concert.

concert.

So I know I mentioned before that one of my pieces was performed on Saturday, yeah?

Well, it was terrifying.

The piece had been completely unrehearsed, and my professor had not answered the e-mail I had sent that Thursday about a few of my concerns. I showed up a bit early, only to find that the violinist bailed out, and that there was no more cellist. Luckily, I had extra copies with me, and was able to give them to two of the orchestra students who had a concert moments before. I discussed the piece a little beforehand, and we went over the easiness of the piece itself. I wasn't worried about the pianist. I knew she had been practicing, and had listened to the recordings I sent.

After that got settled, I asked my professor about the soundscape on the CD I made, and whom I was supposed to give that to. She got overly upset, saying how we shouldn't even bother playing it on the PA system and just use a boombox. To that, I was a bit offended, and stated that the boombox does not have the capability of playing some of the more bass heavy sounds from the subway. She huffed and puffed, and ultimately, I was instructed to use the boombox.

By the time my piece was ready to perform, I was awfully nervous. Turns out, I had reason. We had one of my fellow classmates sitting by the boombox to be able to adjust the levels of the volume (via hand signals from myself), and the pianist started wonderfully... but then the cellist didn't play on cue. After hesitation, my pianist continued, and then the violinist never came in. The pianist stopped, and my professor came on stage and started conducting the two string instruments... without telling the pianist what measure she started on.

By this point, the audio track was not aligned with the playing, the strings skipped about 12 measures, and the pianist was still not playing... In the end, the pianist missed two pages until my professor finally cued her.

It was an awful jumble, and I was surprised that she didn't have them start from the beginning. In fact, I was VERY offended that she didn't have them start from the beginning. A few pieces later, a student's group had been a little off and continued, and she yelled to them to start again because she knew they could have a nice recording of the performance.

Really now?

And it wasn't that she realized that she should have had my group start over. Several pieces before mine had started over or etc.

After the performance, several of my classmates mentioned that it sounded coherent at the end, and were wondering what happened... and why so much was missing. I felt awful. Here I was with the piece she said would sound terrible, and I had a lot of faith in having it played and proving her wrong. I felt like she neither helped me, nor gave me the chance to show its worth, and ultimately, it sounded terrible. I was also bothered that she never addressed my e-mail, I wish that she could have at least told me that she was unable to get back to me or etc. (a classmate of mine had e-mailed her the same time AND got a response...). She went to several students afterward and talked about their pieces/performances, but she never went to me.

Someone in class (whom I never really talked to) suggested that she didn't like me. I'm fairly certain I agree.