A look back: A Week in the Life
You’ve just gotta love this profession. No matter how many roadblocks get tossed in their path, musicians always seem to find a way around them, taking things in stride and laughing about it later with each other over either coffee or beer (depending on the hour!). Whether it’s butchering the Messiah by whacking the transposition button on the organ, dropping bows and breaking into hysterics mid-concert, or finding oneself face-to-face with a leering colleague just as they are about to play a big solo, musicians are often only a hair’s breadth away from making fools of themselves in very public settings.
The following series from 2007 describes a week filled with enough painful (yet strangely humorous) moments to warrant a series all its own:
Part 1 – Locked Out in the Cold
Part 2- Parking Nightmares
Part 3 – Behind the Scenery
Part 4- Look Out!
CBC 119: David Cardon and the Unfortunate Incident
This week, we’re featuring double bassist David Cardon telling a bass-related tale that I find extremely amusing. I’d rather not give out any details beyond that–just check out this concise (less than 10 minutes) story from Dave. Dave is also involved with the excellent music publisher Discordia Music, which specializes in ultra-classy editions for the double bass. Check them out!
I haven’t done a whole lot of “story episodes” during the run of Contrabass Conversations, but I’m always itching to do more, so hopefully I’ll get some time to do so over the summer this year. You can check out the story episodes that have come out (which include my car explosion tale) below:
- Auditioning is a Rotten Pastime
- Annoying Conductors 101
- Bugs Bunny is My Mortal Enemy
- My Car Caught Fire and Exploded!
- Cabs!
Tails Man
There are always a few moments (usually in the spring) when the stark contrast between “normal life” and the wacky life of a freelance musician rear their heads. A few examples from a recent warm and sunny Saturday:
I was breathing in the wonderful springtime scents through my open kitchen window, my awesome cat Dan on the windowsill next to me. I could already see my north Evanston neighborhood bustling with activity: people were donning wrinkled shorts (undoubtedly yanked from a draw that was last opened the previous fall) and out in full force, sipping a Starbucks coffee and animatedly chatting on the first truly fantastic weekend day of the year. Days like this in Chicago are all too rare–the continental climate in which this town is ensconced only gets a few dozen truly great days (devoid of rain, hail, sleet, snow, and subzero or scorching temperatures) at the most each year, and I was pumped to get out and enjoy the day.
The only problem? I was stuck in my stupid tails all day.
Sunny and 77 degrees on a Saturday morning, and I’m in my white vest and tailcoat? Lovely.
A Day in the Life
I put on my penguin suit and head out the door, getting bemused glances from all my neighbors. They’re carrying tennis rackets and going out to have “normal person” fun. I’m headed out to play a bunch of random gigs in tails–I had just enough time to get from gig to gig, so bringing street clothes made no sense, unfortunately. Already sweaty and uncomfortable only after loading the bass and getting into the car, I drove by scores of happy Evanstonians out frolicking in the sun, getting the occasional glance at my seemingly eccentric choice of summer garb.
I ended up teaching some lessons in my tails on my way to gig #1. Ever take lessons from a guy in tails? I never did as a student, but I’ve taught countless lessons in them myself.
You’ve Got To Be Kidding
My next stop was at a hotel in downtown Chicago, and I left with enough time to spare, but not a whole lot of extra time (which is more my style). I was just about to hang a right and go into the parking garage (which was only going to cost me $14–a relative bargain in Chicago these days) when I noticed, to my horror, that the Cinco de Mayo festival going on. Hey–it was only the 2nd of May! What gives? I didn’t know, but I was thoroughly hosed by this predicament. All exits off Lakeshore Drive were blocked off by the cops for miles, and I had to drive down to the near South Side before I could flip around.
My adequate time cushion had now evaporated, and to make matters worse, I was now stuck in horrible freaking Cinco de Mayo traffic on Michigan Avenue. I looked at the clock. I looked at the traffic. I looked at all the happy shiny people enjoying their Saturday while my stomach acids burned (no time for lunch now). I cursed my fate.
I finally got to the entrance for one of the underground parking garages (this one would soak me for $24 for a few hours of parking). I pulled in, grabbed my bass, and began speed walking up out of the garage. I was about a mile from my gig, and I had (hopefully) just enough time to make it to gig #1.
There’s nothing like a man speed walking through jam-packed Cinco de Mayo city streets in tails with a double bass to get people’s attention, and I got a lot of smirks and smart-aleck “should’ve played the piccolo” comments as I booked it across Millennium Park in the center of downtown Chicago.
