New Start
Closely-guided and always inspired we head straight into the new season, complete with new faces and old. It’s much like the music—new styles or time periods mixed with the old (I mean “old” as in “familiar”; we’re all young at heart ;) and it’s always exciting to hear about the upcoming repertoire. This season we start with an all-French programme and while the pieces are short but plentiful, the different styles and impressions are just as numerous.
As are the various analogies drawn by Maestro Stern (to help sculpt the sounds we make with our instruments :).
There’s so much more to these pieces than just perfect pitch and rhythm—there’s the tremendous challenge of coaxing personality out of these inanimate objects we call our instruments (and the sheet music before us), but the most fascinating part is that these instruments and papers don’t stay inanimate for long. We meet every Wednesday for just over two hours’ rehearsal time and perhaps incrementally we take these newly acquainted pieces and work with them until they come to life. They begin to tingle our fingers and buzz in our lips and soon we’re breathing together, soon in rhythm and it feels like in no time we are breathing unique life into the music. Notes and dynamics come to life with the sweep of Maestro’s baton and then poof, the steam of the crescendo can be magically taken away—everything can seem to almost vanish as it shrinks into a playful peek-a-boo of subito piano. This is usually accompanied by Maestro telling us the story of, well, when an orchestra played the best subito piano in the world. Or at least of their time :)
I think it’s safe to say we’re inspired by Maestro’s enthusiasm as well as the enthusiasm of the people sitting around us. The ‘cello section, the violins, the percussion, the woodwinds and brass all feed from each other and it’s a great feeling to be a part of this. Becuase naturally, we try our very best to send this inspiration right to those in the concert hall. Perhaps we’re still working passages, but it’s still early-ish October and things are coming together quickly, as is the excitement, so needless to say we’ll soon be very anxious to present you with yet another concert. Hope you can join us!
From somewhere in the string section, cheers :)
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