Concert

Our concert in Kaiserslautern was a great success.  We had 2 rehearsals last week plus a dress rehearsal so we spent the week in Kaiserslautern with the von Freymann family.  At the last rehearsal, the conductor noted that only 60 tickets had been sold.  So we weren’t expecting the sold out crowd in the old gothic cathedral that it was.  (They must have heard that there were Canadians participating!)  Everyone was excited by the turnout and there was a great energy.  The concert went very well and there was a lot of applause.  There was a party afterwards for which the conductor’s husband had made Flammkuchen for everyone.  He set up his little wood fired oven outside the church doors.  One of the basses set the tables in the church hall very festively.  It was a nice little finisher.  We were invited to come back for the next concert.

I had a teacher moment before the concert.  There was a kafuffle about how we would walk onto the stage and in which order.  When we practiced it after the warm-up it didn’t work very well.  At least, I didn’t think so and neither did the couple of women beside me.  And we didn’t practice again so I was a little concerned because I was the first one leading our row on and I needed to know whom I would have to follow.  And I didn’t want to be the one messing things up.  Just before the beginning of the concert the conductor asked us to line up.  Everyone kind of milled about, looking for the person standing next to them but it didn’t seem like anyone really knew what to do really either.  The woman beside me and I decided that really the sopranos should go on after the basses and that the back row (our row) should go first, which is definitely NOT how we had “practiced” it.  Since nothing else seemed to be happening (except for confusion) I made the executive decision that the sopranos would go in after the basses and found the last bass to line up behind.  My row followed me and then I thought everyone should know of this plan so in my teacher voice I made the announcement and everyone followed suit.  The man standing beside Larry said to him, “She sounds like a teacher.”  “She is.  Of young children.”, Larry answered.  And so it went off without a hitch.  The tenors and altos were a little less organized in their part of the entry…but there was only so much I can do with the little time I had.  :-)