Well that seemed to go OK

Tonight was the Music School Christmas Concert. It had several elements to it :

1) Les brasseurs de vent - a "fanfare de rue" ¤ (a kind of high-class banda) who played various lively pieces interspersed throughout the concert.

2) An ensemble d'accordeons playing various things, including 'Round midnight', some Yann Tiersen, etc.

3) a super flute duet playing the first movement of a Cimarosa concerto.

4) the youngsters' orchestra playing various things

5) us in the grande finale doing our festive list : Begin the beguine, Sleigh Ride, A Christmas medley thing, The most wonderful time of the year, and then a dreadful thing compiled from the film score of Happy Feet.

It all went very well, although there were one or two incidents. One poor girl from the brasseurs de vent tripped over something on the stage and fell on her saxophone which promptly refused to sound in the grave though it worked in the aigu.

We had a nice time with the flute players sat in front of us. Renaud advised us to try and blow their hats off and I was unwise enough to share this with them during tea. They said they can't hear anything anyway once we get going. I did notice that half-way through the concert they stopped playing and just sat there looking a bit shell-shocked. During The most wonderful time of the year someone twitched and the music fell off my stand. I grabbed it but that meant my well-oiled slide shot off under the flutists' chairs, so they retrieved it while I retrieved my music and reassembled myself just in time for the bit where we have the melody.

There was a smoke machine under the stage just where our friend the Saxo player was sitting. He doesn't like the smoke which came billowing out while the youngsters were playing Smoke on the water. More like smoke on the saxo, really.

Dress-code was "relaxed" so I wore my african shirt, one oboist came as Widow Twankey, Rémi had a springy Christmas tree stuck on his head, you get the picture.

We all ate together after the final rehearsal and before the concert, and people were very taken with the violet crisps I took along. Not so keen on the salad. Who wants salad when the table is groaning with pizza and chocolate cake ?

Due to Pat's indisposition (she has a cold and she has hurt her back again µ ) the family missed the concert. They would have loved it. It was a very good free evening.

µ Pat is better now.

¤ another friendly saxophonist says that "fanfare de rue" a. doesn't exist as a term in French, b. is tautological as all fanfares play musique de la rue c. may conceivably be a bit of Pessac jargon. The controversy is raging.