Friday, April 28, 2006

The Peg

Well, we had our marathon o' concerts day yesterday, with our quartet playing at the Shoe Museum at 5:30-6:30, and then rushing down to the brand spanking new opera house for a concert with the COC. It was super fun, and all I can say about the new hall is wow. wowee wow wow wow. It is the most amazing hall! Even playing in the pit, the sound is amazing. They're doing a series of concert this week to test out the acoustics, and experimenting with putting the pit at different levels, and having different amounts of audience in the hall. It's a pretty cool thing really, through our rehearsals and even in the concert there was acoustics people throughout the hall and even in the pit who had microphones attached to their glasses right besides their ears, so it would record what their ears heard. They asked us to play this concert so they could test out the hall with a gigantor Mahler sized orchestra. Oh, and the orchestra pit in that hall is so roomy!!! They made it extra big, with is extra nice, because often when they cram you in the pit it does a number on both your playing and your body, because you have to sit awkwardly to find room to bow. But this was so roomy! Even with a ton of us in it! After Richard Bradshaw invited us all over to a jazz bar down the street - The Rex (you came there Graeme, when you were in town). And then he bought us all free beer. I only had a couple glasses, then at 10:30 I went home like a loser. But also because it had been a crazy and slightly stressful week, and I had to pack for our flight to Winnipeg this morning. Tom will be here shortly to pick us up - mostly because I don't trust Catherine on the subway because she didn't come home until about 7am, and while packing she keeps running off the the bathroom to puke. Not the best conditions for riding the subway to Etobicoke.

We fly to Winnipeg at about 12, then we have a little soiree tonight we have to play at, then tomorrow night we're playing at the big International Workers Day banquet, then on Sunday we're going to Gimli to play a concert there to raise money for our Icelandic trip. It's the largest settlement of Icelanders outside of Iceland I think - it's kind of like those Mennonite communities but more integrated into society. They all speak Icelandic, and keep Icelandic traditions alive, even if they and their parents were all born in Canada. We're off to see the Communists, the wonderful Communists of Winnipeg.

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