I made it, breathless but still slightly early, to gig #1, headed up to the second floor, where I was shooed away impatiently by some irritated party planner and directed to 2B–the subbasement of this massive hotel/convention center. I made it with just enough time to spare, hungry, hot, and cranky to be sure, but there.
Gig #1 lasted for a few hours (this gig alone would make for a fairly entertaining blog post of its own–maybe some day…), and I then got the pleasure of again crossing Millennium Park in my tails (albeit at a more relaxed pace), getting more heckles along the way, back to the distant garage, where I loaded my bass up and headed off to gig #2.
The Hungry Penguin
The expressway was a sea of brake lights and interminably slow traffic, and I drummed my fingers on the dashboard as my rumbling stomach called out pathetically for nourishment. Mile after mile painfully crawled by–I could have walked faster–and I eventually found myself 40 miles out of town in a distant working-class suburb for gig #2. I spotted a Subway sandwich shop and dashed in, getting a fresh set of puzzled stares from the families in the restaurant. I was getting sick of looking like I was on my way to a catering gig or a Dracula convention, but honestly, what could I expect? Who else but a musician drives around all day on a beautiful weekend day in full formalwear but a freelance musician with scant minutes between each stacked gig.
I inhaled a footlong sub like some ravenous animal, careful not to get mustard on my white duds (I’ve soiled many a vest or dress shirt that way in this same exact situation), and waddled off, burping happily, to play gig #2.
Just another day in the life of a freelance music dude…
Night of the Freelancer
Why do I keep getting drawn back to this story? What’s my deal with it?
The following story was actually my first personal narrative on the blog–I initially put it out three years ago and titled it All-Night Drives, then dusted it off two years ago as part of my Basses, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles series and elaborated upon the experience within the context of a typical freelancer’s perspective.
But I just can’t leave it alone. I also rewrote it for my next book (I actually am working on it–I just had to put it on hold for, er… 10 months or so), which will be titled (you guessed it) My Car Caught Fire and Exploded! It serves at the introduction to this new book and therefore exists in yet a third version.
I recently had to take an Introduction to Writing class for my teaching certificate. Now, I’ve already taken classes like this, back in the early 1990s at Northwestern University. But for whatever reason, I needed to take this class to fulfill my teaching certificate, so I found myself writing freshman comp essays about various subjects for the past 15 weeks.
Yes, I also see the irony of this…
Anyway, I needed to write a personal narrative for this class, and I couldn’t resist: I revisited (for a fourth time) this story, casting it in yet a different life, not as a early blog post (time #1), as a perfect example about why freelance life can really stink (time #2), or as a portent of disaster (time #3). This fourth time, it’s just a silly tale about the strangeness of the gigging life as I had come to know it. Here we go:
Night of the Freelancer
“What’s…..wrong with you?”
The violist was smiling at me as he said this, but I was taken aback nevertheless. Sure, I was being a little extreme, but it wasn’t that off-the-wall, was it? A precarious February drive from the Mississippi delta town of Memphis to the beer-and-brats haven of Milwaukee, to be undertaken in the middle of the night–that wasn’t so strange, was it?
For many years after college, I found myself inhabiting the odd role of a freelance road warrior, a sort of modern day troubadour roaming from city to city with my big bad double bass, playing whatever gigs I could to make ends meet. This haphazard career brought many logistical challenges with it, not the least of which was actually getting from one place to another with time to spare. I loved and hated it simultaneously, relishing the actual music making while dreading the next grueling commute coming up on my calendar. At 32 years of age, I’m not exactly headed for the retirement home anytime soon, but I’m convinced that this frenzied freelancer lifestyle has subtracted a good handful of years from my lifespan!
During these harried years, two of my regular commitments were located in Memphis, Tennessee and Milwaukee Wisconsin, while technically possible to be rolled together into the same patchwork work schedule, made for some disturbingly difficult travels. I frequently found myself playing an evening concert in Memphis one night and needing to be in Milwaukee the following morning, and driving all night long from one city to the other was the only viable option to make this commute. While most musicians would likely have ditched one or another of the gigs, my foolhardy (and cash-strapped) younger self was not dissuaded. Play one concert, then hop in the car for a 750 mile drive, followed by a full day of rehearsals? Bah! No problem.
To make matters even more perilous, most of these commutes ended up occurring during the slippery and snow-laden months of the year, and I had more than one white-knuckled drive over slick roads and through scary snow in the middle of the night. I usually felt like a boxer who’d just gone ten rounds in the ring, my eyes bleary and my brain a puddle of goo on the seat next to me as I neared the end of my zombie treks north.
