SassyBlonde

So now that I've had a few days to recoup and process, I figured you'd like a rundown of what went down on Saturday.

The concert went really well, especially considering all of the rehearsal mishaps that occurred in the weeks leading up to it. We started out with the Elvis piece, and the King was in force and rockin'. (Wanna see a picture? Go here.) I then sat out for the innards of the concert to change clothes and warm up a bit. Waiting. More waiting. And finally, when we heard the applause for the last piece before the Adams, my heart jumped up a bit into my throat and after a couple of deeps breaths, I was off to the stage.

The applause was great, and after a few silent moments off we went.

It began well-- a beautiful hush in the hall before the first notes and then a breath into sound. The recital hall there has a beautiful clear liquid quality that works really well for clarinet-- you can really make the rafters ring. Things hung together kind of loosely in the first two movements, and it was a little scary to realize that the conductor was nervous and I couldn't tell which beat he was giving. (One? Three? Four? The only way I knew two was because he was almost whacking me with it.) So we plowed on and just kept going. Good moments, scary moments, off moments, beautiful moments. Just make it through to three, I thought. It's the reason you're up here.

And just like that, there I was, listening to the start of my favorite movement of Gnarly Buttons, the third. I was able to take a deep breath and get ready to go. But then my throat started tickling. Oh Jesus, I thought. There's nowhere to cough in this one. Hold it in, hold it in! Which I managed to do, mainly, but there's a hiccup and a brief squawk as a testament to my body's little quirk in the recording, just as I remembered it. Ah well-- nothing's perfect I guess, but other than that it was really beautiful. The unfortunate thing is that the mic was just far enough away from me that I got lost in the sound of the orchestra a bit on the recording, but it's still nice. At any rate, it went over just like I wanted it to by the end-- the silence in the hall was deafening after the last notes, for seconds and seconds. And then the applause, and I was done. Exhausted and elated and done and a little sad it was over. Then we partied until two in the morning. The cake was amazing, as was the company and the wine, and as I said to my friend Frankenberry, I went home and slept the Sleep of the Just, knowing I had done all I could to make it go right.

I will say, as an aside, that I don't recommend that anyone ever be in charge of the administrative part of a concert when you're the soloist as well. Having to do the PR, the print media, and the artist wrangling is a bit much when you're staring down the barrel of a 28-minute playing nightmare too. It's too much stress, and I hope I never have to do it again.

So for all of you lovely people who were so unfortunate as to miss the shindig on Saturday night and the performance at the end of months of hard practice, I give you the third movement:

GB Movement 3