Orch 3

Coming quick and fast recently. This was my third orchestral performance; my second with the Brindabella Orchestra. The program was fairly short, fairly light, but with a few difficulties. There were several challenging passages in Mendelssohn Hebrides overtures (Fingal's cave), and the final page was dark with semiquavers. We did a few movements of Dvorak Suite in A major (American): the fourth was luscious and the fifth was a counting nightmare with the 1 and 3 all over the place. Strauss Kaizerwalzer was a thing of delight and it will be interesting to play it in a few months with Maruki. Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld is the CanCan and just a treat to play, all lively and rollicking and immensely joyous. I could not help but beam when the dance came up. Too bad, but no dancing girls for this performance (although I read in Wikipedia that men also danced the CanCan as an athletic and perhaps less salacious dance in mid-1800s Paris). The whole was held together with the Dam Buster march (immensely nostalgic for a certain age group) and ended with a JC Superstar medley which I found surprisingly satisfying. Again, great fun, a few mistakes from me, but the orchestra played with more ear and dynamics than at any practice. Just another confirmation of the adage: "She'll be right on the night".

Brindabella Orchestra performed a program called Musical journey. Rosalie Hannink conducted and Heather Shelley led from the principal violin seat. Rosalie hands over the baton to Peter Shaw for the next concert.