Diversionary Post

...as if all of my posts aren't diversions for what goes on in the world. We have all suffered a nearly unspeakable tragedy here in this country--possibly all of humanity has suffered. Every news program with air time will devote its coverage to the shooting at Virginia Tech and to the gun control debate and to keeping a tally of the fatalities and injuries. I, on the other hand, will write about my weekend. The diversion:

My orchestra performed a concert devoted to the French. Usually, when I hear a phrase like that, I say, "I hate the French," but I really just hate their attitude, or at least the attitude I perceive from time to time. A couple of years ago, we hosted a French student for three weeks while she was in the states visiting a friend. She barely spoke English, and we barely spoke French (actually, the only word I could remember was the word for window, which proved useless). We spent our evenings working on jigsaw puzzles because you don't have to talk to put those together. She was a lovely girl, so I can't declare a general rule of hating the entire French population.

OK. Back to the concert. We performed Mouret's suite, which was lovely even though there were no horn parts written for that piece. Every thing can only be improved with a few French horns. It's a fact.

We also performed Debussy's An Afternoon of A Faun and Gershwin's An American In Paris. They were both lovely and very fun to play. I have had a crush on Gene Kelly since childhood, so I thought of him and Leslie Caron during our performance. We finished with the Can Can, and we had to sight read the thing because there never seemed to be time for it during our rehearsals.

The high school French class set up a display in the lobby during the concert. They had a small gallery of paintings that students had created based on famous paintings, and they had a kid set up working on a paint-by-number set as if he were sitting by the Seine. It was actually pretty cute. One of the students performed as a mime. During the intermission, he walked through the audience with an upturned umbrella, and people started tossing in money unexpectedly. The kid raised $23, so the class will splurge on lunch one day next week.

So, France was the theme for this weekend. The concert later in May will be American and will feature Rhapsody in Blue and a guest jazz pianist. See you there.

Oh, and the photo is from our Italian choral concert in February. I'm squeezed in between the piano and bass drum--usually, my section is on a platform behind the other winds.