music director smarts

[bloke]

This music director may have single-handedly saved this orchestra by refusing to shut down during the (well...) shutdown.

We did all sorts of nutty things to "comply" (including - sadly - not hiring all the strings) but we did a season.

This piece (probably from the first "we're playin', dammit" season's) concert.

There strings were cut to the bone, no one could hear anything, the trumpets/trombones/tuba were spaced (remember?) six feet apart way up in a balcony behind the conductor to his left, and the horns (same) way up in a balcony to his right.

We had to figure out how far ahead of the sound we had to play, in order to come close to synchronizing.

Rehearsal times were absurdly limited (ONE rehearsal for ONE hour for a ONE HOUR concert).

We played two one hour concerts (same night) with an hour in between - so that someone could go through the auditorium spraying some sort of magic whiffle dust...It was nuts, but we didn't shut down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIq48mp9c64

[Three Valves]

"magic whiffle dust"