Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Three Concerts

I have been overwhelmed with work lately, and have not had as much time as I would like for practicing, especially considering I have three concerts looming in the near future.

On October 28, several members of the early music group (Fritz, Laura, and I) will play with our friend Marion, an organist, at her church as part of a concert to raise money for organ repairs. Laura plays violin, beautifully. Fritz plays many instruments, but will be confined to violin and viola for this concert. :-) We'll have three instrumental pieces (currently, we think they will be sonatas by Boismortier, Corelli, and Falconiero). I'll play flute in the Boismortier piece and cello in the other two. I will also play flute to accompany the choir for "Shall We Gather at the River," and with Fritz and Laura on another five hymns. The music is all quite playable, but I want to play it well. This is, after all, a fundraiser!

On November 4, the flute choir plans to play for the nursing home which so generously gives us a space to rehearse every week. I may play cello on one piece (Joplin's "The Entertainer"), but so far I've been doubling the first flute, too lazy to haul my cello to flute choir rehearsal for only one piece. The rest of the pieces are, of course, with flute.

Finally, I'll give a recital of recent Suzuki pieces, tunes from Scottish fiddle camp, and, with members of the early music group, one or two ensemble pieces we have been working on. The audience will be small, so this is mostly a wine and cheese party, with music. The date for this is undetermined. I thought it would be in October, but I don't have another lesson until the 15th. I actually slept through my lesson this week. My teacher called, waking me at 11:30 am to ask me why I hadn't shown up at my 11 am lesson. 11:30! I have been working around the clock, but didn't realize I was that tired--to sleep through a cello lesson!

None of this is too difficult, but there is a lot of it! I'd better get back to work so I can get back to practicing.

P.S. I forgot the fiddle events! There is a bluegrass festival my fiddle group is playing in this coming Sunday. It is in Rhode Island, at least an hour from here, so I haven't decided whether to go or not, but it sounds like fun. We'll see. There is also a fiddle performance on Saturday the 13th, the Rachel Carson dinner at my church, another fundraiser, and fiddling along the path of the Cape Cod Marathon on October 28 (the morning of the other church fundraiser). I do enjoy the latter two annual events and will attend those.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you could just run the world on Fridays at coffeetime it may help you not to sit around like that and twiddle your thumbs!!

Maricello said...

Ah, that's an idea! I could give all the the warring factions musical instruments to engage their creative talents in a more positive way. :-)

CelloGeek said...

Wow, you have a lot of music! I hope you find the time to relax while you're getting ready for all of your concerts.

Maricello said...

Hi CelloGeek, It's not as bad as it sounds. I'm only playing cello in two sonatas for the church fundraiser, one piece for the flute choir, so it isn't really that much music to learn on the cello. The flute music is easy enough.

And with the fiddle music, when I don't know the tune, I can always pizz something in the key of G or D, and it should fit in, or at least be inaudible. With fiddle music, we don't usually have a specific program; we just play from our repertoire (of which I only know a small fraction...so far).

So, I'll concentrate on the two sonatas (for organ, violin, viola, and cello, and probably use one or both for my recital too. This way, I'll be sure we go over them in my lesson.