Ah, the first day of rehearsal. And unfortunately for us today, the only day. Tomorrow we leave for China bright and early in the A.M., and have to get up and out of the hotal at 4:45. F*ck.
Rehearsal actually went pretty well today, all things considered-- we had to cram all of the usual things into half the time. When a touring group comes together, there are quite a few stages of a sort of meet and greet that goes on, not on a social basis, but playing with one another. First you have to suss out the lay of the musical landscape: who plays well, who needs some work, whose style is matching up, whose isn’t, what the limits are of what you can and can’t do, say, and play with each other. Then over the course of the rehearsal you start to blend and match and coalesce into a single force. For us, that usually takes most of the first day, along with the reading of the music that we’ll be playing. It’s like building a scaffold inside which a cathedral arch is built.
We managed to cram that into the first three-hour rehearsal and sort of started to string it all together by the end of rehearsal today. It’s just an odd dynamic—new concertmaster, new orchestra members, and for me new equipment. (Ick and f*ck.) And our conductor was in fine and rare form—like most conductors, the less time he has, the stricter and tighter he becomes, and he was on fire today, man. Caustic, but with purpose and intent, so it didn’t really seem to bother anyone. He has a good feel for the people under his baton, and everybody responded pretty well.
I LOVE the woodwind section. Playing with these guys is GREAT. I’ve known the oboist for a long time, and the new bassoonist is not only a fabulous player but also a super fun chick also. The flutist is meeting up with us tomorrow (can’t wait!!) in Chicago, so we had a sub today who did a great job navigating some of the weirdness in the music we play. I don’t envy them their parts for a second—thy have more notes and crazier parts than anyone else in the group except the first violins. Ick—no way I’d be able to play that shit.
Today was also the day that we met up for the first time all together in terms of social interaction, too, meaning that if I hadn’t already sought someone out to say hello, I didn’t really particularly want to, but who has a choice, right? Nineteen hours on the plane together tomorrow. OY VEY. Of course, The Mullet was there and The Mouth, as well as the Troll. I’ll explain these little nicknames at some later point, because I’m sure they’ll all steal the limelight at some point in the next two weeks.
They laid us out a buffet dinner, but the real highlight of the night was the hot tub afterwards—the bassoonist and oboist and I got in and got all pruney for about forty-five minutes. ROCK. The only downside was that whatever they used to clean the hot tub made the ends of my hair all crispy—kind of like soap residue. Gack. Ah well, off to bed for a few hours—I’m sure I won’t be so perky when I have to get up tomorrow.
