Premier

There is something pretty magical about playing a world premier. No audience has ever judged the music, each part is created by the performers around you, with no looming prior performance by John Mack ( or pick your favorite musician) to make THIS first playing of the piece less.

Our jazz piano concerto (which our little symphony commissioned!) was amazing last night- not perfect playing (except perhaps by the soloist/composer Brent Edstrom), but thoroughly appreciated by the audience. What a great experience.

The Beethoven 3 was certainly the best we'd ever played it, so wish we could afford at least one rehearsal in the concert hall! It sounds very different in there. But we pulled it off, and my idea to dedicate the Heroic Symphony to our local heroes was inspired and tragic, as just yesterday a planeful of our local servicemen exploded over Afghanistan. The tribute to those heroes and the ones at the concert was very moving, one of our violinists spoke in his full army dress uniform, don't guys always look amazing in uniform?

Today my son and dh are coming, D will usher for the first time and to mark the occasion he decided he needed new pants! This is amazing since he refuses to wear anything but sweats normally. But even more thrilling is that when I was debating how to shop for pants in my insane schedule, dh volunteered to go to the MALL (synonymous with hell for him). But pants have been procured and the show will go on--