I remember the first all-night drive between these two cities like it happened yesterday. Though, on paper, it seemed like I’d be able to make the journey with about an hour to spare (barring bad weather…a real possibility in the winter!), as the actual date for my crazy commute neared, I began to fret: would I actually be able to make that trip? It didn’t seem like the timing worked out. Even if I did manage to chug that long stretch across four states, would I be able to stay awake? Would the state troopers have to peel my foolish musician remains from a guardrail on a forlorn stretch of rural Illinois?
I was a frazzled ball of nerves on the eve of my journey, putting on my fresh monkey suit, snappy red tie looking impeccable, and loaded the car up in order to make a mad dash after the concert. My hair slicked back and my face smoothly shaven, I headed out for the hall, enduring the puzzled remarks of my colleagues, many of them inquiring exactly why I had opted to schedule work in such bizarrely distant regions of the country. Though I waved these comments off dismissively, part of my mind was unsettled–if all my colleagues thought that I was nuts, well…what did that say about me? Could 50 other musicians be wrong? We’d see, I figured.
The moment the last note finished ringing in the hall, I was a blur of activity, making a mad dash for my case backstage and hurriedly waving goodbye to my fellow musicians as I rushed out the side door in an attempt to beat the crush of post-concert traffic. I peeled out of the parking lot, my tie askew and my car lopsidedly stuffed with both luggage and instrument as I sped toward the interstate. After a mile or two I stopped to gas up the car and buy a handful of Red Bulls, a beverage that usually reminded me of toxic waste but which would probably be lifesavers during my overnight drive.
I coasted silently alongside the mighty Mississippi river, its muddy banks abutting the freeway, watching the traffic peel away toward downtown exits as I headed toward the Arkansas border. At this point, I was just another guy heading home late at night, indistinguishable from all the other cars on the road. That would soon change.
The delta flood plains of Arkansas on the other side of the river provide a stark contrast to the bustle of Memphis. Abandoned cars dot the shoulders of the freeway in various stages of rusty decomposition, like haystacks in some malevolent alternate reality, and as I made my way between them, I felt a certain trepidation–where were all the other cars? The second I crossed the river it seemed like all other traces of humanity vanished, leaving me all by myself, my twin headlight beams the only traces in the infinite blackness into which I was sailing.
Heavy drops of winter rain began to fall, like someone turning on a faucet directly above me, and the winds began to pick up, chopping the surface of the mighty river next to me and conjuring unwelcome visions of my little car being picked up by the gale and deposited directly into the river, like a quarter being tossed thoughtlessly into a fountain. Could I simply disappear without a trace, leaving all my friends and family to wonder what happened? These were not thoughts I cared to be having.
I soldiered on for what seemed like an eternity, and finally the bridge to Cairo, Illinois reared up ahead of me, indistinct in the whipping wind and rain, like a specter in the night, and a greasy knot began to form in my stomach. Cairo was a bad town with a scary past, and driving through it during the middle of the day as creepy enough. But here I was, at 2:30 a.m., with heavy rain and wind bucking my car around just slightly above the freezing point (please, no ice!), passing through a town that even on a good day looked like war-torn Sarajevo, and I hadn’t seen another car for miles and miles. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t be stopping for gas in Cairo! As I passed the exit for downtown Cairo, I noticed that the magnolia trees lining the freeway were choked with crows, resting on every branch, an ominous (to say the least!) Hitchcockian omen that didn’t exactly warm the cockles of my heart.
As I escaped the sinister halo surrounding Cairo, fatigue began to set in, and I found myself slapping my cheeks in an effort to keep from nodding off. My once-slick hair was now a mess, and I could feel a five o’clock shadow setting in (at the lovely hour of 4 a.m.). Stopping for gas and a trucker-size coffee, I happened to glance in the mirror as I splashed some water on my face and was horrified at what I was: my snappy suit now looked like I’d been rolling around on the sidewalk, my tie was askew, I was a sweaty and shaking mess from the caffeine and the stress of keeping awake, like some hipster doofus zombie wandering around rural Illinois in the middle of the night. All the truckers were asleep in their cabs, yet I kept up my trek, fanatically trying to make it to Milwaukee in time for my gig.
Chasing down a bacon and egg fast food biscuit with gut-rot coffee and a handful of vitamins presented me with a new feeling: nausea. As the sun rose over the horizon, my eyes were bloodshot, my muscles were twitchy with over-caffeinated exhaustion, and I felt like mites were crawling all over my skin as I sailed through metro Chicago, marveling at how desolate the city could be at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning. The Wisconsin border and my final destination of Milwaukee were quickly nearing, and the worst was surely over.
