Posted by Rick Denney on April 30, 2001 at 18:23:49:
My wife couldn't begin to eat one, so she ordered the turkey dinner instead. It had twice as much meat. We left uncomfortably full. The cheesecake didn't help.
After having spent a week in Waikiki (on business, I tell you!), we were already jet-lagged. We got home to Virginia at 2AM Saturday, and arose at 8:30 for a sunny country drive from Washington to New York on the busiest highway in These United States.
First stop: The Lincoln Center. We met Chris Hall coming out the stage door from the Met's matinee. He delivered the forward bell for my York Master, and we chatted for a while. Good conversation; nice guy. My wife's comment as we walked away, "He's so young!" The good ones, I told her, get hired early.
Second stop: Carnegie Hall, where my niece was performing on bassoon with her high-school orchestra. Her high-school FULL orchestra. 85 musicians and no empty chairs. They played a variety of works, including Russlan and Ludmilla, some Elgar, and the finale from Dvorak's 9th. Heady stuff for a bunch of teenagers, especially considering they came from one school, not skimmed from a whole district. My niece was almost an all-stater this year, and she played second bassoon. And Texas band directors complain about the weakness of their programs!
We were living like royalty in the audience, too. We had Box 1, Seats 1 and 2 on the First Tier of the Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. I was within spitwad range of the bass players. Rudy Guiliani, perhaps, gets those seats for the big-name concerts.
And then the New England Symphonic Ensemble (which appeared to be a New York pick-up orchestra) accompanied a collection of hinterland choral groups from the middle part of the country. We napped through a couple of Masses by Mozart and Schubert, waiting for the evening's prize: Carmina Burana, up close and personal.
Listening to the tuba player from inside his firing range (looking virtually right down his bell), I relived my own high-school nightmares from performing the band transcription of the Orff at contest. Those Eb octaves! ARGH! The player on stage didn't seem to be fighting the same demons I had. Anyone know who it was? Young player in his 20's, black hair, playing a pristine-looking 4/4 CC rotary tuba with a folded-over fifth valve like a Rudy but without the classic Rudy bell shape. He did better than the trumpet player.
After visiting with my niece after the concert, she was herded off with her tour for a cruise-boat dinner to the Statue of Liberty, and my wife and I, replete with deli meat and cheesecake, drove back to Virginia, arriving at 5 AM (or 11 PM, Honolulu time).
All in all, quite an experience for the country mice.
Rick "drooling in exhaustion today" Denney