble passage in the Carillon, though. Because Bizet and I, we don't get along when we hit that particular point. I'm going to listen to the recording of that section till my ears bleed to internalize the theme, because I suspect that I am one tone off at that point.

I'm really enjoying this new guest conductor. You can tell she's a cellist, because she's chosen pieces with really juicy cello bits for us. Problem is, they're exposed juicy cello bits, and I don't particularly deserve to sit second chair, and these are only highlighting that fact. Also, she pays attention to us, for which I am grateful. Most of the time.

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Hello, Thumb Position

Last night my hour-long lesson, which usually goes a bit overtime, clocked in at a solid hour and a half. Why? Because we worked on the orchestra music instead of my lesson stuff, which I think is sensible because my lesson stuff can wait while the orchestra stuff grows ever more crucial. Rimsky-Korsakov gave the celli some lovely lines in the third movement of Scheherazade, and wrote them in treble clef. Which means they are Very High. And that means thumb position.

Which I have never used before.

So I was initiated by necessity into the Mysteries of Thumb Position, and ow. But other than the ow, it made a lot of sense. I came home with instructions to play Mary Had A Little Lamb and Ah, Vous Dirais-Je Maman and any other nursery rhymes I could think of in thumb position, as well as the Bizet and Mendelssohn and Rimsky-Korsakov that require it.

I think my lesson would have gone quicker if I hadn't had to stare at the treble clef and count up from the bottom all the time to figure out what note what indicated. Because good grief, I'm only barely fluent in tenor clef, and now treble? I had to write it all out and post it in front of my music stand at home for quick reference.

And in 7/8 news, it's very very easy to play all the way up there in thumb position. Sixth and seventh positions in general have been easier to play than on the 4/4, so unless I'm making it up (which is entirely possible) we have a thumbs up (no pun intended) for ease of (and possibly easier) playability in upper positions. I'm finding the full tone reaches between fingers 1, 2, and 3 up very challenging up there, so I can only imagine how much harder it would be with an extra millimetre or two on the oversized 4/4. The distance between notes is supposed to be smaller up there! Why do the distances between full tones seem so big in thumb position?

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In Which She Apologises

Dear new guest conductor,

I’m really, really sorry for panicking about the second bassoon part you asked me to play for the L’Arlesienne suite two nights ago at rehearsal. I agree that it was really needed so we could fill in the missing bits, and I was willing to give it a shot on the cello until you handed me the music. I was having a really bad day, and all I saw was multiple flats and tenor clef, and I knew I couldn’t sight-read it. Thank gods for M, who was willing to give it a shot (and pulled it off creditably, too). I’m pretty ashamed of myself, especially because it turned out that I could have done it as the crucial bit she ended up playing in that exposed part was in fact in bass clef and nice relaxed eighth notes. But her intonation while sight-reading is probably more reliable than mine anyway.

Just wanted to say I was sorry. And I should apologize to M again too, who was almost as flustered as I was about the music, even though I probably already apologized to her too many times during and after the rehearsal. I feel awful about it.

But hey, how about that sight-reading of the third movement of Scheherazade? Pretty good, hunh?

Sincerely,
the cellist in the second chair

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Orchestra Video

I debated about posting this, but why not.

Someone made a video recording of about half of the recent LCO fall concert. It's broken into approximately eight-minute long sections, so you can see the first and second part of the three-movement Mozart Divertimento (the second part covers the second and third movements), the lovely Adagio for Clarinet and Strings (the so-called "Wagner adagio", which has some nice close-ups of Martine's hands for you clarinet players out there), and the Haydn Symphony 104 in D major (first part, second part, third part, and fourth part). I wish I could say each part actually corresponds to a movement, but they don't. The first part is most of the first movement, the second part is the end of the first and most of the second, the third is the rest of the second and the full minuet/trio, and the fourth is the fourth movement in its entirety.

Why did I consider not posting this? Well, mainly due to the fact that the sound is awful. It's very flat and quite distorted. (Although I recognise that not all the distortion is due to the recording. Ahem.) The balance is completely off, and things are very muddy. Hand-held video cameras just aren't designed to record such a wide range of sound level, especially from that distance in a very echoey venue. And as such, it isn't particularly complimentary. But it's an idea of what went on. Also, it's fun to see what the audience members are doing while we play. (I was amused by the people nodding and tapping their programmes during the minuet, and by the kids.)

