The lights are out!

Those were the first words to reach my ears last night as I entered Libby Gardner hall for rehearsal.

The lights are out...and they won't turn on.

Whoa! This was dress rehearsal for THE biggest concert of our season and we have no lights???

I took some comfort in the fact that, on the long list of things that were my job to worry about, this wasn't one of them. So I found a comfy seat and chatted with Laurie and Dave and observed the reaction of other orchestra members as they came in, looked at the pitch black concert hall and made comments:

"Why aren' the lights on?"
"Ooh, Beethoven by candlelight tonight huh?"
"We are rehearsing, right?"

Having no lights and no rehearsal space was legitimate concern, this was going to be a huge concert, this was our first and ONLY run through with the soloists, we needed this rehearsal!

In short order the word came down - we're moving to room 200, grab chairs and stands! Room 200?? Oh geez! In passing me in the hall I heard Dr. Baldwin comment, "of all of the rooms to rehearse Beethoven in, Room 200 HAS to be the worst."

The Thompson chamber hall at the U of U

The Edgar J. Thompson chamber music hall is primarily used for just that, Chamber music. It has high ceilings, low lighting, and ornate, semi-over the top baroque type architectural decor, complete with gold accents. It is not a room built to house the sound of a 90 piece orchestra and 100+ voice choir, however, it was this or nothing.

True to community orchestra and choir form everyone hopped to - we were set and ready to play not too long after our scheduled start time. I knew this was going to be hard on us, the sound would rebound like an out of control racquetball in that room, it was going to get warm in there, we weren't going to be able to see as well as we would like and it would be fortunate if the choir could see the conductor at all! Dr. Huff took the podium, the soloists stood facing the orchestra so they could see and hear, choir members standing on chairs, orchestra folks still jockeying for the best possible line of sight.

Us, trying to fit into the Thompson hall.....

Something happened to me during that first segment of rehearsal......

The wash of sound....nothing in that room sounded at a piano dynamic

The soloists....operatic voices, right in my face, the kind that I've coveted since I was young

The choir....volume rising and falling in the ebb and flow of sound coming from behind me

The orchestra....hearing everything around me, but myself

I thought - this must be how it was, way back, before the ultimate engineered concert hall, before the union demands, before the high efficiency lighting, before.....

There comes a time, for many of us in music, that we do this for so long that it becomes habit, routine, usual, nothing special - which is a shame.

I allowed it to take me, take me to that place where it became something special. It was all I could do to not let the tears run down my face. I was having that small moment when it is no longer mechanical, no longer counting, no longer bowing, no longer pinpoint focused listening so I didn't miss anything, no longer "the usual."  

I was in the music.

....and as fast as it came, it was gone! In a panic my eyes focused back in, but they were right where they should have been on the page, my fingers following along, my brain on the correct count. 

Inhale. 

Play.

And hope for the lights to go out (or did they come on?) more often.