Orchestra Rehearsal and Friends

Saturday the 10th of May. The day began with a bad omen: I got a message that one of my musicians (a friend of mine) had tried to call me at 4 AM. So I sincerely hoped my musician wasn’t drunk or hungover by 11 AM, the time the “Landet som icke är” rehearsal was due to begin.

But my fear was right. We knew from before we would have already three musicians missing due to concerts in other cities. But at 11 AM an other three musicians were not either there, so we were only one violin and one cello (out of a string quintet + trumpet and percussion) and one singer (out of two)! Luckily the contrabass came only a few minutes late, but unfortunately he had to leave early due to an other rehearsal.

So the whole rehearsal was a disaster. There were far to few musicians for actually making any progress and my singer pointed out very correctly that she didn’t get most of the cue notes as so many instruments were missing. The whole rehearsal was very useless and frustrating and all musicians were so annoyed with the musicians who hadn’t shown up just because they didn’t wake up. The singer had arranged a baby sitter for this rehearsal and she was absolutely furious, with very good reason. So it was a very hard situation; I felt very abandoned by my friends who hadn’t shown up, but on the other hand I can’t be very angry at them either, as it’s nice of them that they are agreeing to play for free in my concert although they have a lot of other things to do that are more important for them (like exams etc).

Anyway, at 13 o’clock we had our second orchestra rehearsal of my song cycle “Dagbok”. This rehearsal went much better. Most people showed up, even kind of on time, and my cellist Taina Raittila who wasn’t able to come to this rehearsal had arranged a substitute for her self for this rehearsal! It was so nice of her to do that and I was so happy!

I concentrated on practicing small sections and parts of the piece. Stuff like timbre in the first two movements and rhythm and exactness in the third and fifth movement. My conducting went surprisingly well. I feel my conducting is very much depending on luck, some days it’s okay and some days I’m just dreadful! So I was very happy this wasn’t one of those dreadful days.

We practiced very intensely and were quite soon ready. After that we had coffee and tea (those who wanted to stay for a while) and I said aloud “Wow, the orchestra sounded already so good today, especially compared to last week” to which my cellist friend Peter Gospodinov replied “Well, of course, we have practiced, it’s supposed to sound better then!”

After having cleaned up everything from the rehearsal (putting chairs back in order, bringing back notestands to the main building, putting away the coffee and biscuits) I went and had a cup of tea with a few friends in the closest bar (and also stamping ground) Tuoppi and after that headed home and finished my resumé of my viola piece Loco for the upcoming Korvat Auki RRR-concert 17.5.

I called my friend Matilda to ask what she was up to, as I for once had a FREE EVENING! Poor thing had a headache so I offered to bring her a painkiller, as she didn’t have any at home. She said “would you really do it for me?” on which I replied “If the person who has spent so many hours helping me with my thesis, arranging concerts and happens to be maybe the most important person for me in this town, that person could ask me to do almost anything, and the least I can do is bring a painkiller about 5 blocks to you!”  So I sat for a few hours at Matildas place and we had tea, while her headache got slightly better.

Then I called my friend and neighbour Jenni and went over to her place and watched…. EUROVISION! Yes, you read correctly. It is a bit like a tradition to watch it for me, I have done it more or less regularly since I was a little kid. And it was quite fun this year as there was so much politics going on: everyone booing in the audience every time Russia came on stage or was named (due to the Ukraine crisis) and everyone cheering on the transvestite Conchita Wurst from Austria, who also then won the whole Eurovision (which made Russia furious)!

After that Jenni was tired but I texted my friend Bella and we both felt like going dancing. So I went home and changed clothes and then we went with Bella to the nightclub Gloria at about 2 AM! We had so much fun and danced until the club closed (3:30). Then I walked to Bella's place and we talked about life until 7 AM, after which I went home for getting some sleeeeeeep!