And yes, I am cleverly hidden by my teacher's scroll most of the time through the Mozart and the Adagio! Although the videographer seems to have moved forward for the first two-thirds of the symphony and therefore there is a better view of me from a three-quarter back angle in those recordings. (And thus my pathological avoidance of vibrato has been preserved for prosperity. I'm working on that now in my lessons.) Also, good gods, does my left hand always look that spidery?

This is the first half of the programme. I wonder if the videographer recorded the last half, and if it will be posted.

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Resigned

I've just written, translated, and sent off the regretful decline of the reconstruction quote for the Mystery Cello. I've been putting it off because I haven't wanted to formally call an end (albeit temporary) to the dream. But it's been a month (not that I intended to let it languish that long in my inbox, dear god, where did November go? scratch that, where did 2008 go?) and it's irresponsible to let the affair drag on any longer.

So I wrote a thank you and and an explanation of why we had to wait, and reinitialized my search for a 7/8. I should put my 4/4 up for sale as well to free up more money, but I'm enjoying the sound it makes in my lessons and I'm clingy when it comes to things like big resonant instruments that have been my companion for fifteen years. My teacher has assured me that if it sells before I've found a new one I can use the cello she still has from before she bought the beautiful one she uses now, which is lovely and mind-boggling but somehow I doubt I'll be caught without one. I see the same celli up for sale online all the time. I also have no idea what to ask price-wise for the one I've got. I'll talk to the luthier when I'm next in. I just wish I didn't feel like I'd killed something heartlessly.

Anyway, I am consoling myself with, and actually beginning to revive my interest in, trying 7/8s again. In the meantime my teacher has somehow suckered me into playing a solo at the Christmas recital in three weeks. I suspect I agreed because she proposed it so nicely (in the "possessing, marked by, or demanding great or excessive precision and delicacy" definition) and didn't make me feel like I was being railroaded into it. What I wanted to ask, but didn't because I am shy and despite the fact I've played with her for seven years I've only been her student for a month, was who else was soloing and what were they playing. Because I'm doing a Bach minuet, and part of me is relieved because I played these things thirteen years ago, and another part is mildly squirmy because they're in the Suzuki level 2 book, for heaven's sake. I was playing sonatas before I stopped lessons before. Mind you I've lost a hell of a lot of decent sound production and technique since then, so these are reacquainting me with the basics, but still. Not that the people in the senior's residence will care. They will be too busy being charmed by the six year old playing Suzuki book 1 pieces on her tiny cello .

Speaking of the six year old, my teacher told me yesterday that her next-door neighbour has a four year old who is obsessed with music and wants lessons. Generally the idea about children and lessons is not to bother until they can read (something about their ability to organize the info they take in, and I suspect so as not to utterly crush the joy they have in spontaneous music) but she knows that Sparky is also excited about the idea of music lessons, so he can play the cello like Mama does. So she has proposed that the two boys come to the group lesson on Sunday to see what it's like. Our group lesson is divided into two halves, the younger students for the first hour, then a short social thing, and then the adults have an hour of group lesson. The boys would observe the younger group lesson, and if they are still as excited about things she'd think about maybe having a special series for them to learn about rhythm and other pre-formal lesson skills. She mentioned that the McGill Conservatory has a Very Little Musicians program that might do as well.

I told Liam about this Very Special Invitation last night and he was very excited. His first question was, of course, "What's the little boy's name?" "I didn't ask," I said. "I forgot that it would be important to you. I'll ask when I see my teacher tomorrow at dress rehearsal." So he went around for the rest of the evening telling his father and the cats that he and 'the little boy' would be watching a cello lesson. We'll have to talk about proper etiquette and such tomorrow, both for the concert and the lesson the next day. The tentative plan for Sunday is to explain why he needs a slightly early nap and for HRH and I to bring him to the young group lesson, after which the boys can take off to the Thomas layout bookstore while I have my adult group lesson. If he's unbearable after having attended the concert Saturday night we can call it off, and there's always the option of HRH whisking him away from the lesson if he can't sit quietly.