I exited the freeway and descended into the industrial area of Milwaukee which housed the rehearsal studio, pulling my car over to the side of the road and climbing into the back, attempting to get some sleep before people started showing up. My car was crammed nearly to capacity, and I had to squirm my way into a somewhat horizontal position, hoping desperately for sleepiness to wash over me and provide me with a few moments of shuteye. Alas, it was not to be; my relentless caffeine ingestion and the adrenaline that had been coursing through my bloodstream refused to let up that easily, and I twisted and turned sleeplessly for a few minutes before throwing in the towel.
I climbed out of my car, a hideous corpselike mess, and dug out my toothbrush and toothpaste, brushing my teeth in the street. I was all lathered up with toothpaste foam when the other musicians arrived and must have been quite a sight, with my hair a chaotic lion’s mane, my shirttails untucked, my tie undone, and my mouth filled with toothpaste. My colleagues looked fresh-faced and full of morning pep as they got out of their cars. I looked at them, then at myself. Maybe I really was crazy–I sure looked like it at that moment.
As the rehearsal space began to get set up, I unpacked my bass, feeling real fatigue set in now. Too bad that I had five hours of rehearsal to endure now, plus a drive back to Chicago! I gazed longingly at my bass case, noticing how soft and padded and…comfy it looked. Could I….? Well, I couldn’t possibly look any crazier to these other musicians right now. I climbed into my case, flopped the top over my exhausted torso and head, and fell asleep, on the dirty and gritty floor of the rehearsal hall, still in my suit, my legs sticking out haphazardly from the bottom of my case.
I wish that someone, at that moment, had snapped a photo of me. Talk about good anti-music school propaganda! I never, even in my darkest hour during music school, thought that this was how I’d be making my living. The saddest thing to me was that I didn’t do this drive once–I did it many times, even after going through all that pain, fear, and fatigue. Even though I could physically feel each one of those drives peel a few months off of my lifespan, I kept it up, willing to play anywhere and anytime for a buck, no matter how insane it seemed. Ah, the life of a musician!
Locking my keys in the car right before a gig
I was chatting with a student recently when the topic of locking keys in cars before gigs came up–I can’t recall what on Earth we were talking about that led us to this topic, but I told him a story about the times (yes, I’ve done this more than once!) that I’ve locked my keys in the car right before a gig.
Here’s what I told him:
Keys Locked in Car #1
I did all sorts of dumb things in high school, like forgetting my music for important gigs, but I somehow managed to avoid locking my keys in the car until the end of my senior year. Since I came from a town of only a little over 100,000 people (Sioux Falls) in a state with only a little over 700,000 people (South Dakota), I ended up doing the sorts of gigs that would be reserved for professionals in larger urban areas. Therefore, I found myself playing bass for the local theater production of Guys and Dolls. I had decided, about 30 minutes before the start of a show (I liked to cut things close in those days), to drive over to a nearby Seven-Eleven and get a Super Big Gulp. It was a hot and muggy June day, after all (South Dakota is frigid in the winter and scorching in the summer), and I needed to get all caffeinated up before the show.
I ran in, slamming the door to the car, and after coming out with my massive soda, noticing that, to my horror, my car keys were sitting on the passenger seat… and I had about 15 minutes until the start of the gig! Luckily, I had left the bass in the pit, but I was at least a mile away and dressed in pit black during the middle of a really hot day. Without thinking twice, I started sprinting downtown.
I made it to the theater–barely. I was sticky with sweat and aching from head to toe, but I made it. I played the gig, calling my parents from the theater’s pay phone at intermission (this was in a pre-cell phone era) to have them drive over and get my keys out of the car.
Keys Locked in Car #2
You’d think that the keys-locked-in-car predilection would have been stamped out with that episode in high school, but I guess I had to learn that lesson one more time…
I was on my way to a Northbrook Symphony rehearsal on a freakishly cold March day back when I was the principal bassist for that group, driving up north from downtown Chicago after wrapping up a gig earlier that day. I’d made plans to meet an old friend who was in town auditioning for the Chicago Symphony. We had enough time for a good dinner and a nice chat, and I bid him farewell as I walked back to my car, rubbing my hands to keep warm and ready to head off to my evening gig.
