Chopin Festival at MC

Okay…I know it’s been forever since I wrote anything. And I don’t really have time to write now. But the Musical Meredith team has just made it through the most amazing (and most exhausting) week since I’ve been here, and I’m on a post-performance adrenaline high. And since my roommate isn’t here to absorb my over-communicative tendencies, the rest of ya’ll are feeling the repercussions.
One of the things I’ve learned this week is how to send cheerful emails that encourage people to do the stuff that they said that they would do. Every morning at about 7:20, I’d send out a reminder to our amazing SAI chapter saying who was recording and who was helping with receptions that night. Apparently our wonderful music librarian has been so impressed with my organizational skills (HA! Those of you who know me well understand what a joke that is) that she thinks I should take over Operation Iraqi Freedom. Right, Ms. Benz. In fact, I’ll take care of the entire Middle East, if all it takes is a few spritely, enthusiastic emails.
I’ve also learned how be significantly sneakier than I’ve ever been before. In case I haven’t forced you to listen to my pastiche saga, here it is. Dr. L, if this is how you find out, I ought to be sorry, but I actually think it would be the funniest part of the whole thing.
It was a Friday afternoon couple of weeks ago, and I was too worn out to do anything productive and too bored to take a nap. Earlier that week, my piano teacher had made a joke about somebody composing a version of Happy Birthday in the style of Chopin for the festival, so I decided that I’d go ahead and take him up on it. I basically stole the ostinato from the Barcarolle in F-sharp major and put a 6/8 version of happy birthday on top of it. Having done it mostly as a joke and spent a grand total of two hours working on it, I wasn’t particularly proud of it as a composition. I was reluctant to put my name on it, and then I realized that it would be much more fun that way around. I printed it off without a name and stuck it in my teacher’s mailbox.
Two weeks go by. I’ve checked to make sure that it’s not in the mailbox, but I haven’t heard a word about it. Then, it’s Wednesday afternoon, and I’m sitting outside Dr. L’s studio waiting for accompanying class to start when I hear the first line of the Barcarolle and then Happy Birthday. When Dr. L came to the door to let us in, I couldn’t keep a straight face while he asked everyone in the hall if they knew how had done the arrangement, so I pretended to be digging around deep in my backpack for something absolutely essential. It must have turned out to not be so important, because I never found it.
A few days later I screwed up my courage and mentioned the piece in a postscript in one of my many emails. Dr. L said that he was considering playing it himself, if he had time to work it up. Considering that he’s hardly had time to eat lunch for the past month, I didn’t have very high expectations.
On the opening night of the Chopin Festival, intentionally planned to coincide with Chopin’s probable birthdate, I was turning pages and stage managing for the concert. I overhead Dr. L and Dr. P planning some surprise for the end of the program, so since I was stage managing and ought to know everything that was going on, I asked about it. Dr. L asked, “Haven’t I told you about this?” and proceeded to explain that he'd tweaked the Happy Birthday by Mr./Ms. Anonymous and was going to pretend it was a recently discovered manuscript and make everybody sing along. I asked if it was in a decent key for singing, and he said "F-sharp major!" (which, of course, I knew) "Perfect! We usually sing Happy Birthday in F!" (which I did not know). Then he asked again if I knew who'd done it. I told him that if they'd wanted him to know who it was, they'd have put their name on it (which was true...I wanted him to have to figure out who it was).
At the end of the concert, Dr. Page got up and just started the usual thanks-for-coming-the-reception's-in-the-lobby-please-recycle-your-progra ms speech, when Dr. Lyman ran in yelling "Wait, wait! Look what I found in my box! It's an undiscovered manuscript! I think it's a posthumous note from somebody we know. Perhaps we'd better play it." He sat down at the piano and played the introduction to the Barcarolle (which I hadn’t included, but I thought was a very nice touch). "I think I've heard that before..." at which point all the music nerds in the audience laughed. Then he started playing the melody, and everybody in the audience laughed. The second time around, he made everybody sing it.
Afterwards, several faculty members asked, "That was you, wasn't it?" and I smiled and said, "Don't tell Dr. Lyman." I'd mentioned it to one of my friends earlier in the week, and she had told somebody, who told most of the students. So now...just about everybody in the department knows who Mr./Ms. Anonymous is...except for poor Dr. L. The next day, I said that I'd heard through the grapevine that Mr./Ms. Anonymous liked his improvements on his/her arrangement (which was meant to be a pretty obvious hint) and he said, "I still have to find out who that was..." in a very unsuspicious and slightly stubborn way.
It was so much better than I’d imagined it. And for the rest of the week I've been enjoying listening to the festival regulars joking with him about it..."Are we going to sing Happy Birthday again tonight?"
And even better…it got into the CVNC review! http://www.cvnc.org/reviews/2010/022010/MeredithChopin1.html
One other thing I’ve learned this week: don’t try to push a Steinway D around single handedly in heels—in front of an audience. It doesn’t end well.
Favorite quotes from this week:
Shaking hands with Richard Reid while still getting over post-performance jitters: “My, you’ve got a quite a grip.” Ooops. Sorry…didn’t mean to get the whole death-grip/strangle-hold thing going on…
Walter Hautzig during a masterclass: “This is not a circus where you show off how well you can play. You want to make music.”, “It’s exactly like an improvisation—except it’s all written down.”, and a quotation from Arthur Rubenstein on fingering: “I don’t care, play it with your nose if it sounds good.”
Dr. Lyman talking about a late-night group practice session in Carswell: “I didn’t have the heart to come in there and kick ya’ll out so I could lock up.”
Me asking Dr. Lyman if it was alright to practice in Carswell: “But there are people in there, and I don’t want to bother them.”
Dr. Lyman: “Don’t worry, as soon as you start playing, they’ll go away.”
Mr. Lambert, planning to review a concert I played in: “It’s not often I get to review a critic.”
Dr. Page: “Let’s have a Liszt Festival next year! HA! Yeah, right.”

