Il caos grandissimo

So... with one rehearsal left, it's become painfully obvious that this Summer's youth orchestra international excursion is going to be a musical disaster. Clarinet boy, annoying as he is, has become the least of my worries. The problems include:

* Richard, the head-honcho director/conductor is not going on the trip. (He's staying home tending to his girlfriend who has been plagued by health problems). In general, Richard has been slowly pulling himself out of the picture, and it's no secret that he's going to hand the administrative reigns of the group over to James. Richard's input into the Italy trip ended with the final itinerary. In one sense it's a relief: in his slightly younger days, Richard was more known for sampling the local drinking establishments than he was for looking after the kids (it's a wonder none of them got arrested). Still, he's the most experienced traveler out of all of us, and we all feel a little bit like babes in the wild without him.

* As I said before, our group consists of a volatile mix of highly experienced and not-so-experienced players. Now, our main conductor for the trip, Brian, is a formidable musical leader. He's also the newest staff member, and the least experienced when it comes to putting one of our little trips together. Richard gave Brian very little direction when it came to selecting repertoire... so he aimed for the high end. So now we have a few kids who have never shifted out of first podsition playing Copland's Rodeo. Yeah.

* Did I mention that Brian also has an out-of-town engagement that prevents him from being at over half the rehearsals? It makes it tough because James, Susan and I are trying to prepare repertoire, not knowing if Brian will like the musical decisions that we make. (At least I am competent enough a conductor to handle the Copland.)

* Too much music, not enough rehearsal time. In the repertoire planning stages, we threw a lot of possible pieces out there, then we proceeded to work on all of them (which is what happens when you have four conductors tugging at the same orchestra). Then we got word that one of the venues that we're planning on playing at prefers a pop-oriented performance, which effectively doubled our load. So here's the final list: Three movements from Rodeo, one Vaughan-Williams arrangement of Greensleeves, one complete Haydn Symphony (four movements), one complete flute concerto (three movements), one complete guitar concerto (three movements), one transcription of a Brahms choral piece, five super-watered-down middle school level pop-charts ("Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" and such), one Sousa march transcribed for strings, and a partridge in a pear tree. We have four rehearsals to put all this together.

Yeah, it's a mess... and we all know it's a mess. The only advantage we have is that everyone on board (well, staff wise) is smart, level-headed and easy-to-work-with. Somehow we'll make it work. We always have.