May 18, 2004 at 4:15 AM

Our concert went really well, except for three things...

1) I kept bowing my stand-partner in the head;
2) The brass didn’t get their entry cues right (do they ever?);
and 3) Our conductor forgot to tell us he was taping the program for posterity, and putting it on CD. You should have seen it, all the teenage musicians relieved that the concert was over, and then our conductor announcing to the audience that if they’d kindly step outside the auditorium, they would find an order blank so they could purchase this groundbreaking, Grammy-deserving recording, which would be delivered to them in about six weeks’ time. The Local Youth Symphony Live. Posterity will not be grateful. ;)

The conductor shook all the string principles’ and co-principles’ hands, and this was inexplicably a great thrill for me. A sort of rite of passage, because last semester I had sat back a few rows, enviously watching those lucky principle individuals - gods, almost - and vowing I’d someday be there, too. And here a semester later, I was among their ranks. Disappointed to find they weren’t gods, and just as fallible as everybody else (maybe even more so), but still elated to be one all the same.

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