Worst. Concert. Ever.
On Friday night I took part in the worst concert that I have ever performed in. It may well have been the worst concert I have ever seen as well. Fortunately, I didn't have to watch it, although others that did have confirmed that it was horrible. Even my dad knew something was amiss, so you know it was quite obviously bad.
Naturally it got off to a bad start when the so-called artistic director gave us the wrong opening pitch for our first piece. Then the (actual) director gave us the correct pitch (a third or so lower), but the artistic director didn't notice. So we had quite a few different interpretations of the first couple notes of the piece, but I steered the group back to the correct pitch.
The rest of the first half was fairly shaky. The sopranos were flat. The tenors were not just flat, but tended to fade in and out, lose their place, and just plain sing the wrong pitches. But we got to the intermission without having to stop altogether. In fact, during intermission, I remarked to my fellow singers, "Hey, at least we didn't have to start any pieces over."
Some might say I jinxed things. I would say that what followed was simply inevitable.
The tenors soon missed an entrance. Then another. Whole movements passed with the tenors phasing in and out in loose synchronization. Eventually we got to a movement in which the tenors entered first. Except they failed to get their entrance pitch (C) from the ending note of the intonation (F), and the group staggered along for a few measures until the conductor mercifully cut us off. This time the tenors were granted a fresh pitch from a bell. This wasn't enough to save us as the group again got off track and ground to a halt. The audience was getting restless. Fortunately, the third time was the charm and we made it through the movement.
We struggled through towards the end of the Cardosa Requiem and reached the point where the basses sang the intonations. I was concerned about this section since we hadn't rehearsed it until the day of the concert(!). Of course, I had practiced it, so I was able to shout the other two basses down and get through the intonations ok. Sadly, our conductor had given the higher intonation (which repeated three times at different points) to the tenors. Despite the fact that they had had at least a week to learn one measly line of music, they completely dropped the ball. I was tempted to belt it out for them, but I was so dispirited by this point that pure schadenfreude held me back. Suffice to say that it sucked.
Mercifully, the program came to a close.
There however a few good points about all this:
Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors as the product of post-traumatic stress.
Naturally it got off to a bad start when the so-called artistic director gave us the wrong opening pitch for our first piece. Then the (actual) director gave us the correct pitch (a third or so lower), but the artistic director didn't notice. So we had quite a few different interpretations of the first couple notes of the piece, but I steered the group back to the correct pitch.
The rest of the first half was fairly shaky. The sopranos were flat. The tenors were not just flat, but tended to fade in and out, lose their place, and just plain sing the wrong pitches. But we got to the intermission without having to stop altogether. In fact, during intermission, I remarked to my fellow singers, "Hey, at least we didn't have to start any pieces over."
Some might say I jinxed things. I would say that what followed was simply inevitable.
The tenors soon missed an entrance. Then another. Whole movements passed with the tenors phasing in and out in loose synchronization. Eventually we got to a movement in which the tenors entered first. Except they failed to get their entrance pitch (C) from the ending note of the intonation (F), and the group staggered along for a few measures until the conductor mercifully cut us off. This time the tenors were granted a fresh pitch from a bell. This wasn't enough to save us as the group again got off track and ground to a halt. The audience was getting restless. Fortunately, the third time was the charm and we made it through the movement.
We struggled through towards the end of the Cardosa Requiem and reached the point where the basses sang the intonations. I was concerned about this section since we hadn't rehearsed it until the day of the concert(!). Of course, I had practiced it, so I was able to shout the other two basses down and get through the intonations ok. Sadly, our conductor had given the higher intonation (which repeated three times at different points) to the tenors. Despite the fact that they had had at least a week to learn one measly line of music, they completely dropped the ball. I was tempted to belt it out for them, but I was so dispirited by this point that pure schadenfreude held me back. Suffice to say that it sucked.
Mercifully, the program came to a close.
There however a few good points about all this:
- I had comp tickets for Susie and Sherwin.
- Tickets were only $10 each for my parents.
- Some of the people in the group were quite nice.
- I'll never have to sing with those clowns again.
Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors as the product of post-traumatic stress.
posted by Daniel Hiatt at
1:17 PM
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