Orchestra!

We have spent all summer getting ready for orchestra season, after a series of three preliminary rehearsals this summer. There were endless e-mails over all sorts of things, publicity, music selection and distribution, negotiating with our conductor, fundraising events, etc. Finally, tonight, we had our first rehearsal. It was all worth it.

We have about 35 members--a great turnout; a few days ago we were expecting only 22. We have five cellists. I am sitting in the second chair, but only because the cellist who should be there preferred to sit farther back, and the other two cellists had already picked chairs in the back.

The first chair cellist is a friend, a professional flutist who also plays the cello. She was the one who got me interested in the cello in the first place, when she got some of her adult flute students together with adult student of a cello teacher and a violin teacher. I loved the sound of the flute and cello together and wanted to enhance our flute choir with a cello. (At the same time, my daughter independently decided she wanted to play the cello after we visited my sister and her family, and was intrigued with the cello one of her cousins was playing. So we, my daughter and I, started cello together.)

Our orchestra program for the fall is:

Handel, Overture to Agrappina
Vaughn Williams, Fantasia of Greensleeves
Tchaikovsky, Andante Cantabile
Telemann, Concerto in e minor
Bizet, Symphony in C

We worked on the Bizet tonight. This is a four-movement, 30-minute piece, and we only got through the first three movements in two hours. It sounded good to me though, and it not too difficult on the cello. The Greensleeves, which I haven't even tried yet, looks to be the most challenging, as most of it is in four flats, and there a lots of triple stops and some tenor clef. I will have to try it out this week, should I find the time to practice!