Snow Day at MC!

For ya’ll relocated Yankees out there: I know you think you’ve begun to fit in, that your accent is softening up a bit, that your driving has relaxed, but we’ll always know who you are. When the word “snow” is accompanied by a shiver of disgust or an eyeroll, you give it all away. Native North Carolinians may be completely helpless about driving in the snow, but we haven’t forgotten how appreciate it.

Take sledding, for instance. Lack of sleds doesn’t stop Meredith students from hurtling head-first down the slopes. Actually, we like to think of it as a challenge to our creative and problem-solving skills. Cardboard is the most popular solution, but trash bags and binders work well also. Plastic boxes can be pretty funny to watch, but trash can lids are excellent, even though they tend to get damaged during repeated use.
There are some excellent slides on campus, but my favorite would be next to the stairs that I take every day to get to the music building. The man-made, sharp drop is difficult to walk up (even without snow on it) without using your hands and knees. There is a row of holly bushes at the top, which is inconvenient but better than them being at the bottom. Just to shake things up, there’s a lovely young ginkgo tree at the bottom, with a dedicatory plaque that has rather sharp edges. Keep in mind that steering when on half a cardboard box is not an option, so you must choose your trajectory carefully while trying not to slip and fall down the hill or into the holly bushes. Also, there are two small speed bumps near the bottom, which are enough to get you airborne if you’ve kept your feet off the ground.

For some reason, the only people who responded to my Facebook call for sledding were Honors students…I’m not sure if that means that nerdy brainiac people just don’t have enough excitement in their lives, or not enough common sense to come in out of the cold. I’d rather think that we are young at heart, but it’s probably just that willing to get out of bed before noon on a Monday when classes are canceled.
At any rate, I had a marvelous time yesterday “recycling” cardboard boxes, getting snow down my back, and zooming down the hard-packed icy slopes head first and completely out of control. I had so much fun that I’m doing it again this morning. Care to join me?