I looked at the calendar yesterday and realised that there was a Wednesday rehearsal, my lesson on Thursday, a dress rehearsal tonight, the concert on Saturday, and the group lesson on Sunday. Good grief. I'm also mildly freaked out about the amount of work that has to happen between now and Wednesday, because I'm teaching a real-live university class on Monday morning (subject: Neo-paganism, and I have an eight-page lecture outline and the dreadful feeling that I'm going to demonstrate an Epic Fail by somehow being unprepared... I always feel like there's no good way to make the info flow logically) and have a coffee/lunch date on Tuesday and an assignment due for the evaluations Wednesday which is only about 30K words but revolves around examples drawn from Biblical stories and quotations so I'm going to be flipping through a Bible as I do it, which will slow things down.

Back to the cello stuff. I'm liking the sound that I'm (sometimes) producing in my lessons. It's a bit of a juggling act because I have to remember things about my bow hand, my right elbow, my shoulders, the left wrist and elbow that we've been working on, and then all the usual technical music stuff too. But there was a point in yesterday's lesson where I sounded good, and where I could hear and feel the vibration of the bow across the string in all the right ways. It feels sometimes like I'm not grasping very basic things, but things are improving in general at orchestra thanks to the new awareness I have of my body and how it moves, so there's hope.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Melancholy, And The Rosin Story

I keep tearing up at random things. My throat swells shut and I feel the hot prickle of tears in my eyes at the oddest times. I had to turn a CD off in the car last night, and again this morning. I had to put Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist down when the early morning harmony thing happened. I'm just blue, and I don't know why.

Orchestra was okay. I was so drained, though, that I had trouble summoning up the energy necessary for certain pieces. We sight-read a Hungarian dance and my fingers were like noodles during the pizzicato all over the fingerboard. My section leader, AKA my new teacher, gave me four pieces for the group lesson I'll be attending later this month, and I played through them today, feeling very... I can't put a word to it because it wasn't exciting, really; more like I was quietly pleased that I've finally done something about lessons again. This is the first assigned lesson material I've worked on in ten years.

And it was mostly easy and pretty, three of the four accompaniment to early Suzuki pieces (some of her other students are very new cellists). Except there's a set of double stops in the third part of the cello trio arrangement of a Brahms symphony movement that I can't get to save my life. This is what teachers are for.

Oh, I mentioned the rosin thing yesterday. I should elaborate on that.

When I originally recounted my wonderful story about receiving the Mystery Cello in trust from my cousin, I mentioned that I'd forgotten a suitcase full of his grandmother's music. My mother brought it up with her when she and my aunt (the mother of the cousin in question, actually) stopped by on their way to do the driving tour of the Eastern Townships. Monday night while HRH was putting the boy to bed I poured myself a glass of wine, settled myself on the living room floor, and opened it. It was exciting. Anything could lie inside! What kind of music did she like to play? Were there handwritten fingerings, or notes to herself among the pages of a favourite piece? What would I find?

It smelled of dust and damp, the kind of smell one associates with attics and antique stores. The suitcase itself is covered in textured brown leather, peeling away from the wood thanks to use and age. It closes with two clasps in tarnished brass, and her maiden initials were stamped on it in gold under the handle: R. B. B.. I popped open the clasps and lifted the lid.

The lining is that watered silk-looking fabric, possibly once a lovely rose colour, now faded to a tired shade close to that of an old pink school eraser. Inside was a black soft-side leather briefcase. I slipped my hand into the pocket of the lid first and pulled out some sheets of paper, loose photocopied pages of handwritten music copied from somewhere. Slipping my hand in again I found an unused Thomastik Permament cello A string in perfect condition except for the crumpled paper envelope.

I lifted the briefcase out and set it aside. Under it were dozens of partitions, sheet music for popular songs and dances and arrangements of orchestral pieces now forgotten, all for violin. Parlour music, for home music-making. The average price was fifty cents (sixty cents Canadian!) and the store stamps were of shops in Ottawa as well as Montreal. Pretty much the only things I recognized were the Mendelssohn violin concerto and the Beethoven violin concertos. At the bottom was a blue binder containing both violin and cello parts for quartet pieces, some of which I recognized (wedding marches, waltzes, arrangements of arias), some of which I didn't. The paper was old and crumbling apart, yellowed and stained, and it all smelled like dampness and dust. There were no dates, but I guessed the sheet music dated from around the nineteen thirties, give or take a decade or so.

