Thursday, 4:00 PM
Rehearsal with High School Choir at Diefenbaker
An hour before our usual rehearsal time, members of Ambrose's Chamber Singers began arriving on campus, packing up practice rooms, or ducking out of lectures early. We were on a mission today. After congregating and planning routes, we piled into vehicles, and made our way up to Diefenbaker in the north end of the city to participate in their choir's rehearsal.
In a few weeks' time, Ambrose is hosting a 'choral collaboration' with quite a few high school choirs from around the city. It's going to be a great opportunity for all of us to remember that we're really a part of something much bigger than the usual grind of rehearsals that we all go through on our own. Choral music is everywhere. And we get the chance to celebrate that fact, and pull together to create a performance on a much bigger scale than any one group could ever do on their own.
The rehearsal was a blast. Diefenbaker's choir was pretty great, and we really had a good time working with them. They sang for us, we rehearsed two mass pieces for the choral collaboration, and then we sang for them. Being in a high school again brought back old memories for a lot of us, but, truthfully, the overall consensus was that we're all really very happy that that part of our lives is over and done with! After a pit stop at McDonald's, we hit the road back to Ambrose, with the awesome harmonies of Rajaton cranked up all the way.
Thursday, 6:30 PM
Pre-Orchestra Meeting
My concerto is coming up in five weeks. It's time to start rehearsing in earnest with the orchestra. So tonight, before all the musicians arrived, I spent some time going over the score with our conductor. We clarified tempo changes, I demonstrated sections, we discussed them, marked places where I wanted to take time for rubato, and talked about places where one of us needed to cue the other. And with that, we were ready to go. I took two minutes to warm up my hands, and I was on.
Thursday, 7:00 PM
Concerto Rehearsal
A downbeat. A measure-long timpani roll. And I was in. Two weeks of hard practice had paid off - the introduction felt solid under my fingers, and sounded just how I wanted it to sound. We worked our way through the entire movement, stopping occasionally polish and adjust, and then took the whole thing from the top again. The great news is: I survived! I got through it! That was a huge victory for me. And hearing the strings swell up underneath the cantabile phrases I had shaped so carefully was breathtaking. It all came together to create a thing of heart-stopping energy and beauty. Concertos are really, really incredible.
Thursday, 7:45 PM
Conducting, Take Two
"So now I'll call Alyssa back up here..." With that, I found my feet carrying me back up to the podium I had nearly died of terror behind last week. But I arrived with my head held high, my right hand clutching a score that I had painstakingly studied and marked up over the past week. This time, I was READY for what I was facing.
Last week, I had stood frozen in front of the orchestra, unable to dissect the wave of sound that was overwhelming me from all sides. And I was deathly afraid that the same thing would happen again this week. Sensitive musical hearing is absolutely critical for a conductor. If you can't probe into what is happening in front of you, you cannot work with it. But I realized something important: a large part of the reason I had felt so overwhelmed was because I was glued to my score, struggling just to keep up with the fourteen layers of unique sound that were mingling together. Let me tell you something: hearing and analyzing fourteen layers of sound at once is physically and mentally impossible. One thing a good conductor must be able to do is understand their music so well that they know exactly when they need to be listening closely to certain parts, and being able to preemptively prepare to compare the sound the musicians create with the ideal sound they are already imagining in their mind. And when I was glued to my score, lost in the sea of weaving lines, I was completely unable to do that. So this past week, I studied the score in earnest. I marked entries, solos, dynamics, accents, and every other important detail in colour, and I divided up important phrases and sections with coded markings. Now, at a glance, I could see what was important at any given place in the music. Working through that process also meant that I knew the music much, much better.
So, armed with this heavily-marked score, and brand-new determination and confidence, I took the podium again. And this time, I felt like my musician's ears had been given back to me. I could hear again. Now I could rehearse. We played. I listened. I called authoritative halts where corrections needed to be made. I articulated my adjustments clearly, and we got right down to work again. After we'd covered a lot of ground, I was feeling pretty good about the job I was doing.
"I've got this!" I thought to myself. "I still have a lot to learn, but...maybe I'm 50% there."
I thought this for a grand total of about two minutes. After we had worked through a fair chunk of the piece, our director took the podium back, and allowed me to stand next to him and just watch. And as I saw the way he crafted the music taking shape in front of him, pulling the exact nuances he wanted from the orchestra through the sheer strength and clarity of his gestures and eye contact alone, I realized that I am still a mere scarecrow of a conductor. I have miles and miles to go yet before I can express my musicianship through my conducting, and before I have the wisdom to know exactly how to handle an orchestra. Maybe I'm 5% there.
Next week, my hands are freed. Not to mechanically beat patterns into the air, but to communicate with the orchestra as they play. I was literally assigned to take time this week to lock the doors, close all the blinds, and do interpretive dance to the piece I am working on. (I definitely thought my conductor was kidding at first, but he assured me he was completely deadly serious.) Because, as he told me, conducting gestures are just everyday movements, adapted to a musical situation. Interpretive dance: those are the kinds of expressive gestures he wants to see in my conducting next week. This, ladies and gentlemen, is going to take a whole lot of guts, shamelessness, and courage.
Thursday, 8:30 PM
The Rest of Orchestra Rehearsal
Oh yeah, we also rehearsed two movements from Dvorak's 9th Symphony. This piece is chock-full of the most beautiful woodwind solos you have ever heard. As a clarinetist, this causes me fear and thrill in equal measures.
Thursday, 9:30 PM
Evening, Thank Goodness!
After a flautist kindly gave me a ride home, I unwound with hot chocolate and a chat with my roommate. Well, and Facebook (let's be honest, here).
Friday, 8:30 AM
Morning: Attempt #1
I hit the snooze button. Three times.
Friday, 9:00 AM
Morning: Attempt #2
Iron a shirt. Brush teeth. A check in the mirror, a check in my bag, and I was off and running. I took some time on campus to eat a bit of breakfast in the music wing with some other music majors, and then to practice. Today, you see, I was playing in a masterclass. A Russian concert pianist had agreed to honour us with a visit, a recital, and a masterclass, which a few of us were chosen to play in.
Friday, 11:00 AM
A Fabulous Performance
A small, but enthusiastic audience of music majors, music lovers, and community members gathered for an incredible recital by an incredible pianist. We were treated to music by Schumann and Chopin, along with a couple of encores. Our guest artist's technique was nothing short of stunning. We had never seen anything like it, especially up close like that. An hour passed quickly, and, hands sore from so much applauding, we trickled out to lunch.
Friday, 12:00 PM
Lunch Time
A brand-new coffee shop opened up by Ambrose recently. A lot of us are pretty ecstatic about that. I kid you not, this place serves the best white mochas I have ever tasted in my entire life, bar none. It's like heaven in a dark blue mug.
But anyway, three of us piano majors who were picked to play in the impending masterclass ducked out to grab paninis and hot drinks (I opted for the caffeine-free rooibos latte today. In my experience, caffeine does NOT contribute to a good piano performance!). We went through the usual rigamarole of agonizing over runs, octaves, and arpeggios that we had not yet perfected. But this, we followed with a healthy dose of collective encouragement for each other. And that, my friends, is one of the things I love most about studying music at a smaller school. In the bigger schools, it's all about competition, and climbing over your fellow students to make it to the top at all costs. That is an environment I know I could never survive in. I love the atmosphere of mutual edification we have here, and it's made all of us much more generous, confident, positive, and selfless musicians.
Friday, 1:30 PM
Go Time: The Masterclass
Far from being the stereotypical 'shred-fest' masterclasses are often cracked up to be, we all received encouragement, solid advice, and unique perspectives on our playing. I played my concerto, not as well as I know I can play it, but, nerves always do that to a performance. I was left with a lot to consider as I continue to work on this piece over the next several weeks.
Friday, 3:30 PM
It's the Weekend!
How does a music major wrap up a busy week? With more hours locked away from the world in a practice room? No! Peering over theoretical analyses of complicated works? No!
I, for one, went and thoroughly enjoyed seeing Avatar. Is that a stellar movie, or what??
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment