My local community band played our annual fundraising concert last night. We hosted 200+ people at a spaghetti dinner/concert. This year our theme was A Night on Broadway, with all of the music centered around Broadway shows.
We upped the number of tickets available from last year’s 150 to 200, not really expecting we’d sell them all. But we did. We sold out several days before the concert. And more people were asking for tickets.
People that waited to purchase a ticket ended up with a seat but no meal. We only bought enough food to feed 200 people, and only had that much room at tables. They sat in chairs along the perimeter of the church gym where we played. I think there were about 30 people sitting in chairs.
It was a lot of work getting the space ready for the concert. Most of the band members arrived at 4 to set up tables, chairs and the silent auction. We warmed up from 5 to 6, and then opened the doors. There was a line of people waiting patiently…and the room quickly filled up.
It’s an entirely different experience to play in a crowded room, to have people sitting (and eating spaghetti) only feet away. But it’s a great experience that I wish everyone could have. Applause bouncing off of cement walls seems louder. The music even seems bigger. And mistakes seem to disappear into the cloud of music rising into basketball backboards.
If you’ve ever played music from a Broadway show you’ll know it’s not easy. And when you put snippets of a bunch of different songs from a show into one piece of music, well, there’s all sorts of opportunities to play something wrong. Transitions between songs within a piece are one of the hardest things to do, and our concert Friday was full of them.
I think I made about 64,852 errors. Sometimes I stopped paying attention, listening to the music, and lost track of where we were. Other times I missed a key signature change even though while practicing I’d circled them with dark pencil. Once I even came in a measure early. I was not alone. There were plenty of errors, but the audience didn’t seem to care. The music was all fun, most of it was stuff they knew, maybe even from shows they’d seen.
Everyone was in a wonderful mood, and it was a lot of fun.
But boy am I glad this one is over. An entire concert of show music was intimidating enough. Adding the organization and coordination of a dinner for 200 people on top of it? Nearly impossible.
But we pulled it off for the second year in a row. It was fun, despite all the work. A few band members I’ve talked to today, the day after, have said they’re tired and mostly hanging out on the sofa, relieved to have it done.
I concur. But I look forward to next year’s event too.
This season’s last concert is scheduled for May, where we’ll be playing music in tribute to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It will be a totally different type of concert, and we hope that all 200+ guests at Friday’s dinner will come to the high school for a free celebration.
If you live around here I hope you’ll come too.
Change Is Hard 