Celtic Women Xmas 2024: a debriefing
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2024 12:34 am
If this tour is coming to your area, you should buy tickets if not already sold out. It's the best one of these I've played so far. If you're hired to play it, you're really lucky because you'll end up being actually paid a few hundred bucks to experience it.
The seven cast members - including the conductor - are all tremendous talents. Further, I'm pretty sure all of them (other than the conductor) are Scottish, including the road crew, so it's reasonably authentic.
The local contractor is a superb trombone player and he was able to play this one. Since he called me fairly early on, I suggested another trombone player (to cover the other trombone book) who has been nice to me - as far as repair work is concerned, and they have a fine reputation as a player, but doesn't seem to get called very often. (I had yet to have even played one job with them, after all these years.) The three of us turned out to make up a very good section. The player to which I refer learned to trust me after about the first few staves of rehearsing the first piece, and - after that - it was smooth sailing (all those things such as timing, matched articulations, and all the implied phrasing that's not written into sheet music, etc.)
Here's something that's probably good hint:
If you want all of the first call players for a job that involves an orchestra, have the concert on something like a Tuesday night. They're all going to be available.
Most concerts end by 9:30, and most people are up well after 9:30 at night on weeknights. They're just as likely to come to a concert on a weeknight as a weekend night.
The last one of these Celtic Women concerts I did was at one of the Mississippi casino's theaters. This time, it was at a brand new hall within a performing arts center at a community college. The entire performing arts facility looks like something that would be attached to a major university. The auditorium holds about 1,200, and the show was sold out.
Nearly all the arrangements were written by the same arranger, and they were very creative in that they took (mostly) familiar Christmas songs (along with some genuinely Celtic Christmas/solstice songs and tunes) and stylized them very well. It's not as if commercial Celtic music is authentic, but - for what people expect and enjoy hearing - the arranger hit the mark.
Look most of the way through the second half, they shoehorned Sleigh Ride into the mix. (I don't know whether it was a costume change or what. (??) The conductor went out into the hall while we were running the Anderson standard to evaluate the sound, came back, and reported to us that it sounded like a recording. We all sort looked at each other like, "Well isn't it supposed to?"
When I first arrived and was wielding FatBastard through the stage door, one of the ladies was just outside the stage door. She was at least at tall as me, was sporting at least two feet of curly red hair, and asked, "Tuba or not tuba?" to which I raised my eyebrows (I was holding up the tuba vertically with one arm - 24 lbs. - and my folding keyboard bench seat with the other.) I would soon discover that she is the show's Celtic fiddler.
At the the end of the show, the cast members were all crowded over a table...removing body mics, etc. She spoke to me yet again: "Did you not get my joke: 'Tuba or not tuba?' I thought it was very funny ?!" to which I replied, "You're very young, very pretty, and you play like angel. Otherwise, there are people who are no longer young, perhaps were never very good-looking, but have a gift for comedy - and do it for a living. Perhaps, we should leave comedy to those professionals." ... as I headed off to where I had stored my hard case.
More and more often, I hear old man stuff coming out of my mouth.
...more old man stuff..??
I've grown weary of these hyperinflated $30 mediocre restaurant dinners between rehearsals and shows, and had Mrs. bloke fix me a turkey, cheese, and mayonnaise sandwich, pack a tart apple, some celery sticks, and a thermos of coffee. I sat in my car with the seat back reclined and the radio playing at a low volume between 5:30 and 7:00 (7:30 show). I napped from c. 6 til 7. I was quite happy.
The seven cast members - including the conductor - are all tremendous talents. Further, I'm pretty sure all of them (other than the conductor) are Scottish, including the road crew, so it's reasonably authentic.
The local contractor is a superb trombone player and he was able to play this one. Since he called me fairly early on, I suggested another trombone player (to cover the other trombone book) who has been nice to me - as far as repair work is concerned, and they have a fine reputation as a player, but doesn't seem to get called very often. (I had yet to have even played one job with them, after all these years.) The three of us turned out to make up a very good section. The player to which I refer learned to trust me after about the first few staves of rehearsing the first piece, and - after that - it was smooth sailing (all those things such as timing, matched articulations, and all the implied phrasing that's not written into sheet music, etc.)
Here's something that's probably good hint:
If you want all of the first call players for a job that involves an orchestra, have the concert on something like a Tuesday night. They're all going to be available.
Most concerts end by 9:30, and most people are up well after 9:30 at night on weeknights. They're just as likely to come to a concert on a weeknight as a weekend night.The last one of these Celtic Women concerts I did was at one of the Mississippi casino's theaters. This time, it was at a brand new hall within a performing arts center at a community college. The entire performing arts facility looks like something that would be attached to a major university. The auditorium holds about 1,200, and the show was sold out.
Nearly all the arrangements were written by the same arranger, and they were very creative in that they took (mostly) familiar Christmas songs (along with some genuinely Celtic Christmas/solstice songs and tunes) and stylized them very well. It's not as if commercial Celtic music is authentic, but - for what people expect and enjoy hearing - the arranger hit the mark.
Look most of the way through the second half, they shoehorned Sleigh Ride into the mix. (I don't know whether it was a costume change or what. (??) The conductor went out into the hall while we were running the Anderson standard to evaluate the sound, came back, and reported to us that it sounded like a recording. We all sort looked at each other like, "Well isn't it supposed to?"
When I first arrived and was wielding FatBastard through the stage door, one of the ladies was just outside the stage door. She was at least at tall as me, was sporting at least two feet of curly red hair, and asked, "Tuba or not tuba?" to which I raised my eyebrows (I was holding up the tuba vertically with one arm - 24 lbs. - and my folding keyboard bench seat with the other.) I would soon discover that she is the show's Celtic fiddler.
At the the end of the show, the cast members were all crowded over a table...removing body mics, etc. She spoke to me yet again: "Did you not get my joke: 'Tuba or not tuba?' I thought it was very funny ?!" to which I replied, "You're very young, very pretty, and you play like angel. Otherwise, there are people who are no longer young, perhaps were never very good-looking, but have a gift for comedy - and do it for a living. Perhaps, we should leave comedy to those professionals." ... as I headed off to where I had stored my hard case.
More and more often, I hear old man stuff coming out of my mouth.
...more old man stuff..??
I've grown weary of these hyperinflated $30 mediocre restaurant dinners between rehearsals and shows, and had Mrs. bloke fix me a turkey, cheese, and mayonnaise sandwich, pack a tart apple, some celery sticks, and a thermos of coffee. I sat in my car with the seat back reclined and the radio playing at a low volume between 5:30 and 7:00 (7:30 show). I napped from c. 6 til 7. I was quite happy.
) dad-joke have been received?
