Performance Team Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday February 15, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal at the Wilsons

The first meeting of the season of the performance team. Chris was out of town, so we were 8 in the circle. This was Mary Beth’s first formal PT rehearsal.

Mary Beth was going to be heading downtown after rehearsal to join the House Circle, which was performing at an open mic at the Triple Door. Someone asked what the would be performing. The setlist was to be a Circulation in C Harmonic Minor followed by 49 Notes. With that in mind, I called for a Circulation in C Harmonic Minor. This quickly evolved into a rather stunning improvisation. A good omen.

It was not specifically planned that tonight would be a night of repertoire, but it felt as though the time had come to simply reintroduce ourselves to the material. Someone joked that Mary Beth would need to learn the first violin part of Cultivating the Beat. There was a quick discussion of what the current and possible future allocation of parts might be, and then someone (Jaxie, I believe) suggested we go ahead and play it. A bold choice to lead off our first shot at repertoire since December 17. It was rusty. It was slow. It was also a bit of fun.

Mary Beth ran down the parts she is already familiar with from the repertoire list, and from there we simply called pieces. Very little stopping to fix anything. It wasn’t that sort of rehearsal. We simply wanted to play music together and get our legs back under us. Touched upon this evening:

• 49 Notes
• Batrachomyomachy
• Cultivating the Beat
• Eye of the Needle
• Sigh and a Kiss
• The Wig Maker
• Tuning the Air (F Harmonic Minor)
• Twilight
• Voices of Ancient Children
• Where Is The Nurse?

I even found myself assigned a new part to learn. This is a rare occurrence.

With about 15 minutes left in the allotted rehearsal time, Jaxie described an improvisation strategy she had in mind, and we launched into it. As if to bookend the evening, it was remarkable in many ways.

A quick discussion of the overview of the schedule for the next 9 weeks leading up to Opening Night. We wished Mary Beth, and the House Circle, good luck on their performance, and went our separate ways.