putting it all together

This week's been the last few rehearsals before our Big Concert on Thursday. We're singing "L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato" by Handel, a solid few hours of music with a little bit of everything- grandeur, speed, solemnity, frivolity, every pairing of vocal range, large and small ensembles, and a passel of Baroque instruments. It's so very much like all those times in high school when we finally put everything together- wriggling teenagers, and musicians that the director had somehow managed to pull from the fields and forests of southern Vermont to create a proper orchestra. So thrilling, the chorus risers, the clutter of music stands, the bows of the violins rising and falling together, the un noticed staffs and measures on our music books below the choral lines so very alive and vibrating through the long room. Here in Iceland it's all very much the same- the people may come from the lava rather than the forests, but there seems to be a sort of Universal Baroque Musician look- the hair, the fleece, the sensible shoes, the emphatic eyebrows on the male version. It's a comforting thing to see.

These rehearsals with the instruments are sometimes better than the performance itself- hearing how the phrases are fine-tuned during practice after practice, the rush of that first time when what had been one person playing piano becomes a twenty-piece orchestra, the director's commands shouted over the music to different sections. It'll all be over too quickly but until that time I'm enjoying every minute of it, and I'm so glad to be here this year instead of abroad like I was for last year's concert.

*and if you rvk dwellers have nothing else to do on Thursday, come on over. It'll be swell