I pulled out my keys, staring at them blankly. Where the heck was my car key? I had my keys right there in front of my face (I’d gotten into the habit of making sure that I was always holding my car keys as I closed the car door after that incident back in high school).
I peered inside the car. Aargh! My stupid car key was in the stupid ignition. What on Earth…? I suddenly remembered yoinking that key off my keychain earlier that day for the valet during my previous gig, not wanting to give him my janitor’s set of house and school keys along with that car key. I had checked my keys before going in to dinner, and I had them–just not my car key. And now I was locked outside, bass in the car, with the temperature around zero degrees Fahrenheit and a gig fast approaching.
To make a long and annoying story short, I called a locksmith, paid $100 (twice what the gig I was heading to was paying–I played really poorly paying gigs in those days), and actually made it to rehearsal, dashing in with frigid fingers and a racing heart as the oboe was playing the tuning A. I remember unpacking and trying to tune, having a great deal of difficulty even holding my bow because I had been outside in subzero temps for so long waiting for the locksmith. My stupid hands ached for days after that rehearsal, but I made it–and got my $50! Another chapter in the life of a freelancer…
Forgetting Your Music
It’s happened to all of us: you get out of your car, whistling a happy tune, saunter into your rehearsal (or concert!), unzip your bass, and reach into that music pocket…..
….only to find that your stupid folder is not, in fact, in your trusty music pouch, but back on your stand at home, and you’re up a creek without a paddle.
I’m Guilty as Well
The first time I forgot my music was for my local youth orchestra. I remember my conductor clamping both hands on his head as I sheepishly mumbled, “Uh, Ray… huh huh” in my doofus high school way. He tore me apart and told me to get back home and get it. Not a happy day for me.
The second (and last, thankfully) time I forgot my music was for a dress rehearsal of Carousel, which I was playing for the local community theater. Again, I was in high school (apparently I had issues with bringing my music during my teens!), and this time was worse–I was the only bass, and the whole show had to go on sans low end as I scurried back home to grab my forgotten part. The conductor gave me a little lecture about responsibility, which made me feel very bad and must have done the trick. I now routinely pull my car over on the way to gigs, pulling my bass out of the back of the car and feeling around to make doubly sure that that darned folder is really in my case.
Four Guys Without a Scrap of Music
A friend of mine was sharing an embarrassing incident that happened to him recently on a gig. He used to function as the contractor for string quartet gigs for a regional orchestra in the area, and he would generally play the gigs and provide music for the four people involved. A new personnel manager got hired in the orchestra recently, and apparently there was a mix-up as to which party was responsible for making sure that there was music for the gig.
To make a long story short, the quartet ended up at the gig without any music at all, and to make matters worse, they were the focal point for the opening of a new center, positioned front and center as the crowd came in. So they stood, each playing a solo rendition of “Happy Birthday,” an orchestral excerpt or two, or whatever else they had memorized. Not exactly a resounding string ensemble! This is the kind of goof that everyone notices, regardless of musical training–people aren’t used to seeing a string quartet trade random solo snippets for a couple of hours. The people that hired them were furious.
Make Sure You Have Everything Before Leaving the Train
Four good-natured but somewhat scatterbrained guys that I went to grad school with had a similar situation happen to them: they were meeting in downtown Chicago for a gig, and the guy with all the music fell asleep on the train, waking just before his stop and bolting off, in his haste leaving all of his binders on the seat next to him. The train roared off (well, puttered… the El isn’t exactly a fearsome train) and he was halfway down the steps before he realized his unfortunate mistake.
These guys ended up doing the same thing as the first quartet, playing Don Jan excerpts, scales, and all other sorts of blatantly non-gig repertoire. They slunk out of there as soon as they could. No check ever came…and they never asked about it.
My Forgetful Student
Unfortunately, it seems like I’ve passed at least a few of my bad habits on to my students, among them my penchant for forgetting my music. On of my students was playing a string quintet arrangement of The Entertainer in which he was the featured musician at the Brevard Music Festival one summer. His teacher was in the audience, and he noticed as the ensemble filed on that the bassist had no music in his hand. Bad sign! They got set up, tuned, and began. It quickly became apparent that the bassist was improvising the part….and that he barely remembered any of it! He ended up playing something that was equal parts Joplin and aleatoric randomness. Not a good thing when you’re the soloist.
His teacher came backstage, hopping mad, and let him know what he thought of that particular spectacle. Hopefully that talk did for my student what the conductor of Carousel did for me all those years ago.
Final Thoughts
Have you ever forgotten your music? What happened? Let us know!
