September 10, 2004 at 5:59 PM

OUCH! I'm sore. Very sore. Sitting in school all morning, carting around textbooks to classes, sitting in the car for over an hour, sitting in rehearsals for several more hours, sitting at dinner, sitting for yet more rehearsals, sitting for the 80 minute drive home, finally I got to stand up for a bit!

Sitting down I get rather sore from doing for so long. On first day of rehearsals it wasn't so bad as I hadn't had school in the morning and I went for a long walk on our extra long dinner break and then went to the gym for a bit. It felt good to sit down after doing some weights and biking and strechting. Only three more days of all this orchestra stuff though!

Last nights rehearsal was spent entirely on the Rautavaara Cantus Arcticus (concerto for birds and orchestra) which I was extremely thankful for some earplugs I had left in my violin case from the last time that I had needed them for a concert. Something abouts really louds remotely bird-like sounds blaring out into your ear for 20 minutes, while you only get to play for about 8 minutes of the entire piece is rather annoying. The piece sounds cool, but the birds become a bit much when you are on stage having to count these weird bars that don't match half of the orchestra. Violins might be in 4/2 while the clarinets are in 3/4 and the other players also in different, strange time signatures. One thing for sure, don't ever take the down beat of the conductor, cause it's unlikely that it's your down beat, unless he's told you in a specific spot he'll give you the bar. It's a really wild piece. The wind players have an amazingly difficult part and I sat last night in awe of how they could do some of those intricate arppegiated, yet very chromatic figures with such speed and ease while not being influenced by what the person sitting next to him/her was doing.

The afternoon rehearsal was filled with the sounds of Beethoven's 5th symphony. Oh yeah. And a dog. We rehearse in the concert halls rehearsal room which opens out by the police station. We were working on a triplet passage in the final movement and the conductor was trying to get us to do something a bit different, so he stopped and explained what he wanted and went to cue us in, the police dog by the open rehearsal door barked it perfectly. *bark bark bark baarrrkkk* It was hilarious! The whole orchestra was rolling in laughter for a good few minutes! I'm having a lot of fun playing Beethoven's 5th. It's much funner to play then it is to listen to, I think the audience will like it!

Today the cello soloist is coming, I belive, and we will be rehearsing the Tchaikovsky Variations on a Roccoco Theme. We haven't rehearsed it yet in the orchestra and I'm not very familiar with the work, so I'm looking forward to hearing it finally! Hopefully no earplugs will be required....

Out of orchestra tradition with this orchestra, we have an encore piece. The ever so popular Pizzicato Polka. We are playing it guitar style, which will be fun! Allows us to move around a bit while we play, which was kind of funny to see everyone doing in rehearsals, but I think the audience will like it!

School yesterday was interesting. I came out of German class trying to speak English again without that harshness in my voice. It took me awhile! Ah, the joys of learning another langauge. I saw the wizard guy again at school, he has a cape now too with a purple embellished "V" on the back. I spent some time in the study lounge, which had I not had a walkman along I would not have been too likely to have gotten much studying done. English class was fun. We had to interview another person in our class then write a paragraph on that person as well as work on our "dialectical" journals and anotating an essay to comment on in our journals. Speaking of school. I have an hour yet before I need to leave for rehearsals, so I think I might go and do some more school. :)

This entry has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.

September 10, 2004 at 5:59 PM

Subscribe

Laurie's Books