Concert Week

Last night was the OCMCO concert. Concert week is always mentally stressful for me, even though this time it was fairly light. All of Adam's extra football stuff got rained off, so I really only had to deal with a dress rehearsal and then the two concerts. And the kids were even off school on Friday which made it even easier. So I should be able to cope.... but I find myself totally unable to even think about life until the concert is over. It's like a big mental block, and I just cannot move on until it's done. I think it stems from the times when Kate and Nicholas were tiny babies when I was having to think about finding appropriate babysitters for leaving newborns for hours on end for rehearsals and concerts and recordings - when Kate was 9 days old she attended her first rehearsal with me, and I played the bassoon with one foot stuck out rocking her car seat to keep her quiet! Somehow now mentally I just equate concert week with stress week. It's really not that time consuming, and I just have to get over it! Because the concerts are simply amazing, a truly wonderful experience. Last night I sat there listening to the choir's a cappella numbers and they were astoundingly good. Simply stunning. And I thought, I am sitting in a world class concert hall listening to what is shaping up to be a world class choir - can it get any better than this? No!

 Yesterday my stress levels were through the roof. About half an hour before we were due to leave the house the downstairs bathroom flooded. So I am all made up (which is rare!), in full concert black, on my hands and knees on the floor mopping up the flood with every towel in the house. On the way to drop the little two off at Megan's my heel broke. By the time I had walked back home (all of one hundred yards) my other heel broke. So it was not the best start!

Adam and Ellie did well at this concert. We were doing Riu Riu Chiu again (on our newly released Christmas CD for those of you who have it!) which started out this time with just the adult choir on stage. All the kids choirs came into the hall at various points and in various places in time for their verse. Ellie was the line leader and my biggest worry in this concert was that she would get her line in on time, not fall off the riser she was speeding along, and get there in time to sing! Jeff says that they both did great!

I stole this photo off a friend's facebook feed. There are at least a couple of children's choirs missing from this picture, so this is not even the full complement of singers. But here we are in Segerstrom!

My two tired performers with their now traditional post-concert treat!

On concert week I am not truly relaxed until I am on stage, and then not even fully and properly relaxed until the encore is over and I can just enjoy the applause and acknowledge another job well done. But I would put up with any amount of stress to keep these kids in these concerts. Money just cannot buy the exposure they are getting to wonderful music in a wonderful setting - well, actually, it probably can, but it would be a lot of money on a very regular basis, and even then it would not provide the lessons they are learning on the benefits of practice and perseverance. It is such a worthwhile thing for them to be doing. As for me, I'm just grateful that I get to play with an orchestra packed with musicians infinitely more talented than I am, and we're going to keep doing it for as long as we can!