Posted by Aaron H. on February 08, 2004 at 14:32:22:
Yesterday night, I got to both watch and play in a orchestra concert that was really great. It was a showcase for my city's youth orchestra(which I am a member of as tubist)and winners of a college solo competition. First off, the program started with the local college/community orchestra playing Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major, with a wonder ful performance by the soloist, (I noticed only one mistake.) Next was Moravec's "Songs of Love and War." with a beautiful baritone voice performance. Next, my group played. We started off with the Bach/Ormandy version of "Chorale Prelude to Wachet Auf," which doesn't have a very challenging tuba part. Next, though, was Bernstein's "Overture to Candide." Those of you that have performed this know of it's difficulty, especially the opening pedal F. Somehow, I managed to play pretty well on these two, which was a great relief. I took my seat in the back to watch the rest of the performance. Next up was Sarmientos' "Concertino for Marimba," which was a very interesting piece, featuring, of course, a marimbist. After that was a performance of Saint-Saens' "Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor," which I thoroughly enjoyed. My favorite part of the evening was the last soloist, a soprano who sang Puccini's "Mi chiamano Mimi," a beatiful song, and Bernstein's "Glitter and be Gay" from Candide, which was also very fun to listen to. Overall, it was a great night, with great music. The main reason I posted this was that besides the songs I played in, there was no tuba. That showed me that there doesn't have to be a tuba playing for there to be great music.