Today was eventful. I woke up to my host clapping his hands
together to wake Ben and myself up. I groggily sat myself up and immediately fell
back down again. I’d had our hours of sleep and wasn’t feeling up too much.
Fortunately my ever-helpful room neighbour Frankie was there to slap me in the
face in order to wake me properly. I can
only guess he was sore after I’d won three euros off him in last night’s
blackjack episode.
We made our way downstairs to find a huge breakfast awaiting
us. We devoured the delicious spread and got ourselves into the car to drive to
the school where we had to meet the coaches and load up the stands, percussion
instruments and our own instruments.
The coach journey was boring. The only excitement was
picking up a mysterious red-headed lady. It was a real disappointment when we
learnt that she was actually a percussionist.
Once we arrived at the first school everyone was called upon
to help unload the coach and once everything was inside the school hall we were
told to unpack our instruments and tune up. We ran through the program for the
first concert. That was as normal until I was reminded I was to be playing the
tubular bells in “The Lord of the Dance”.
We got to the first concert about an hour after my spectacular
performance on the bells. It was
largely successful, the only minor problem being the electric violin not being
electric. I think I can safely say
however, that at that concert, I experienced my proudest and most nervous
moments.
After packing up the orchestra, travelling to Kankaanpåå and repeating the same
unpacking procedure, we were ready to rehearse once more. It had already been a long day and most people
were quite tired and quite hungry.
When our rehearsal finished we were banished out of site and
Francis started an amusing game. It was basically ‘Lets see how many
outstretched legs we can jump over before we brake a leg or Peter turns up.
Thankfully, for the tour’s sake, Peter turned up and after he declined our
invitation to join in, decided it was for the best to put a stop to it and
ensure a trip to the A&E was off the cards.
Eddie Krish
The second concert was much longer and much fuller than the
first. It contained the majority of the pieces we had practised, including the
pieces for the three soloists. One highlight of the concert was when Tom Davidson
went AWOL just before his solo piece. A brief pause, wherein Peter was heard
quite clearly calling for the missing trumpeter, ensued. Luckily, he was
located and the rest of the concert went as planned.
Our grand finale, “The Lord of the Dance”, was spectacular
and met with a thunderous round of applause (as, indeed, did the others), and
Peter promised that we would play the end faster (‘in under twenty seconds’, I
believe, were his exact words). The audience greeted the second finish with
another great roar.
Clare Bowden
