Unexpected Intermission

Yesterday the Claremont Concert Orchestra performed our final concert for the semester. We knew from Saturday night's first incarnation of the concert that we would be done in 50 minutes. I was going to blog about how 50 minutes almost doesn't even seem like a concert, even though we played the fabulous Dvorak's 8th. To make the concert a slight bit longer we also played the Farandole from Bizet's L'Arlesienne Suite #1.

Anyway, something happened in yesterday's performance that I have never seen in all my many years of orchestral playing. One of the students was not there at the end of the Bizet, and I believe he was the timpani player. We cannot perform the Dvorak without timpani, so we begged the audience's patience and waited for 20 minutes for this student to appear on stage and ready to play. I do not know the story behind this event, but I'm sure I'll hear the details at some point.

The one funny thing that happened during our intermission was that one of the horn players started playing Joy to the World, and after a phrase, the rest of the orchestra joined in and played an impromptu rendition for two verses of the carol, much to the audience's delight.

Creativity

Recently two different websites I looked at referred to this lecture from 1991 by John Cleese about creativity. I took 30 minutes yesterday to watch it, and, although I probably knew most of the information he talked about, it's always good to be reminded to play, make time to be creative, allow creativity to work over a long time span, and don't be afraid of making a mistake.

I have been trying to think of a piece to write for recorder ensemble to send in to a contest - due Feb. 1, 2013. I want to write an original piece, and I have started a few different times, but this talk inspired me to keep at it, and I put in time yesterday working on a piece.

Cleese also talked about how to inspire creativity in the people who work for you, which in my case would be my students. I realize this occasionally that I give more opportunity to my students to improvise (I wish I could see them more than 30 minutes a week). I will go back and look at the notes from the Orff workshop I attended in September and see what I can incorporate when school resumes in January.

Round Singing

On Monday one of my second graders requested that we sing the song America (not My Country 'Tis of Thee, but the one from the Wee Sing America CD). It's very short, and I did need a few minutes of filler, so I said, sure.

After we sang it a capella, the boy who requested it wanted to know if we could sing it in a round. We had done that once before with the teacher leading one of the groups, but this time we had a sub in the room whom I know did not want to sing. So we tried it and I chose the group that had a few very strong singers in it to start and continue by themselves while I sang with the second group. They did a great job and went out of the room happy.

It warmed my heart.