The briefcase held the cello music. On top was a familiar Suzuki book, the same book and the same edition I'd started with (lots of teachers use the Suzuki books but don't teach the method). This gave me pause. Why on earth would she have had a Suzuki book? I opened it in hopes of seeing a date inside it. After all, I note down the date I purchase books and music inside the cover, and often note down the date I start or finish working on a piece. She didn't (much to my frustration when going through the other stuff), but inside the book were two sheets of looseleaf paper, still white, with notes from her teacher written on them, that outlined how to hold the cello and bow, how to place the fingers, and a couple of things to remember along with some homework. And the second of these was dated Aug 31/95.

Nineteen ninety five? Wait -- what?

Then I realized that I had no recollection of exactly when she had died. It was when my parents were still in Montreal, but I couldn't remember if it had been before or after I'd moved out. Then it occurred to me that the book was likely the property of my cousin, who had taken a couple of lessons after he'd inherited the cello before deciding it wasn't for him.

The rest of the cello music is old and crumbling too, which leads me to believe that her teacher gave it to her along with the cello. There's nothing I can really use because again it's all stuff that was popular at the time it was printed, written by composers I've never heard of. I suppose I could put some of it up on the stand and play through it to hear what it's like, but I have enough work right now, thanks.

I put my hand inside the case and slid it along the seams to be sure I'd gotten everything and my fingers bumped into something. I drew out a blue silk cleaning cloth, a Ziplock bag with two used A and D strings, then a wooden contraption made of two foot-long slim pieces of wood an inch wide and a half-inch deep, joined together at one of the narrow ends by a hinge. On one of the pieces of wood opposite the hinge end was a narrow strip of leather in a loop stapled into the wood. I know what this is! It's a homemade endpin brace! I thought, and opened it up to reveal a line of drilled holes along the unhinged end of the other piece of wood. The leather loop goes around the cellist's chair leg, the unfolded wooden strips are laid on the ground, and the endpin is inserted in one of the holes so that it doesn't slip on stone floors or mark hardwood. I ran my hands along the torn lining of the suitcase as well and found a set of violin pitch pipes and a brand new cake of Hidershine rosin. (Brand new in that it had been used maybe twice, not brand new as in purchased last week. The design on the box was decidedly outdated!) I tried the rosin last night and it's dry, not as sticky as my Hills. My initial impression is that I like it; I'll use it for a while. I thought I preferred a slightly sticky rosin, but maybe not. We'll see.

I replaced everything in the suitcase and closed it up. I'm going to have to move it from my office to downstairs because the dust (and likely mold) in it is triggering my asthma.

It was a fascinating exercise to go through every single sheet of music, turning pages carefully so they didn't crumble, feeling the dampness of the thicker books, breathing in the scent of years of music this woman made. I'm touching history a bit more, learning more about the woman who played the cello before my cousin inherited it, before I was given the wonderful opportunity to play it too.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Orchestra Update

We had a general meeting of the orchestra membership last week, something has hasn't been done in at least eighteen years, possibly the entire life of the group. There have been some changes. They're growing pangs, really, because for three decades our original conductor Andres helmed the group, having founded it and maintained it on his own. When we lost him so suddenly and tragically the group needed to develop some guidelines and new methods out of thin air, and we're still working them out as we encounter obstacles. One of the things we're refining is our method of selecting and reviewing conductors. Our most recent conductor's term has ended, and we're now preparing to audition three new conductors over the upcoming season, one per concert session.

This happened some what precipitously, because we didn't have a clearly defined review system in place. The point is, most of us expected to be somewhat adrift for the first while due to the unexpectedness of the event and the timing, but to my surprise at this general meeting the exec revealed that we not only had a guest conductor in place, but we had a programme and our first concert date scheduled. This is going so well that I can't help but suspect our decisions in the matter have all been the correct ones. Not only do we have our first guest conductor scheduled, but we've had a call from the director of the WIYSO expressing interest in one of the future guest spots, as have a couple of others. There were some suggestions from the membership too, revolving around multiple performances of the same programme in different areas instead of a single concert, raising membership fees to generate more available capital with which to pay conductors (thereby enabling us to attract higher-profile directors), and communication suggestions (especially an interactive website with a members-only section to enable us to share ideas and receive information). The plan is to have a different conductor for each of our three concerts in the upcoming season, to evaluate each, and then vote on one to invite back.

