Sunday, June 3, 2012

Blind mice, Brahms, books and Belafonte (with added Muppets)

Ah Sunday...a day of blind mice, Brahms and books. I began the day by getting up late, eating a nutritious yet slightly horrible breakfast of cereal,music and yoghurt (yoghurt because I ran out of milk yesterday and forgot to buy any at the shops). Then I raced through the shower, jumped in the car and went to a rehearsal for concert that is next Saturday night. Next Saturday night, my high school alma mater, Bundaberg State High School, is celebrating its centenary. That's right, 100 years old. Pretty old when you think about. Anyway, as part of the "festivities" they're having a concert on Saturday night. It's all been a little bit last minute but I'm playing a piano duet with the conductor of our choir (who is also an excellent pianist). She was a music teacher at Bundy High many moons ago. I student there for five years not quite so many moons ago, but still, quite a few moons now. We are playing a cute piece we have played before "Three Blind Mice go to Mexico" by Sonny Chua who is a contemporary Australian composer. It is what it sounds like. Three Blind Mice with a Mexican flavour. It's fun, not actually that simple, and a little bit silly. Even though the piece last about five minutes, the rehearsal went for nearly two hours. Because, of course we had to chit chat in between. That's the best bit of rehearsals really I think. Then it was home, for a spot of lunch, a little bit of laundry, some reading about weeding digital library collections and I was off out again to choir practice. Yes! I know, choir is Monday night. But seeing that we have a concert in two weekends time, and the Brahms chorus from the German requiem is a little bit iffy in places, we all gave up two hours on a Sunday afternoon for some extra practice. Brahms did improve. Goodness gracious though he didn't like tenors - so high! And, this week I really must bring my piano folders into the house (out of the car where they usually live) and practice the blasted accompaniment. I'm constantly missing a flat here and there at some vital moment. Stupid orchestral reductions for piano. They never work! What was the other thing? Oh yes! Books...when I got into town I remembered that the Bundaberg Library book sale had been on all weekend and was about to finish in 15 minutes. That was more than enough time for me to spend 10 dollars and get four lovely hard copy books. I'll probably never read them...but really, you can never have too many books. Or can you? And with that, it seemed entirely appropriate that after attending a "weeding" event from the Bundaberg Library, that I came home and managed to put something together for our assignment on weeding our proposed, imaginary collection for the Bundaberg Library. See, see how things come full circle and are all connected. I'll leave you with one final B.... Belafonte...we are singing this song in our concert too...It's about connections as well.

2 comments:

2paw said...

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed Harry and I can imagine what a great song this is to perform as a choir.
I've been to rehearsals like that too, where the socialising was just as important as the rehearsal!!
No you can never have too many books, but even I have had to do some donating lately to make more space for new books!!!

Wendy said...

the socialising is very important isn't it!
the song is quite fun...there are sections where the choir has to clap the rhythm unaccompanied...that's interesting!

I should probably go through my books one day...now I have a Kindle I read less and less hardcopy...I never thought that I would see that day arrive!