Performance team rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday, September 15, 2011 – Performance team rehearsal

Turning up the heat. Thursday rehearsals added between now and opening night. And tonight the full performance team was available, for the first time since our inaugural meeting on August 22, which seems like a very long time ago, somehow.

We walked through the entire working repertoire, to make sure everyone was up to speed. “Space Circus”, “Connecticut Yankee”, “Larks’ II”, “Mad World”. We ran each piece a number of times, generally with the metronome, focusing on details: what is the target tempo?, who is counting it in?, who are we looking to for cues?, as well as final bits of arrangement, part assignment and such.

We took a little time to present the works in progress: “Fallout”, “I Am The Walrus”. Some discussion on what the pieces need and how to move forward with them. “Tico Tico” was mentioned, but not presented tonight. “Little Red Truck” was presented. It is in its working form, with only a few part and arrangement details to be finalized.

We ended the evening with “Gnossienne”, finally putting a very patient oboist to work. We ran the piece and talked a bit about arrangement possibilities. We ran it a second time, with Mary Beth in the role of “narrator”; that is, calling out Satie’s musical indications. Mindfulness, alone, of these directions changed the quality of the ensemble work considerably. The idea of a voice calling out instructions, or someone holding up placards, or even projections within the performance itself was discussed, and not entirely unseriously. From there we moved on to a scheme in which groups of guitarists and the oboist exchanged the various phrases in a kind of call and response. The particular arrangement we tries was a little arbitrary, but the general sense emerged that this was the right direction to go. A couple of very powerful combinations were discovered and identified. More work is needed to find the rest, but a very significant step forward.

On Saturday we are once again (hooray) all back together, at Fremont Abbey. And for Monday’s rehearsal the Music Director asked us to all have the first 17 bars of Bob’s arrangement of the Bach B Minor Prelude ready to go.