This Christmas season has been a crazy one for me. Between the regular gig of playing for Slauson Middle School, and playing on various Sundays leading up to Christmas, I've also been working with Millennium middle school for their Christmas concert, and I was asked to play for the Relief Society Christmas party. I am now sitting on my covered porch in Grand Cayman, relieved that the season is almost over.
Playing for Millennium can actually get pretty tedious. Playing the same measures over and over and over takes its toll, mostly on my back which has been retaliating from sitting on a piano stool for five hours a day. But because I"m with the kids so much, I had skin in the game for the concert, and it was crazy to see how Mr. Knapp thought of literally every detail. So when the night rolled around, it felt like an actual event, one that I might attend even if I didn't have a child in the choir. Mr. Knapp has uniforms for the kids with matching ties and scarves, and there were electric candles for some of the songs, and the curtain closed and opened with different numbers. It was just really classy. And I was super proud to be a part of it.
Playing every day has refreshed some of my older piano skills, and I'm much better at just reading music and playing quickly which is what I needed to do for Slauson. The music was difficult, but I just worked it out at home without much practice and showed up and played. But my heart goes out to Mr. Steck who has to give his performances in a dumpy middle school auditorium where his kids don't have uniforms or much parental support.
But man, I love seeing my piano skills coming back to life. Even my fingers look more muscley and are getting that natural curve in them. And my brain is better connected to my fingers now.
For the Relief Society Christmas party, I was asked to play a solo that would set the tone for the dinner. Now I ask you, am I a cocktail pianist? Um, hard no. And do I really play solo music anymore? Yeah, no. So I had the idea to ask Kimberly Majeske, another pianist in the ward, to do a four-hand piano duet with me. She was down with it.
Finding a partner for four-hand piano duets presents the same problem that my kids talk about in chamber groups. You need someone who works well with you, someone who isn't too bossy but someone who is accomplished. Someone who can laugh with you but who also goes home and practices. Kimberly hits a lot of these notes (total pun intended) but she doesn't quite know how to just sit and sight-read and laugh. I think she's too much in the pianist mode of needing to be perfect...but by the end, I think she was having fun. In fact, we had the women laughing before we actually played. We settled on a fabulous and edgy rendition of Carol of the Bells. And for an encore, we played a medley of "Joy" hymns. Super fun.
The girls are going to play some unaccompanied arrangement of "Silent Night" for Christmas Eve.
So, crazy turn of events. Three days before my Millennium concert, John tested positive for COVID (this happened on a weekend trip to Pennsylvania that I will not record on this blog because I truly don't want to remember a second of it). I assumed that I would get COVID, but I was hopeful that I wouldn't. Sure enough, I came home after playing for Millennium and felt so sick. I did a test and was positive. I contacted Mr. Steck and gave him the news, asking if I was allowed to play the next night. He told me I could (and that he hoped I would), so I went to the concert masked. At times I felt like I was going to pass out, but shoot, if I've taught my family nothing else, I've taught them that the show much always go on.
Now sitting here in Grand Cayman, hoping Glo and Gordon don't end up getting COVID, I'm so thankful that what was said in my patriarchal blessing is really coming to pass: what you study in school will be a benefit to you later in life.
Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment