jrtom

So I had my conducting debut this past weekend (see http://jrtom.livejournal.com/225901.html for details if you have no idea what I'm talking about). It went very well: all sorts of people (in and out of the choir) came up and told me that they thought I'd done an excellent job, I enjoyed it, and I'm told that one could hardly see the marionette strings coming from the cathedral ceiling. :)

There were a couple of things that I would have done differently if I'd had more rehearsal time; I would have liked to add a third repetition (to the Ukrainian and English lyric reps) with 'scat' syllables simulating bell tones, and it would have been nice if they'd actually put my name in the program (although they did announce me in the concert).

The biggest bummer, though, is that Megan wasn't able to make it: this past weekend she caught whatever sickness that the kids had had the previous week, and she was exhausted both from that and from riding herd on the kids by herself this weekend. I feel pretty bad that I was gone at a time that she really needed help. :(

However, my brother- and father-in-law both taped the second performance (in addition to the more professional taping from a different angle), so at least we'll have that...and I think there's a good chance that neither of them would have attended if they hadn't felt bad about the fact that Megan couldn't attend.


For the occasion, I wore my tuxedo (tails, white tie, vest, the works); this caused at least one person to remark that I definitely looked the part of a conductor. I replied that while I figured that they wouldn't necessarily bar me from the conductor's podium if I showed up in grimy jeans and sweatshirt clutching an AK-47 (well, maybe the assault rifle would present a problem) that I thought it was probably better to look like a conductor than a resistor, regardless. :)