Friday, October 26, 2007

Ensemble practice, and a birthday

What a glorious day of practicing yesterday was! I practiced a bit in the morning, Then my early music group meet at noon for a coaching session with my cello teacher. We are playing Corelli Sonata no. 1, Op. 4, for 2 violins, cello, and keyboard on two upcoming occasions. The first is this Sunday at a fundraising concert for a church, where keyboard will be played by an organist, and the second will be my cello recital, in which our second violin player will switch to harpsichord, and the second violin part will be played by a flutist. Thankfully, I am playing cello both times.

This piece has a interesting, fun-to-play, cello part, with just the right amount of challenge so that, if I practiced diligently, I could play it well. Unfortunately, I have not really had the time to solidify all the fingerings and bowings, and the intonation is shaky, in some parts more than others. So, I will play it on Sunday, in perhaps imperfect form, and "perfect" it for my recital.

The coached session was wonderful. My teacher gave us all lots of good advice and encouragement, and we are all sounding better. She was energetic and enthusiastic, and we were all receptive and responsive. We really should do this more often.

In the evening we met up again for our regular Thursday rehearsal, this time with the organist. I missed the vibrant coaching element, but we did well, and I am getting almost all the appropriate fingerings now. We are playing three instrumental pieces at Sunday's concert, and accompanying the choir on five or six hymns. (This is at 1 pm, after my fiddle group plays along the route of the Cape Cod Marathon from 9:30 to 11:30 am. Another music-filled day.)

After the evening rehearsal, my husband and I took our daughter out for dinner to celebrate her 19th birthday, even though she had already gone out to dinner with friends. She took home most of both meals, so should eat well for a day or two. A lovely day of music, friends, and family.

6 comments:

cellodonna said...

You're lucky to have so many great opportunities to perform and play.

CelloGeek said...

thanks for sharing!

Maricello said...

Hi Donna, I am very lucky to be playing with the people I am playing with. I haven't always played with so congenial and talented (and tolerant) a group. But the opportunities to play aren't really luck. I spend a lot of time on event organization, finding music, sometimes transposing music, bringing people together, etc. I enjoy this work too, though not quite so much as the playing.

You're welcome CelloGeek! That's what we're here for--sharing. Enjoyed your recent post on your gig.

Paulette said...

Sounds like a wonderful day!

cellodonna said...

How wonderful and creative that you've organized some of these events yourself! Sounds like a lot of work, but obviously very worthwhile.

Maricello said...

Hi Paulette! I finally did that Seven Things thing. Sorry to take so long!

Hi Donna, I prefer to play with small ensembles (no official director), so we all take part in music selection, event planning, etc. I probably take part more than others because I am always looking for good music that I can play. Another player in our group found this great Corelli piece though. As for events, some of them are annual events which I found via my son, who used to play in a jazz band. If his band was asked to play at an event, I would ask if my group or groups could play too. Kind of pushy, I guess, but we have four regular gigs a year due to this strategy.