The SabonBlog

My recital was yesterday at the Mears center at our church, and was really a day fraught with problems. Some of these included missing freeway exits, Apollo eating several chocolate chip cookies, running late, and some others of an unmentionable nature I was genuinely excited about giving my recital because I actually had a good reed. The picture above was taken before the recital, when I was feeling pretty confident.

When I came onstage for my first piece and played the tuning note, I was surprised because the note sounded fuzzy and different. When I started to play the piece with the piano, I knew something was definitely wrong since I could barely get the notes out. Luckily it was a short piece and I immediately rushed to the dressing room to see what was up. I looked at my beautiful reed and saw a huge crack going down the center. I told them I needed five minutes and the tenor I was to sing the next set with made an announcement to the almost 70 people in the audience in some kind of light limerick about the delay.

Steven came back to see what had happened as I am frantically trying to soak my other reeds and not break down into hysterics. Yes, I had a backup reed, but I hardly had played on it that day since this other reed was so great, and you don’t play a recital on a reed you find in 5 minutes. The reed I chose didn’t have a great sound to me, but I thought it would get the job done. I was able to get through the rest of the recital (barely), and was so seriously worried about my endurance (I had to overcompensate a lot for the reed) and the sound that I just didn’t have a good time. At all. And neither did the pianist.

Needless to say, I was not happy afterwards. We hosted a reception following the recital in The Cellar at church, and thanks to some hard-working friends of ours it turned out beautifully. I was able to talk to a lot of the people who came and hear their feedback, which sure didn’t jive with my view of the afternoon. Even though I was really struggling, everyone had wonderful things to say about how the music touched them, healed them, or uplifted them. Steven says that is my ministry and is why I had to overcome the obstacles. I would like to believe that, but am sure having a lot of mental problems just with my disappointment and pride. Thankfully everyone was just happy to be there and proud that I made it through, and I know that I’ll get over the trauma eventually to continue to minister (with the oboe, who would have thought?) to the community.

At least Steven still loves me!

The two gentlemen featured in my recital, Eric (tenor) and Kimo (piano)

No Comments »