Saturday

Wow, how did the week get over??? But who cares - we can see the sun for the first time in ages! No snow predicted until at least Monday.

Bells actually went great on Wednesday - we are doing Kum Ba Yah (everyone's favorite!) and it is a decent arrangement, but the weirdest thing is it doesn't seem to matter how many ringer I have. They keep dropping out but it still sounds fine! Yay. And I found a hymn for my neighbor boy to play the bass bells on - he is a true bell hog in training! Hope he gets to go to the bell workshop this summer, but I'll be playing La Cage (ooh-la-la)

My student showed up for lesson this week (nice) and next week is the last one! Orchestra was fun, first half we did the Mendelssohn double pno conc, it is BOR-ING for the orchestra. It is weird because that is actually going to be the closer for the concert. That might be ok if Emmanuel Ax or someone was playing, or if we weren't doing Firebird! I can't believe they are putting Firebird on the first half. Who plans this stuff?

Anyway, Firebird was fun, we are doing the 1919 version that has 4 winds on each part, and THREE harps! I have never done a piece with 3 harps. It is great to see all the people in the winds, too bad we have no extra strings for this one. I really wish people would at least listen to the practice CDs they make us - you can really tell some of the winds (and everyone's a soloist in this version!) have never heard how it goes. The beginning is extremely exposed. And then they complain because they think DD is cueing them, but he is actually cueing someone behind them. When you play the part you should at least know approximately when you are supposed to come in! And supposedly this is our 4th week of rehearsal (concert is NEXT week!!!). Hopefully lots of practicing is going on during our lovely spring-like weather. HA