Behind the Scenes, or rather, What on Earth I do on Wednesday nights.

I decided that I wanted to do a post about a typical concert cycle in the Utah Valley Symphony.  I almost forgot and didn't bring my nice camera.  I am so thankful for smart phones.

This was our last concert of the year, which is often a Pops concert.  At our first rehearsal of the cycle, lots of music was passed out.

 Didn't end up playing the Webber, but this was more or less our concert.  Also, we ended up getting one more new piece a week before the concert.  No big deal, right?

One of our pieces was Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.  This was by far the most demanding piece of the concert and we got right to work on it.  If you know Leonard Bernstein then you can imagine the amount of complex rhythms and meters.  Also, for us basses, that meant a lot of pizzicato.  This is what my finger looked like after our two hour rehearsal.  Side note: we had just come off a three week break which is plenty of time for my callous to fade away.  So my baby soft skin was put to the test. 

 This is me and my bass.  It's only slightly larger than I am.

 Here are my basses, from closest to farthest: Peter, Nate, Marie, and Richard.  They are fun people to be around.

 Here is a fun shot of the view from my seat that I stitched together.  I'm surprised it still worked with my fuzzy camera.  As you can see, we're off in our little corner so we can get away with all sorts of hijinks.

We rehearse in the Eldred Center which serves largely as a senior friendship center.  It will be torn down this summer however, to make room for a much larger community/fitness center.  It is my understanding that we will rehearse there next season.

After several weeks of rehearsal it is now time for concert week.  We have a dress rehearsal on Tuesday night which, for this particular concert, was crucial.  Several of our numbers involved not only singing, but also dancing(not by us!).  This is the first time we had seen the dancers and there were logistical concerns.  Since I had missed the previous weeks' rehearsal because of the Pinewood Derby, I was playing the Mary Poppins piece for the first time.  Not a big deal for me though.  Peter, however, was playing his electric bass and we had to work out amp issues.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of Tuesday night.

I remembered Wednesday though.  Just in time for our first performance.

Right before start time, the orchestra goes back stage for announcements and a prayer.  I almost forgot to take pictures, but remembered just in time to catch Peter on his way back onstage.

Nate was nice enough to catch this picture of me with the audience.  If you look closely, you can see Jaaromy looking at his phone.  He's on the right side of the isle with a blue and white shirt towards the back.

Here are my basses looking nice in our concert black.

This is my view, not as cool as my panorama from before, but you get the idea.  I can usually see Bryce, our conductor, standing off stage waiting to come on.

As I mentioned, Jaaromy came for Wednesday night's concert.  A stranger was nice enough to take this picture of us in the lobby of the Covey Center.  We've been playing at the Covey Center for a few years now and it's really nice.

Thursday night my parents came.  They have evenings free at the MTC and were able to stop by.  It has been tradition for the last few seasons to eat at the Rocky Mountain Drive In that shares the lot with the Covey Center right before the concert.  They've been well fed at the MTC, apparently, because they only had a shake, and even then it was a little much.  I was so excited that they could come.  Even though it had only been a few days since I had seen them, we had already said goodbye at their farewell and so it felt special.

The concert went really well, it was a lot of fun for us to play and for the audience to watch. The singers and dancers were fabulous.  It was a wonderful end to our '11-'12 concert season.

I can't wait for next year.