When I was in fifth grade I started playing the violin. I supposed I learned it pretty fast because I had a strong piano background. In Junior High, we toured as an Orchestra to several places, as we did in high school as well. Even a European tour was considered - but not enough people wanted to put the money up for something of that size.
Our orchestra was good. Our director always told us so in a way that felt very falsely modest. My cousin, who played the viola, and I, always scoffed a bit. We didn't believe him, nor did we buy the show he put on as humble director. We liked him all right, and we loved playing - but he was so adamant that we were the best in the nation and he was just a measly little director that it was hard to believe him. I mean, his duality of bragging and humility kind of discounted his words.
But over the years, being in other schools and even hearing high school orchestra's abroad. I'm pretty sure we among the top in the nation, and maybe even in contention with the world youth stage. We had violinists that went on to be concert masters at Juliard, we had the best bassoonist, oboist, harpist, trombonist and tumpetist in the state. We had an awesome cello section, great bass players, a super multi-talented percussionist, a french horn section. We played many well known pieces - no adaptions, because we had the talent and the instruments.
That was no what I heard tonight. There was one terrible snare drummer who couldn't keep time. Six trumpet players hunched over their instruments. Five flute players. Three clarinets - and they were out of tune somehow. Oh, and a cello next to the trombones.
It. was. awful.
And they were in high school.
No comments:
Post a Comment