From what I can remember, our first programme will consist of a Mozart divertimento for strings, the Iphigenia in Aulis overture, Haydn's 104th symphony, and a Vivaldi concerto for four violins with continuo (our prize for the winners of the Lakeshore Chamber Music Society's concerto competition). Our first rehearsal is on September 17, and our first concert is on November 22. We'll have to be really focused and on the ball with this new conductor to prepare a concert in that period of time. This will happen naturally of course, as everyone will be hyper-aware and paying very close attention to the new director's technique. New blood to stir us up will be good. I'm looking forward to exploring music with a new director. One of the things I realised through this summer mini-crisis about the orchestra leadership was that I was focusing on my own satisfaction with my technical performance in a concert and extrapolating that to measure the orchestra's overall performance, which was wrong of me. I was also shifting my personal focus to technical improvement because I wasn't getting artistic or interpretive satisfaction from the overall musical experience. The orchestra really needs to grow and develop musically now. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks.

Apart from that, musically I've been kind of on hold. I've been playing songs and such, testing my treble clef reading, but the 7/8 search and the mystery cello repair hasn't moved forward. Why? Because my luthier and I miscommunicated about vacation, and he wasn't gone the first two weeks of August but the last two weeks. Had I known I would have brought him my cello for its tune-up and the mystery cello as soon as I got home from our trip. Ah well, everything ought to be back to usual now that it's September; I'll call him Thursday. With orchestra only beginning two weeks from now, there's time to take my current cello in for adjustments, new bridge, new strings, and a quick repair to the soundboard crack, and get it back in plenty of time. Otherwise, I can always test another cello out and use that!

I find that my initial 'no I should upgrade the quality/level of the cello I'm using' is ebbing to 'something equivalent in a different shape would be just fine'. Which is a good thing, really, because it's assuaging a lot of the 'OMG so expensive where will I find the money now!' jitters I'm having. I'm interested to hear what the luthier will have to say about the mystery cello, too.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court (this is condensed from a longer, more general post)
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Canada Day Concert Recap

Can I get away with saying "Best Canada Day concert ever?"

Not really, I suppose. And it wouldn't do posterity any good, either. The main reason I journal is so that I can go back and refer to it, after all, so a bit more detail is necessary.

First of all, hearty thanks go out to the following in the order I saw them before the concert: my mum and dad, MLG, ADZO, t!, Jan, Lu, Ceri, Scott, Marc, Miseri, Mousme, tcaptain and J. One of the reasons I love this concert is because I see friends I don't see often. Your presence was deeply appreciated, and I hope you all enjoyed yourselves. And thanks go out to everyone who wanted to be there but couldn't as well.

And of course, deepest thanks go to HRH and the boy, for making it an extra-special concert. This was the first concert the boy was old enough to attend properly and be aware of what was going on. He's known for weeks that it was coming up, and as the date approached I reminded him, shared some of the music with him, and looked through his book about instruments to explore the different kinds of things he'd see. He stayed for the warm up and by all reports enjoyed himself thoroughly, sometimes tapping along with the rhythm on the back of the pew in front of him, sometimes conducting like Douglas. After the warm up he pulled me outside to a jungle gym-type thing next to the school across from the church where he proceeded to throw himself up ladders, across hanging bridges, and down slides in all possible ways, encouraging me to do the same. Then MLG and ADZO showed up and he exhorted them to join him in his play too. Then he called some random teenagers over: "Hey, hi! Come play with me! Come slide!" and he did it with such openness and enthusiasm that they did so with decent humour. We met up with a few other people (Lu brought me swag from the BEC! I have an AGaTB lace hairband among ARCs and a book for the boy and other things!) and then I headed back to join the others preparing for play. (The music kind, not the jungle gym kind.)

We were fortunate in the weather. There have been awful, awful days when the night has been dreadfully humid and sticky, and there have been nights where the wind has been so bad we lost music and stands. But this night was just about perfect. It was hot (it's July, after all) but fingers weren't slipping on keys or strings and shirts weren't sopping wet. It was pretty much perfect.