I’m eminently stalkable
I had an experience a couple of years back that made me both chuckle and realize how non-private I’ve made all the little details of my life:
I was halfway through a run one beautiful June day when I realized, to my horror, that I had forgotten about a lesson I’d scheduled with an adult student. I was several miles home and immediately turned tail and sprinted home, feeling like a big ditz.
I got home and called my student immediately, apologizing for missing the lesson. “That’s OK,” she replied, “I saw on your Twitter feed that you were out for a run, so I figured you’d just forgotten.” I jumped in the shower, then headed over to teach the lesson, for the first time realizing that, if someone wanted to take a hit out on me, it would take them all of 30 seconds to track me down, with all my obsessive Twittering and whatnot.
I suppose I’ve just got to make sure not to attract the attention of any scary internet crazies….
I Have No Pants
Sending a bass section into a hysterical fit of the giggles during a performance is not exactly the hardest thing to do, but I remember a moment a few years ago that will definitely stay with me for years to come.
Our Fearless Leader
Our principal bass for this orchestra was a very entertaining and fun-loving guy, eager to party with the whole bass section (and any other musicians brave enough to venture into a low end hang). Most bass players tend to be party animals (especially when compared with the violin section!), and late nights of bawdy good times are par for the course for bass players.
Van + Poker = Bad
Anyway, this particular bassist had a big van that would inevitably be parked near the gig, and parties that started in the local pub after rehearsal would inevitably move to the van, with a whole gaggle of musicians piling in to extend the party later into the night. I quickly learned that, while I like to have a good time, the van hang was a little too rich for my blood, so I would usually call it a night before the good times moved to the van scene.
OK–er, I have to be a little delicate with this part. Apparently one night a game of strip poker started up in a bar, which then extended out into the van. I was not privy to this game, but a certain bassist was losing…badly. Another mischievous bassist was at the game, and she, ahem, photographed the proceedings, with a few shots of a very intoxicated principal bassist completely in the buff, dangling a pair of pants to hide his goodies from the camera.
Uh Oh
A few days later, the orchestra was playing Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta. Now, the final page turn for this piece in the bas part is followed by a slow, subdued wind section feature. The basses for this concert are arranged in a big clump, so that all players have good eye contact with the principal bassist (and his stand!). As the assistant principal flipped that last page of the Kodaly during our final concert, I saw a little flash of color from the principal stand–it was the photo! Our principal’s eyes widened with horror as everybody quickly noticed what a certain mischievous bass player had placed in his part. That photo of this obviously quite intoxicated and grinning naked bassist couldn’t have come a a worse time. Our side of the stage practically rocked back and forth as we all attempted to stifle (fairly unsuccessfully) peals of laughter.
We all stares at that photo, tears streaming down our red faces, biting our cheeks to keep from snorting and guffawing over the delicate woodwind solo happening at that moment.
Falling off the stage
We had a couple of pretty humorous moment at the Elgin Symphony this month. I usually don’t mention specific people or ensembles in story posts like this after realizing that they’ll pop up right at the top of search results (sometimes before the group’s actual website!). But what the hey, we’ll do a non-anonymous one this week:
An alarming yet amazing thing happened during our first night of rehearsal with guest conductor Andrew Grams at the Elgin Symphony recently. A dynamic and engaging conductor with a wonderfully musical grace to his interpretations, Andrew was really getting the orchestra to respond to his gestures and idea. Things were really cooking!
Andrew was looking quite comfortable, perched on a high stool and leaning casually against the brass railing behind the podium. His podium was right up against the edge of the stage, just as you’d expect for an orchestra rehearsal.
All of a sudden, the brass railing gave way, clattering to the floor, and Andrew started to fall backwards. He stood up, knocking over the stool in an attempt to save his balance, but inertia had taken over, and he ended up falling off the stage in a terrifying-looking reverse belly flop right off the stage and into the seats.
The orchestra was silent, everyone looking in surprise and horror at what had just happened. The conductor had, mid-sentence, fallen clear off the stage!
Somehow he managed to do some kind of complicated midair acrobatics and land on his feet, popping back up over the lip of the stage, looking around sheepishly for a moment, and then picking up right where he had left off in the rehearsal.
Now that’s the mark of a pro!
P.S. – The concerts were awesome. What a conductor!
Hey, you!
During a recent rehearsal with a guest conductor, one of the wind players raised her hand with a question.
“Excuse me, maestro…”
“Please,” said the conductor. “Don’t call me maestro. Not necessary.”
“Ok,” she said. “Hey, you!”
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