It’s kind of eerie. I’m at home, but my viola (and my set of tails) is on a truck with other instruments, wending its way through the Rocky Mountains by now, most likely. The orchestra is leaving in waves, some have made their own travel arrangements and will be leaving today and tomorrow. A group of us are taking the ‘official’ flight on Wednesday morning, arriving late in the afternoon on Wednesday. In between – a strange calm. Most of my pre-travel time is often spent worrying about getting my instrument into an overhead bin on the plane. This time, however, I’m travelling sans viola, so that worry is gone. So, I’ll take a few rides on the bike to burn off nervous energy and plan what sort of blogging gear and clothes that I need to pack for the trip.
It was such a boon for a recording to be made from the two concerts we gave over the weekend – it certainly raised the concentration level above where it normally resides (which is pretty high as it is) and will make the Carnegie debut experience a bit less oppressive for us. As I was saying to my stand partner, principal violist Joël Belgique, concerts are ephemeral, people forget the little blemishes and focus upon the overall performance, while recordings focus on every little texture and mistakes stand out in high relief. In essence, this weekend was, for many of us, more pressure than Thursday will be, or at least that’s how it seems at the moment. I may be eating some serious crow come Thursday afternoon as we do our soundcheck on stage.