There's something remarkably special about playing the national anthem. First of all, the cello line is so unlike the melody we sing that it's really unique to hear how it all fits together. Second, there's something very powerful about how the drum roll steadies and then initialises the orchestra. Third, it's incredible to sense the audience suddenly recognising what's happening and surging to its feet, joining in with the vocal line around the third note. Finally, it's just so damn cool to play it and to hear a few hundred people singing the anthem to orchestral accompaniment. And there's always an extra bonus when people applaud. Traditionally the anthem isn't applauded, and while I'm sure there's some sort of philosophical reason for it, I can't think of a time when I'm more prompted to applaud than after a stirring rendition of the anthem, partially for the anthem itself and the nation (yay us!) and partly for the performers. Besides, it was Canada Day.

While I never hit the cello zone, I was very comfortable throughout this performance and please with my work. I enjoyed myself a lot, which on its own is huge. I had no major technical issues during the concert. The finger I use for pizzicato froze up during "Younger Than the Springtime" as it always does, but apart from that and some minor intonation issues (I can't hear a thing in that church, it melds all the sound together), and a bit where both the principal and I stopped in frustration because the cellist behind her was playing very loudly and racing ahead in a certain passage in the first piece and we couldn't hear things well enough to keep the proper pace going, it was a very good concert from the performance side of things. It was lovely from the artistic side, too. I like to begin with a piece I find pretty because it gives me confidence for the rest of the night, and the Symphony no. 3 (by not-really-Mozart) has a beautiful and expressive second movement that I love to play. I greatly appreciated not beginning with the Figaro overture, as it has some finicky technical stuff that would have frustrated me had I played it cold. As it was we did a very good job of it, nice and quick. The church may muddle sound but it also makes it sound very large and well-blended, so the overture had a very nice overall presentation that allowed some of the less precise stuff to slip through without calling much attention to itself. The 32nd symphony went well too.

The second half of the concert was the musicals, and we nailed them. We absolutely nailed them. In the past we have done passable renditions of some medleys, but these are decent arrangements and we were really on. It helps to have a good brass section for these things, and ours handled things just fine, thanks. I heard people in the audience singing along at a couple of places, and there were people crying at the end of The Sound of Music medley (of course they were, the 'Climb Every Mountain' arrangement was specifically designed to rip shamelessly at heartstrings). It's always good for the ego to see people surging to their feet almost as soon as the conductor has cut the orchestra off, and to hear the wave of applause crash into us.

Sitting right next to the conductor means I make a lot of eye contact with him throughout the concert, and I get to see his face as soon as we're done each piece. He winks at us with a crooked grin, or beams, or clenches a fist in a "yes!" motion, or nods and places his baton on his stand, or gives us a wordless smile to tell us we aced it before turning around to accept the applause and bow. Seeing his immediate emotional reaction is worth a lot. He's genuinely happy for us, or thrilled at what he pulled out of us; he acknowledges what we've done. I like to smile back at him and nod, to reinforce what he's given us and to thank him wordlessly in return. I often get a chance to thank him in person after the concert as well, and he always seems so hesitant, so unlike the caught-up-in-the-moment triumph in the moments following the final chord. He told us at the dress rehearsal there would be no encore, that he's not "an encore kind of guy". "Leave them wanting more" is more his style, and I can see his point. It's great to leave things on that much of a high, vibrating with that much energy. An encore is satisfying in a very different way. (Besides, where could we go after 'Climb Every Mountain'? Nowhere, that's where.)

My deepest hope for this concert was that the boy would fall asleep or get so cranky that HRH would have to take him away from the concert. He was fine but squirmy, and HRH took him to sit on the steps to listen to the music. And when we began the Sound of Music he looked at HRH and said with excitement, "That's from my movie!" "Do you remember what it was called?" HRH asked. "Sound," the boy said after thinking about it for a moment. "The Sound of Music, that's right," said HRH. Another parent with a girl on the steps looked at him incredulously and said, "He's how old?" "Three," HRH told her, "but his mother is in the orchestra." (We apologise for his precociousness, it's subject-related, we assure you.) HRH brought him back in during the post-concert applause and they both applauded. HRH tells me the boy applauded enthusiastically after each piece during the whole concert, too. I was so pleased that he'd lasted the whole night, and that he'd had the opportunity to listen to the Sound of Music medley. I knew it would be exciting for him to hear us play something he knew.

