Mozart Requiem

Program Cover

Now that I’m relaxing for the night I thought I would take a moment and write a little more about the requiem.  After all, it did take up quite a bit of my time and energy (and definitely raised my stress level!) for the past month and a half.   🙂

I arrived on Thursday afternoon and Mom and I quick ran through all the music (and when I say quick–it takes an hour to get through it all… so as quick as we could anyway!) before getting ready and hitting the road.  We were both a bit nervous so we decided to just pack a light sandwich to have later in the evening if we got hungry.  We pulled in to the university just before 6:00 and got set up for the evening.  Then we ran through pretty much everything again with the conductor as their warm-up.  We had a 30 min. break to stretch our legs–and for me, especially stretching out my back, which was starting to get quite sore, from driving and then rehearsing at home then driving and rehearsing again… so it was nice to be able to walk around.  We met Dad and decided that we should eat our sandwiches while we waited.  It turns out I was a bit hungrier than I though because I downed the sandwich.

The concert started at 7:30.  All the hours of practice came down to this.

Dad took these pictures from the audience

I stole these pictures from my Mom's website--and as she so accurately says "I know we don’t have the most pleasant looks on our faces, but we were concentrating!"

It was so much fun to actually hear the choir with my piano part.  So often while practicing I would forget that I was just the accompaniment and not the main event!  Plus it was always a bit lop-sided in the melody (or lack of melody) since it was a piano duet.  It was so much fun to hear everything in the full arrangement.  It’s also such a treat to be able to make music with other people–to really work to help the music come alive.  That’s fun.

The concert itself went just fine.  I already mentioned yesterday that I botched up the intro to one of the songs, but I know that I’m not a skilled performer so I expected it.  Luckily it was in one of the middle songs so I doubt many people remembered it by the end.  When we were talking about everything afterwards it was highly amusing to hear that we both started to lose our concentration about three-quarters of the way through the concert.  I guess it’s bound to happen when you’re focusing so hard for so long.  I knew it was bad news when I started to think about how “pretty” the notes were on the page!  🙂  Luckily we were both able to keep it together.

After the concert we went out for a celebratory supper (since by then we were REALLY hungry!).  There is something so wonderful to me about getting special food after a major event.  I just LOVE it!

I ordered a SCRUMPTIOUS strawberry Belgian waffle. Doesn't it look amazing!?!

Mom & Dad both got a meat lovers "skillet"--which also looked AMAZING!

All in all, it was a fantastic day.  I enjoyed learning and performing the music.  I enjoyed being able to hang out with my parents and just chat.  I enjoyed playing piano with my Mom.  And I must say, in spite of all that, I’m enjoying being done.  🙂  At least for now.