Overstuffed Schedules

You know how you occasionally have one or two of those days when, even though you're at work, it seems like there's not enough to do? And then, just when you're starting to get used to that, a year's worth of projects seem to come due all at the same time?

Well, that happens to musicians, too, and it doesn't always come from overscheduling ourselves (though that does happen.) I bring it up because I think it's safe to say that Sarah and I are both finding ourselves gasping for air this month, trying desperately to get our first Inside the Classics concerts of the season ready for prime time, while simultaneously planning the 2010-11 season, moving halfway across the country (her), orchestrating a pretty large fundraising party for a music-related non-profit group (me), dealing with a busted furnace in a newly purchased home (her), fighting off the piggy flu (me), being named principal pops conductor of a major orchestra (duh), and trying to squeeze in enough practice time to still be able to claim that one plays the viola for a living (me).

Our October ItC show is a bit trickier than usual, too, because the Friday concert will be carried live across the region on Minnesota Public Radio, who were kind enough to agree to this without technically having ever seen one of our concerts before. They're very trusting people, those MPR folk, and we're hoping they won't need to regret that fact, so we're taking the unusual step of sharing our work with them as we go. The radio thing, of course, also means that we can't do any purely visual gags on this program, which is a bit limiting, but also makes it easier to focus in on the sound world we want to create on the first half.

At the same time, as I said, we're starting to work on next season, which means a lot more that just picking repertoire. Thanks to the grant we received last year from the Wallace Foundation, we've been able to gather a rather stunning amount of information from people who've attended our concerts, and the fruits of that labor contribute to a very wide-ranging discussion about the continuing evolution of the series. I make a point of saying at each concert that we really do listen to all the feedback we get from our audiences, and this is the time of year that that pile of info comes most into play. Everything, from what time the concerts should start to what days of the week they should be held to how many sets of concerts we ought to be doing, gets batted around at this time every year, and this year, with a 95% subscriber renewal rate and a hefty increase in overall ticket sales from this time last season, we've got a lot to talk about.

Still, tired as I might be tonight, these are nice problems to have. The Beethoven show is really starting to come into focus (though, as usual, it's gonna need about 10-15 minutes chopped between now and October 29,) and I'm starting my now-traditional transition from fearful/stressed to excited/stressed. And on the planning side, I'm still somewhat incredulous at the audience support this series has garnered in two short years, which makes the job of figuring out where we go next enticing rather than intimidating. And that fundraising party I'm planning - I'm sure that'll mostly just take care of itse...

....

...oh, lord. the invitations.

gotta go.

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CONTEST DEADLINE: You guys have been unbelievably creative in your submissions for the contest we launched on Monday, and we've got nearly 20 entries as of this writing. So here's official notification that we'll close the contest Friday night, accepting any entry submitted before midnight. Sarah and I will take the weekend to reach a consensus on a winner, and with any luck, we'll have the big reveal early next week. (Those of you who entered anonymously will, of course, need to contact us to claim your prize...)

Down to the Wire

Okay, so I have a confession to make. I'm still working on the show.

...yes, tonight's show. The show we're doing tonight. That show. Still working on it.

This is not an ideal position for me (or the show) to be in. In a perfect world, everything would have been cut and dried and etched in stone two weeks ago, and Sarah and I could have spent the last several days relaxing in front of a roaring fire and exchanging witty bon mots about Leopold Auer and Eduard Hanslick while sipping hot buttered rum and pretending that we'd never heard of wind chill.

This is not a perfect world. It's fifteen below zero. And I am still. working. on. the show.

At this point, the work is largely cosmetic, since any major changes would have needed to be made before Tuesday morning's rehearsal with the orchestra. I can't cut any of our demonstration excerpts, or change their order, or write a whole new draft of the script or anything. This is a great relief, since I've been doing all of these things more or less constantly for three weeks now.

But even after the bulk of the work is done, there always seems to be more to do. Tuesday night, after an hour-long discussion that took place entirely inside my own head, I determined that it would look strange for me to have my full script on a music stand in front of me during the show (because, see, Peter's going to be standing where I normally stand during these concerts, which creates a bit of a logjam at the front of the stage, and if I have a stand, I'll be stationary right in front of the first stand of first violins, which seems wrong somehow, and blah blah blah) and ran off to buy a pack of 4x6 index cards (with which to create a fully portable, handheld script) before my local Target closed. (Side note: Target really shouldn't ever close. There should be a law. If I need reasonably priced jeans, a furnace filter, and PEZ dispensers in bulk at 2am, I should be able to get them.)

Then there's the need for special versions of the script to be prepared and double-checked for accuracy. Some of these versions go to our long-suffering stage crew, who need to know what doors need to be opened and closed, when exactly we want special lighting cues to happen, which microphones need to be hot at what times, and when we need all the mics shut down so that they don't start picking up bits of the orchestra and amplifying them to the entire hall. Any member of the orchestra who is participating in the show in some way other than by playing his/her instrument (think David Wright's turn as the Kastchei in November's Firebird concerts) needs what I call a "scriptlet," which isolates their moment in the sun and tells them how to know it's coming and what to do when it does. Finally, there's a last-minute insert to be stuffed in every orchestra musician's folder, reminding them of a certain cue that they'll be getting late in the show which could bring the whole production to a grinding halt if it's missed.

The last few bits of prep actually won't take place until this afternoon, mere hours before we take the stage. After we finish playing two performances of the Young People's Concert that Sarah wrote about yesterday, I'll dash off to a local costume shop to pick up a couple of rentals that we need for tonight. Later in the afternoon, I'll gather the few props we're using for the show and distribute them to the people who need them along with any final instructions.

Around dinner time, I'll give every copy of the script that's still in my possession one last read-through to be sure that my computer hasn't accidentally deleted a page or substituted an earlier draft for the final one. At some point during this process, during which I'll likely be pacing around backstage at Orchestra Hall like some sort of deranged freak, Sarah will appear, looking completely composed and fabulous, and instruct me to calm the hell down. Since I always do what Sarah tells me to, I will.

And that's really the key to this whole thing, I think. We spend an ungodly amount of time and energy getting these shows ready for prime time, but the reality is that whether a given performance sinks or swims is less dependent on absolutely everything going exactly as we planned than it is on all of us having a good time while we're doing it. And neurotic as I may sound right now, less than twelve hours before we drop the puck, I know that I'm going to have a great time with this show.

I hope all of you do, too. See you at the Hall...