As we'd expected, the boy was tired enough that we had to head directly home; no fireworks for us this year. He laid his head against the edge of his seat and stared out the window until he pulled his cap down over his face and drowsed. When we got him home at ten o'clock he went right to bed. I snuggled next to him, and he said sleepily, "Oh no, Mama, we forgot your cello at the concert!" I assured him it had been in the back of the car and it was safely home again, and he was asleep in seconds. We heard the faint sounds of fireworks in the neighbouring boroughs as we got ready for bed.

This was one of my favourite Canada Day concerts. It also marks the end of my seventh season with the orchestra. This time of year is always bittersweet for me, because I like to ride the high of a concert and use it to propel me into the next set of music. Without the structure of rehearsals every week I tend to lose momentum and stop playing. I have the ongoing search for the 7/8 to keep me going, but being on hold financially takes a lot of steam out of that project, and without rehearsal to test the various cellos in a group environment I lose out on that aspect of the home trial. (In fact there's a post due on the current 7/8 trial; it will come soonish.) It's hard to walk out of a concert on that kind of high and know you won't see everyone again for two months. We all scatter with instruments and stands and sometimes you can't even find section mates to bid them a good summer. I did get the chance to thank our substitute principal for stepping in to help keep us even and confident for this concert, and thank our conductor for a wonderful concert and an excellent season. The orchestra as a whole thanked our secretary/librarian/general manager with a lovely bouquet of roses; she really has done an incredible amount of work this season.

I've gained a lot of technique this year, and I owe a lot of that to our section leader. I absorb so much by simply sitting next to her. There's also a certain amount of pressure that comes from sitting right in front of the conductor (oh gods, he hears every wrong note I play), and it's done me a lot of good. I think my expression has firmed up a bit too, partly from the kind of music we've been playing, and partly from reading things like The Art of Practicing, Making Music for the Joy of It, and Rosindust, all of which talk about the emotion associated with playing and how to communicate it. It's important to remember that we make music because we love it. I think one of the reasons I prefer to play in ensembles is because I can relax more and merge my sound with someone else's. (I had a partial solo of two notes this concert! Yes! I played them with the principal, sharing the first note and playing a different note afterwards! If you were there you probably didn't notice. That's okay. I know it was marked 'Solo' in the music and that's what counts. And yes, I played it very nicely.)

I should really think seriously about lessons again.

Okay, this is very long, and more than enough. It was good, it was great, I loved it, I'm very pleased with how I played and with the overall evening. The end.

No, wait, one more thing: I hate it when audience members rush the stage to talk to people or to get to the bathroom before anyone else. We have sensitive and freaking expensive instruments here, people, and there's a mess of stands and chairs. The amount of times I had to step in front of people so they wouldn't kick my cello or knock a stand over onto someone or another instrument was unreal. Sheesh. At one concert we made an announcement to the effect of "stay back you thoughtless mob until the musicians have left the stage, thank you"; I think we should do it every concert. Also, people who won't step out of the way when one is attempting to carry an instrument past/around them annoys me greatly as well. I move to the side as much as I can, but they just stand there. I'm not sure what they expect me to do, other than to politely repeat "Excuse me, may I get past?" Gnarr.

All right, now I'm done.

(Originally posted at Owls' Court.)

In Which She Muses Upon The Importance Of Contrasting Musical Approaches

We had a guest conductor in to handle the first half of Wednesday's rehearsal, as our conductor was off at his own retirement dinner. (Or I may have misunderstood and it was someone else's retirement. Whatever: he was not there, being otherwise engaged in dining to celebrate someone's retirement.) The guest conductor's first name was Peter, although I missed his last name.

He was brilliant.

We worked on the 32nd symphony, and he was fantastic. He had us really work on the musicality of the piece, asking for different sounds, talking about how the parts worked with/against one another, how the dynamics were crucial. He was a violinist, and so now and again he'd grab his violin and demonstrate the sounds or the phrasing he was looking for. He used simile, metaphor, and humour to get us to understand how to produce the sounds he was asking us to do. (He told the celli we sounded like a nail gun at one point, and although we all laughed we knew exactly what he meant, and proceeded to shape the repeated eighth notes in a particular cycle as he requested.) And it worked, it all worked. He had us sounding tight and focused and blended. Ultimately, what he had us work on was the emotion of the piece, something that's hard to focus on by yourself in a large ensemble. The first half of the evening flew by until he suddenly looked at the time and said we had to stop. The orchestra broke into spontaneous applause for him, and the first question asked was, "Where do you conduct?" He admitted that he didn't, but that he did coach.

