"Pause Button" follow up

These last couple of weeks I've been running myself ragged. Too much to do, not enough time to prepare... I don't mind being busy, but that feeling of not doing things well (or just barely throwing them together) really eats at me. Finally, I had a couple of days that made it all worthwhile:

Cultural Exchange With Foreign Students:

Some months ago I was contacted by a representative from a language program who was hosting a small group of students from a school in Europe who wanted to do some kind of a mixer with American students. We arranged to do a joint musical recital. This was supposed to be an informal thing, but I stressed out about it anyway because my mind kept flashing back to this time (years ago) when a traveling student jazz group from Poland came to perform, and they were kind of insulted when only a handful of our music students showed up to watch (apparently, a couple other schools arranged for the entire student body to pack into the gymnasium to watch them.) In the end though, the recital came off nicely, and all the participants had a wonderful time getting to know each other. The principal from the other school even presented me with a box of chocolate and a bottle of wine.

Joint Rehearsal with Youth Orchestra:

Again, some months ago the director of the youth orchestra that I work for on Saturdays and I decided it would be a good idea to do a joint performance with the top orchestra and the advanced choir at my school. It wouldn't be the first time we put the two groups together. The piece I ended up selecting was one of the Masses by Haydn.

At first it seemed like it would be just another joint project, but the mass turned out to be heavier than I had anticipated. It was in a bad key for the student instrumentalists, and the choral parts included heavy solo parts. There was also a problem with preparation: The orchestra only meets once a week, and the choir was distracted by multiple projects. Iwas beginning to fear that we wouldn't have enough time to bring it together. The other detail that I hadn't looked at too carefully was the concert date: it would be the first Sunday of Spring Break for my school. Ugh.

It was too late to change our minds, both sides had already dumped a ton of money into the sheet music, and the concert arrangements had been put into place.

But yesterday we had our one and only rehearsal with both groups combined and it was.... wonderful. The choir people spent a lot of time outside of class learning the parts, and the orchestra kids whipped it into shape as well. They were ready for each other. It was awesome.

I love big combined choral and instrumental works... they make me feel like a real conductor!


School Fund-raiser:

The only thing that stresses me out about doing jazz combo gigs is the effort I have to put into recruiting kids out of the jazz band... especially on a Saturday night. We made it work, though. Here's the exchange that made it all worthwhile.

(We had finished playing for the fund-raiser attendees, and was invited to have some food by the hosts. We were standing around with little party plates when the bass player spoke up)

Bass Player: Hey, is that Palpatine's husband?

Me: I don't know, I've never seen him.

Bass Player: Well, when I passed him in the food line I thought his name tag said "Palpatine" on it.

Me: Let me check (I nonchalantly mosey over to where the gentleman is sititng and glance at his name tag)

Me: Nope... it's a different name. Close spelling, but not quite. Besides, If she were here, I'd know.

Piano Player: Maybe... it's kind of crowded.

Me: I would sense a disturbance in the Force.

Trombone Player: ...you mean as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were then suddenly silenced?

(This is the part where I spit mushroom pasta back onto my plate)


Yeah.... good times.....