It’s the first run out concert of the festival. I’m
performing solo Bach and also Dvorak with the Bass Quintet.
The dress rehearsal wound up taking a very long time and
somehow I manage through abundant graciousness to be the last one to sound
check. Honestly my sound check for both Bach and Dvorak did not go well.
I suppose it’s expected that when you’re in a new place
surrounded by new musicians it’s easy to want to impress them. Well, if I can
be a personal example, when I play in a way that tries to prove that I have something to say, oddly enough I
usually don’t say anything of importance. I wind up getting the exact opposite
result that I wanted, and it’s really counter productive. However, it’s also
thankfully entirely psychological.
So when it came to the performance, I didn’t think about how
anyone else played (everyone played wonderfully of course) and I certainly
didn’t think about what anyone thought of me. I just listened to the music.
After the concert, a local family approached me and in
broken English thanked me for coming to France and sharing the gift of music
with them. They appreciated our festival coming to play for them very much and
that they felt the music with their hearts. The father asked me to demonstrate
for his son the different sounds a bow (arco) could make compared to plucking
(pizzicato). The little boy’s eyes lit up as I demonstrated the different
sounds. Afterwards, he was so eager to show of his English he kept repeating
hello and goodbye to me. Overall, I was very touched by our conversation.
That’s really what I wanted coming here was to somehow communicate with my
audience despite the language barrier. That evening I felt like I had
accomplished just that.
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