I CAN'T BELIEVE I GET TO DO THIS!

I am in the middle of a mountaintop experience!  And before I go a step further in describing it, I have to shout out two huge thank you's.


First to my dad who is not alive to hear this.   Many years ago, when I was a junior in high school and had dreamed of becoming a nurse my whole life, he took me aside and told me that I would make a lousy nurse.  I guess as a surgeon with a vast experience of nurses in hospitals, he just could not see someone like me, with all my struggles to keep things picked up, as being an asset to the profession.  This was a little hard to hear.  But his second statement was that maybe I should go and study something I loved. . . .like music.  It's interesting that at that point I never considered music necessarily as something I loved.  It was just something that I enjoyed and that came easy to me.   I didn't even know that you could go to college and study music!   But that is what I did.   And if I had never done that, I would never have ended up having the musical experiences that I have had throughout my life.


And then there's Dave.   Without his generous offering of a free place to stay each and every week that I have to be up here to sing in the choir, none of this would be possible for me.  I would have never sung in London with the London Symphony.  I would have never sung in Carnegie Hall.  I would have never sung any of the concerts of the past 5 years without the gift of this place to stay.


So thank you to Daddy for the suggestion (no offense taken).  And huge thanks  to Dave for the support.  


So here's how my week is going, musically.  On Monday night we met for the first time with Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos.  Be still my heart.  I could just weep when I realize how fortunate I have been in my life to perform with the great conductors of the world.  Yes. . . .the WORLD!  Beginning with Leonard Bernstein when I was a mere 23 years old.  Then there was Lorin Maazel, Pablo Casals (in his 90's at the time, but still able to wave his cello-playing arms!), Antal Dorati, Robert Shaw (OMG, Robert Shaw!), Leonard Slatkin, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, and now Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos. 


Once I decided to be a music major, I began collecting classical music on record albums (I smile just writing that).   I didn't know one orchestra from another, or one conductor from another.  But I know that there were a whole bunch of recordings with Fruhbeck conducting.  Turns out he KNEW Carl Orff, made suggestions to him for phrasing, and thus is one of the world experts on Carmina Burana. . . our piece for our three-night run with the National Symphony this week.


Okay, so it's Monday night.  We get to the Unitarian Church where we will meet the maestro for the first time.  I am front row center, by assignment, a mere couple of feet from the podium.   As I'm waiting, a fellow chorister comes up.  He was with the choir when they sang with Fruhbeck previously.   "How is he?" I asked.   "Well," answered my friend Joe,  "he can be quite brusque and has no sense of humor. . . .all business!   And he has no problem if the choir cannot do what he is asking saying 'Well, apparently this is just not a good enough choir to sing it right.' "   GULP!   GULP AGAIN!  I think we are prepared for this rehearsal, but I personally had to miss two rehearsals for the bike trip last week.  I'm a little apprehensive.


Fruhbeck arrives in a flurry of activity.  He steps to the podium.  This imposing 78 year old man is all business, but polite.  He wastes no time striking the first beat which brings on the opening "O FORTUNA!" out of our mouths.   He has suggestions immediately.  He is interpreting this piece in a completely new way for us.  But he KNEW Carl Orff and we feel we are going to be doing it the RIGHT way in every respect.  Yes he was demanding.  Yes he was intense.  But he was also cute in a teddy bear sort of way, lovely, and very very complimentary of the choir.  We rehearsed that night with no break.  No bathroom time.  No cookies during halftime.  And nobody noticed.  And the best part was that throughout the rehearsal and again at the end, Fruhbeck stated that the choir was outstanding and very well prepared!  Dynamic does not even begin to describe this experience.  I floated out of that rehearsal and, for the umpteen-billionth time in my life, was heard to mutter,  "I can't believe I get to do this."


Last night was the first orchestra rehearsal on stage at the Kennedy Center with a very large National Symphony Orchestra.  And the brilliant Washington Children's Chorus.   It was fun and very hard.  The orchestra had the same challenges as we did to hold this monster piece together through all the fast tempi and changing moods.  Fruhbeck knows this piece so well (including knowing every word of text from memory!) that he does not use the score.  The most challenging thing for him was when we had to stop and he had to consult the score to determine where to tell us to begin from.  All of the musicians are torn between needing to watch these frenetic words and notes, and watching Fruhbeck in order to conform to his tempi.   YIKES!   And the men in the chorus have parts 100 times more difficult than the women.  For anyone who thinks this piece is an old war horse and cliche, they have not done it in this context.   It is scary, and virtuosic and utterly, utterly thrilling.  We will not be "phoning in" this concert.  Plus, I'm guessing we're all burning a bunch of calories!


So I'm preparing myself for the 2nd and last orchestra rehearsal tonight.  But not before I stop blogging, whip out my score, and try to memorize as many tricky German/Latin (as opposed to Italian/Latin which we more frequently sing) phrases as I can so that I can look up as much as possible.  


How do you get to the stage of the Kennedy Center?    Much like you get to Carnegie Hall.   PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!


I can't believe I get to do this!