Dartos Tali Trio at Sequoia Gallery

March 5, 2008 at 5:23 AM

Tonight my trio group played at the Sequoia Gallery's opening night. It was our first ever public performance as a group.

We set up in a corner on the upper mezzanine and had a brief "staff meeting" on what we were going to play, in what order, at what tempo, dynamics, etc. We started with the Beethoven Terzetto, then moved on to some Mazas and some Dvorak.

We were surprised at the number of people attending the event. At one point someone bumped into the 2nd violinist's stand and moved it at an awkward angle almost a foot away. The second violinist just continued to play until there was a good point to stop, moved his stand back into place, and continued playing. The old saying of "if a freight train goes through the room - KEEP PLAYING" is sooooooo true!

There were times we had a number of people stop to listen, applaud, give compliments on the music, etc. I saw many people I know from my community orchestra. Several of the artists in residence came and thanked us personally while we took a break.

At first, we were all nervous and made a few mistakes. No one ever noticed. After awhile, we settled in and it began to feel more like our regular practice sessions.

I was particularly nervous about playing the Adagio movement of the Beethoven Terzetto. The viola carries the melody through most of the movement, which is normally the role of the 1st violin. However, I played it through without any noticeable mistakes and got thumbs up from my group and a few friends. :) My teacher and I worked on this movement alot this past Sunday in preparation for tonight's event. It was well worth the cost of the lesson, and more.

This was such an exciting, exhilarating and positive experience. I hope that someday we can do this again. All of us have full time day-jobs, with sometimes more than full-time hours. We play together just for fun, but decided to give a public performance a try. We were NOT expecting to have offers for hire! Now, what to do? Keep playing and having fun!

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on March 5, 2008 at 7:09 AM

You got a great response! Congrats. Personally, I wouldn't give up the chance to make a little extra money on gigs. You could work hard on a core set of pieces to have ready for any reasonable offer and add new pieces as you go along.

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on March 5, 2008 at 11:13 AM

That's great, I hope you get more gigs! Congratulations!

From Donna Clegg
Posted on March 5, 2008 at 7:23 PM

Grats. It sounds like an awesome experience.

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