Not My Problem in Trichotomy

The Nor'easter

We got snow for about 12 hours straight, and ended up with about a foot on the driveway. But it wasn’t too bad to dig out since the snow wasn’t packed in. It only took ~2 hours for me. At least there is no Match of The Day this weekend, which means I’m not going to ride the stationary bike, so I got some exercise from shovelling.

We have a few snow storms every season, but they get fewer every year; last year there was only one that required shovelling (which was I think in February), so I’m hoping this was it for this season.

I am considering getting a more powerful snow blower though. The dinky one we have takes two passes to clear a foot of snow.

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The Audition

My amateur group had our board meeting and Carnegie hall audition last week. I noticed that these meetings are becoming less and less formal. We just sat in a Le Pain de Quotidien and talked.

The organiser is trying to retain the orchestra, but make changes to it so that it won’t be a financial loss: asking the musicians to contribute for rehearsal rental cost, doing a smaller orchestra that fits in Weil, so we will see whether these ideas are viable.

The audition itself was pretty good, it is hard to pick out the best 10 to 12. I myself didn’t play very well at all (took the tempo too fast and hit too many wrong notes), so I ranked myself lower than 50% percentile (13th out of 24), though Maria de Buenos Aires ranked me one of her top choices. The fact that the Concert Mistress’s chamber music group did so well (which I’m in) didn’t help.

There are more and more professional musicians who come to our group and use us as a testing ground for their performance. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it was a development that is not really expected. Most - I can say all - are very nice and friendly, and are, to varying degrees, becoming part of the community - they like to collaborate, give advice to others, etc. There are some who just play-and-run, though.

I think we have an identity problem: are we a community or performance organisation? Our original group, having the word “ameteur” in its title, puts it firmly in the community organisation category, even though the way the original organiser behaved - pushing for larger venues, bringing in ringers - made it clear he thinks of us as a performance organisation. Now that the “amateur” word is taken out, it’s even more clear.

But the community is what helped it grow - people came back because of the friendliness and camaraderie, so it’ll be challenge to figure out some way to integrate these groups.

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Head down work

I was thinking about switching groups, but now we are in heads-down mode and actually building stuff, it’s easier to see the progress and not pay attention to the larger direction of the project.

Maybe I’ll stay till this version is out the door; I’m not sure how long I want to stay long-term.

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Last updated February 06, 2022