Now, none of this implies that our regular maestro isn't a good conductor: Douglas has done fabulous things for us in the past five years, introducing new styles of music, broadening our scope, and pulling a new sound out of us. What Wednesday night demonstrated to me was that having a fresh leader and a different spin on the music made us think about how we play it in a different way. It's kind of like how running your writing past a fresh set of eyes helps you understand it differently. I wonder what having a guest conductor in a rehearsal now and again on a regular basis would do for us. By addressing different details, Peter gave us a new understanding of the piece, and I really hope we can carry it over to the other pieces we play. It's not enough to just play what's there; we have to give it personality as well. We've been trying to focus interpretation in our section by emphasizing certain things, making repeated phrases after the second time, leaning on certain beats and so forth, but we can't make it happen everywhere. There was a complaint in our section that our principal was complicating the music and we should just stick to what was written down, but there's so much missing if you just follow the bare notes. Interpretation and style are crucial. I'm glad Peter demonstrated that the entire orchestra could do it, and make the music sound extraordinary.

Our principal had to leave at the break; I won’t see her again until next fall. Simply sitting next to her has helped me so much this past season. It meant that in the second half I sat alone, and I have been very bad and not learned the principal’s solo in the My Fair Lady medley, so when it was suddenly there I stalled. Fortunately the man who sits behind the principal played through it, and I gave him a grateful smile. Everything else I handled pretty well, except the transition into “Edelweiss” in the Sound of Music medley, where the celli have the theme, and all of us stumbled. The transitions are nasty things in medleys; usually the key and the beat both change, and you have to go right into it. And for some reason my fingerings weren’t intuitive for me. I mean, they are intuitive in that if I remember where I have to go they work, but if I blank and just stare at the number (as I did Wednesday night) I’m lost. I’m thankful I’d reviewed all the musicals over the week at home (shock, surprise! I actually had time to practice!), otherwise I’d have really disgraced myself. I managed to be the only cello to carry on in a couple of odd places, too. Go me.

Three more rehearsals — next Wednesday, an extra one next Friday night, the dress the following Monday — and then the concert on the Tuesday. And then no orchestra until September again. This season has flown by. I’ll miss it a lot.

(Originally posted at Owls' Court.)

Canada Day Concert!

This is your two-week warning, faithful orchestra groupies. July 1 is coming up, which means that the annual Canada Day concert presented by the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra is also nigh!

On Tuesday July 1 the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will be giving a free (yes, free!) concert as part of the overall Canada Day celebrations in conjunction with Pointe-Claire Village. We do this every year, and it’s always terrific fun.

This year’s programme features:

Symphony no. 3 - Mozart
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro - Mozart
Symphony no. 32 - Mozart
Selections from South Pacific - Richard Rodgers
Selections from My Fair Lady - Frederick Loewe
Selections from The Sound of Music - Richard Rodgers

The concert begins at 20h00. As always, it is being presented at St-Joachim church in Pointe-Claire Village, located right on the waterfront at 2 Ste-Anne Street, a block and a half south of Lakeshore Road. The 211 bus from Lionel-Groulx metro drops you right at the corner of Sainte-Anne and Lakeshore. Here’s a map to give you a general idea. I usually encourage those facing public transport to get together and coax a vehicle-enabled friend along by offering to buy them an ice cream or something. It works nicely, and it’s fun to go with a group. And hey, you can’t beat the price. Be aware that if you’re driving, parking will be at a premium because of the whole Canada Day festivities thing going on. Give yourself extra time to find a parking place and walk to the church, which will be packed with people.

Free classical music! Soul-enriching culture! And as an enticing bonus, the fireworks are scheduled for ten PM, right after we finish, and the church steps are a glorious spot from which to watch them.

Write it on your calendar, tell all your friends and family members! The more the merrier!

(Originally posted on Owls' Court.)