Good morning, all! Last night was not a good evening for me. Not only did I miss Marc Acito's reading because I felt I should be attending the band rehearsal for which I had done a bit of frustrating work, I never heard two of the pieces, both of which I knew had problems. I had taken along my work kit of manuscript paper, scissors, tape, white-out, pens and ruler to make any fixes to do repairs, but the musical director - for this concert this weekend in New Jersey - had the band playing on every number besides the 10 I had done. Because of finances being tight, they had one band rehearsal with the Chorus, and not enough time to read everything.
As a result, the first half of rehearsal was to play the beginnings and ends of the pieces before the Chorus members arrived and then run it complete with the Chorus. On the one piece, the MD said something along the lines of "should we fix it now?" and since I thought one minute of dialogue would fix it or at least tell me what to fo after the band left, I said he should do it now. Instead he went on to an African thing he'd arranged and spent perhaps 5-10 minutes on it. With the next one, which was my other problematic piece, he played the 4-bar opening and the end. The band left and so did I.
I do not like having work credited to me aired publicly without hearing it; it happens more than I like, but if I'm going to kicked for my work, I like to know it's as good as I can make it. This whole job for the Chorus was very frustrating, and not to get through it all at a rehearsal was a major issue for me. I'll never hear the pieces so I basically told the MD and accompanist where I anticipated the problems and left. Other frustrating things about the evening:
1. I turned over the band parts with my scores to the MD two weeks ago, so I had nothing with me, and I believed when I have the to him that he was going to transfer all the information into his scores. It was a good assumption but nothing was done. Even more frustrating, my scores weren't in evidence so I had nothing to use at rehearsal.
2. At the break when the band left, the band was given a big round of applause, which they deserved, but I was never acknowledged in any way, shape, or form. It's a small thing, but the Chorus turnover is large, and I would guess that about half of the members neither know who I am or what I was there for, and it only added to my feelings of pissing in the wind for nothing.
Today, laundry, NYPL, Victor Herbert
