This picture was sent to me by our conductor - sadly, I can't find it online to give the photographer credit, but it's a great shot. Definitely not how I feel about playing my new instrument!
We had our double performance of Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto and Cavalleria Rusticana over this weekend, playing to a sell out theatre in Upper Hutt, and having to put out more chairs in the school hall in Lower Hutt. We were helped considerably in this by the large amount of publicity we got; not only did we get in both our local papers, but the Wellington based national paper, the Dominion Post, gave us a plug, and Melanie Lina, the piano soloist gave such a good interview on Upbeat (link here) that she was picked to be on the Best of Upbeat (three interviews chosen out of the fifteen done over the course of the week), so we got a double plug, including the Saturday morning.
It was such fun to do - there were obviously bits which we could have done better (I don't think I've ever done a concert where I've been 100% happy with my performance), but overall, the audience was happy, and we enjoyed ourselves. Which really is the main thing! I don't know how our conductor managed to hold his arms up for the whole thing (40 minutes for the concert, then just over an hour for the Opera)...
The bassoon went really well - I didn't fluff too many of my solos, came in (most of the time) in the right place, and am still really enjoying playing it. I just feel so lucky to have been given this chance of trying something new, and that everyone had confidence in me to let me go with it. On to the next concert - in just over a month, we are doing a dual concert with our conductor's award winning school choir, Cantala, who are about to head on their European Tour.
In other news, holy cow, it's May! I'm still not sure where the year has gone. The hockey season is well underway - we're just finishing up the pre-season round robins before the league proper starts. We've not done fantastically - as of last week, had lost two and won one - I'm still waiting to hear how the team did today (as I was playing bassoon at push back...). But, we are a new team, with half of us coming up from the seconds into the firsts, and we are still learning how we all play together, and where people will be at any point in the game. It will be interesting to see how the season progresses.
I've not had much of a chance to get out into the garden over the last few weeks - bassoon, hockey, sci-fi and work (including studying for work related qualifications) have rather taken over... However, we had a day off at the end of April (Anzac Day; the NZ equivalent of Remembrance Sunday), and I got to sit and watch the bird table (part of the house warming present from John's family). One of the blackbirds was having great fun...
