The beginning of another very long day.
10:10 a.m.
Secondly, Buddy Boy decided yesterday (and we let him, idiot parents that we are) to participate in an all-night sports event at the gymnasium of the private school down the road (literally a 5-minute walk, as he kept insisting) which ran from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. We have rules about walking this particular stretch of road in the dark, since there are no sidewalks and motorists do not obey the speed limit, and I ended up driving him there on my way to get Little Princess and her boyfriend from the music department, where they had just attended a concert by a phenomenal young violinist (only 19) who provided my daughter with �joygasms� (her word, not mine), and he was instructed (by my husband, not me) to call for a ride home, which is what he did, at 4:50 a.m.! I maybe dozed after being woken (Hubby was the one who got him, even though the sky was already lightening and he could have walked), but I had a headache which did not go away, so I have taken extra-strength acetaminophen for it and it is just now starting to fade.
Buddy Boy also has a full day of rehearsal for the school play, which he neglected to inform us (we should have known this though), else we would have forbidden his participation in the above-noted all-night sports event.
At the rehearsal last night I realized how difficult it is to practise in isolation and put my part together with the other musicians just the day before the concert. As the soloist I am very exposed, especially when I make a mistake, and I made plenty of those. There are places where I have no help whatsoever in finding my next entry note, and I�m left humming my previous note or picking something out of the ensemble measures before my next entry, trying to keep it in my voice so that I actually come in on the right note. It means I can never relax during the performance, but I am constantly on edge, counting, watching, terrified I�ll screw up. Hubby�s piece is not a problem this way, although there is one entry I consistently got wrong, I think because I can�t hear the second violin from where I�m standing. But Marc�s piece treates the soprano soloist more as an obligato instrument than anything else. I supply �frosting� on top of musical phrases, or I sing a beautiful line all by itself, and then have to count like mad while the choir and orchestra do their thing, waiting for my next appearance. It�s not like I have have an actual aria or anything.
Nonetheless, this is a very beautiful piece of music, and I think the audience will like it a lot. The cathedral has incredible acoustics: after we finish a phrase, I will hear the echo ringing back to us, especially my high notes, which just seem to be suspended under the vaulted ceiling. It�s quite flattering for a singer, actually.
The violist, the same eastern European emigr�e (I found out she is actually Serbian, not Russian) who played in the last concert, is staying with us. She�s a very fine musician, being the one for whom Hubby prepared the piano reduction of his viola concerto. Her performance of that piece a couple of weeks ago went extremely well (I missed it, due to parental duties). She regaled us with stories about travelling to Brazil to see her boyfriend (she is a Canadian landed immigrant and had to acquire a transit visa since she changed flights somewhere in the U.S.), having received the necessary information from the immigration department before she left, only to have Bush change the rules while she was actually en route so that all plane-changers needed tourist visas instead. When she arrived at the end of the first leg of her journey, she was informed she could not continue because she didn�t have the right kind of papers, prompting her to throw a diva hissy fit which eventually got her past immigration and onto her next flight.
There was also the matter of applying for landed-immigrant status in the first place. In order to do so, the applicant must actually leave the country and return, which means crossing the Can.-U.S. border, or at least attempting to do so, and receiving proof that you were refused entry to the U.S. Instead of just filling out a form and stamping it �Entry Refused�, the immigration officer detained her for an hour, taking every particular of her identification, a totally useless and paranoid activity, considering all she wanted was proof of being outside Canada. Totally insane, if you ask me.
Now I must go dye my hair (I have a skunk line again) even though no one will see me, considering we are in the organ/choir loft and totally invisible to the audience. Perhaps I can grab a nap, although I don�t see how or when. Our dress rehearsal is at 1 p.m., the concert is at 8. Sigh.
<~~~ * ~~~>
