next round

Our concert band has been preparing for more than two months for a big concert, a West coast premiere of a piece titled "Quodlibet,"written to commemorate the AIDS quilt, and it's been challenging. It's a modern style work, lots of crazy time signature changes and tempos, as well as coordinating  with a 50 person choir.  Somehow it all came together last night, on World AIDS Day.  Our big crazy quilt of musicians and singers did beautifully, even the wild patches where we wondered if we'd make it.   We rounded out the concert with more traditional melodies like Greensleeves, Auld Lang Syne, and In the Bleak Midwinter. The clarinets had plenty of solo work, and our section leader generously doled it out to several of us. It was thrilling to be able to play with the youngsters.
It was also amazing to see the giant red AIDS ribbon hanging on the White House; to think we actually have a humane leader. At the same time, I fear it is a fragile situation, with far too many backwards and hating people ready to tip us back into barbarity.  As my dad used to say, you prepare for the worst, and hope for the best...