Monday 21 March 2011

YTSO – Saturday, March 19th, 2011, Day 7 in Sydney, Australia

It’s funny how at the beginning, it felt like I’d been here forever and I’d known all these wonderful people for ages.  Now that it’s nearly the end, it feels like it’s been a couple of days.  I guess that’s a testimony to how amazing this experience has been… we’ve all been getting to know each other and becoming a real orchestra.  It’s incredible.  I wouldn’t give any of this up for the world. 

We had full orchestra dress rehearsal this morning starting at 9:30.  Well… it sort of started at 9:30.  That’s when we were in our seats, but like any tech rehearsal, there was a lot of waiting around while the techies figured out what they needed when for lights and audio.  We went quite late, finishing around 1:30 instead of the projected 12:30 end time, but it was definitely necessary to get everything in top condition for the concert at 3:00.  The concert was a matinee aimed at students and musicians who wouldn’t necessarily be able to afford to come to the full concert, but still wanted to see it live.  It also gave us and the tech crew a chance to perform for a critical audience and make sure everything is in top condition for the live streaming on Sunday.  I can only imagine how stressful it would be to run the show from the top with no stops for the first time at the Grand Finale! 

After dress rehearsal, Tristan, Anne-Rose, and I went walking down the harbour to find somewhere other than the Green Room to eat.  We found a café that was very close to the opera house, and ate sandwiches that were far too expensive.  Our waiter did, however, notice our Sydney Opera House name tags and asked if we worked for the opera house.  We said we did, and he told us that there was a discount for SOH workers.  YESSSSS!!!!!  10% off! 

We walked the three minutes back to the opera house to get changed and warm up for the concert in the Red Room, which is the ‘green room’ for the concert hall.  As you might have guessed, it’s red (or at least the carpet is).  It’s LOUD in there when 97 people are all playing their instruments, so generally we never hear the announcements giving us our 10- or 5-minute call to the stage, heh. 

It’s kind of humorous just how many of the violists have black Bam cases.  I think at least half the section had them, and a couple of others had different Bam cases… awww, we MATCH! 

At about 2:50, we headed onstage for our first YTSO full orchestra concert.  We were joined by the Sydney Children’s Choir, who performed Grainger’s Arrival on Platform Humlet with us, and also sang some Mozart with opera star Renee Fleming via webcast.  Everything went really well, I’m so glad we had the opportunity to perform for an audience before the live broadcast.  It was longer than I had anticipated it being, about 2 hours and 45 minutes, because there were a few videos shown as well as all the music.  It gave the audience a chance to connect a little more with the musicians and get to know them a little better.  Everything went pretty much without a hitch, which was wonderful.  Funnily enough, it didn’t really feel like a concert.  It felt like a dress rehearsal, and there just so happened to be a couple thousand people watching us…
After the concert, we all headed back to the hotel to get changed for the jam session at the Basement, a bar that is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel.  There were three seatings for dinner since they couldn’t fit all 101 of us in there at once, and mine was at 7:30.  Nina told us that in the YTSO 2009, something similar was thrown together at the last minute and was a HUGE success, so they figured they’d make a bigger deal of it this year.  Basically, it’s a chance for YTSOers to show off what else they do as well as jam with other musicians from the orchestra.  I had signed up for a 5-minute spot to play some fiddle, but I didn’t have a violin, just my viola.  It would have been okay to do it on viola, but I thought it would be better on an actual fiddle since that’s generally how I play fiddle tunes.  Ronald had his violin with him, so I asked if I could borrow it for when I played.  He let me use it, but reminded me jokingly that he had a concert the next day, so to please be careful with it…

First, the orchestra’s pianist played some Chopin and Liszt, which was followed by the cello quartets playing the Beatles (woo!).  I was up next, so I played some Cape Breton tunes and told them that if they felt like dancing to please do so, and sure enough somebody hopped up on the stage!  I had a great time up there.  A few other people played after me, including Stefan, the soloist for the Mendelssohn concerto in the concert (he played the Bach E major prelude and it was excellent!), Paulo (one of the soloists for Mothership, from Brazil) played electric guitar, Valeria (from Russia) improvised on viola with Paulo, Marco (from Venezuela) played some Piazzola on flute, accompanied by the YTSO percussion section, and Ali (another soloist, living in New York) played an electric violin piece he wrote after a dream about Australia.  Everybody was fantastic and it was so great to see what else people can do! 

The jam session came after the performances.  They had put together a little jazz combo including John on bass (one of the Mothership soloists, from Australia), Feargus (percussionist from the UK), and anyone else who felt inclined to join them.  Qantas held a competition a couple of weeks ago in which the prize was to come to Sydney and play at the jam session for the YTSOers and anyone else who bought a ticket.  An electric guitar player won, so he was up first.  He was great, everybody enjoyed it very much.  A few other people got up and played as well: Valeria, Federico (a violinist from Uruguay), Ali, Marco, Su (guzheng soloist from China) and more.  It was very loud, but so much fun.  I had such a wonderful time with everybody… what a great idea. 

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