Rehearsal

This afternoon I took part in a rehearsal of full chorus and orchestra.

That’s for one of this spring’s cancelled (or postponed) concerts.  And sadly it wasn’t a normal rehearsal.  The orchestra and chorus came together from our respective homes, online via Zoom.  All credit to our enterprising and dynamic conductor Marcus for thinking of and organising it.

Naturally I thought the most likely thing to happen would be chaos: lots of players and singers couldn’t possibly keep together.  We could follow Marcus’s very clear beat and instructions, but the motley collection of devices and acoustics, not to mention the net’s various and random lags, would surely throw us.  In the event he’d thought of that, and used some cheats to substitute for chaotic music-making.  And rehearsing was interspersed with cheery chat, and only went on an hour.

More an exercise in morale than serious music, but a great idea anyway.  I understand we’ll be doing this regularly until we’re allowed to meet up again, so maybe we’ll evolve it into something yet more interesting.