Band Geeks Beware: Jealousy WILL Ensue

Free Concert.

Wind Symphony.

Playing Eric Whitacre.

In the Concert Hall.

In the Sydney Opera House.

Ghost Train.

All three movements.

Conducted by Eric Whitacre.

... And he's hot.

I went to the most amazing concert of my life today. When Ching and I first arrived at Billabong Gardens, she picked up a Sydney Opera House (SOH) events booklet. There was a free concert. That caught her attention. Performances in the SOH don't usually even approach cheap, let alone free. It advertised a Wind Symphony and had snippets about Ghost Train, Cloudburst, October, and a bit about Eric Whitacre (the composer, for those who are unaware of this). To reserve tickets email... We emailed. A free concert in the SOH with band music by Eric Whitacre? What self respecting North American band geek could possibly turn it down? Come to think of it, what person wanting to hear something in the SOH could turn it down? We never did receive a confirmation email. But Triona and Vikki had seen the same ad and were interested in going, so we arranged to meet down there and see if they had tickets at the door. Turns out Ching and I actually had reserved tickets there even though they'd never confirmed it. That gave us good seats as far as acoustics go, in a box in front and to the side of the stage. Triona and Vikki picked up some slightly less desirable seats in a box at the side of stage. We took our seats and after a while a few people came in with programs. We hunted some down, took a look at the front, and went "Eric Whitacre, conductor?! They never said anything about him being the conductor!!" We opened the program and found, to our further delight, that it consisted of many more than the three pieces in the events booklet. For those who care, and I know there're at least a few out there, this is it:

Advance Australia Fair (Australia's National Anthem) arr. Ralph Hultgren
For the Fair and Brave Ted Vives
Noisy Wheels of Joy Eric Whitacre
October Eric Whitacre
T-Bone Concerto , Movement III Johan de Meij
Ghost Train Eric Whitacre
Sleep Eric Whitacre
Blue Bells of Scotland Arthur Pryor
Council Oak David Gillingham
Equus Eric Whitacre
Cloudburst Eric Whitacre

I think I should mention that it was the Tallahassee Winds who were playing. Dr. Bentley Shellehamer, director and conductor, conducted all the pieces that aren’t by Eric Whitacre.

The Australian National Anthem is beautiful. And it gave us our first taste of the Concert Hall acoustics. Not surprisingly, they are incredible. It came time for Noisy Wheels of Joy. Eric Whitacre walked on stage. I could see the top of his head and clapped politely. He walked forward another couple of steps and I just stared, clapping but not really thinking about it. “Oh my gosh, he’s HOT.” I didn’t say anything to Ching; I thought she’d give me a slightly frightened look in response. Eric Whitacre picked up a microphone and said hello and announced the piece. I’d never heard this about it, maybe the band members who got to play it this year have. He said he was at some conference or something and all the composers had to pick a movie out of a hat and write music for it. Most of the composers got cool movies, action movies with Will Smith and the like. He got 101 Dalmations, the live one. He took the music that resulted and made it into Noisy Wheels of Joy. “All you need to know is that Perdy, the female dog, is being pursued by Pongo, the male dog, and he’s madly in love...”

To hear a piece like October conducted by the person who composed it, and in a hall with such perfect acoustics, is an experience like no other. I can’t even begin to truly describe it. The sound filled the hall, so that if you closed your eyes you couldn’t even have said exactly where it was coming from, only that it was perfectly balanced and perfectly moving. The three or four tubas, three bassoons, four bass clarinets and seven horns didn’t hurt either. It’s different watching a composer conduct his own music. There’s a special kind of passion in it that even the most passionate of conductors can’t duplicate.

The T-Bone Concerto drew to a close. I held up my program to Ching, stabbing my finger at it and bouncing in my seat like a restless child. “Ghost Train is next, Ghost Train is next.” The woman sitting on my other side smiled indulgently. Eric Whitacre gave some background on the piece, how it was the first time he’d ever written for winds and that it was because he’d walked by a band rehearsal and loved how loud and noisy it was and that the trombones glissing reminded him of the Döppler effect.

“So now we’re going to play Ghost Train, all three movements.”

I nearly jumped out of my seat. I’m not sure where I thought I was going to go, over the balcony maybe to hug him and jump up and down and squeal. Instead I gave an involuntary start, and my hands flew to my mouth as I audibly gasped. I did a nice impression of a fish for a while, my mouth opening and closing as tried to find some actual words and keep from hyperventilating. The woman sitting next to me sort of chuckled and leaned over to whisper to her husband, her hand sort of floating in my direction like a discreet point. I thoroughly enjoyed Ghost Train, although the first movement (the one I’ve played and the only one I’m really familiar with) is really the best and the next two are a little lacking with the exception of the last 30 seconds or so.

After Ghost Train it was time for intermission. We met Triona and Vikki and started chatting about the concert. Ching and I, ok mostly I, were raving about how it was actually Eric Whitacre conducting and wondering why they hadn‘t advertised that. Triona wasn’t actually familiar with his work even though she’s something of a band geek herself, and has even been to band camp. He’s an American composer though. She did mention that “Vikki thinks he’s dreamy. She thinks he looks like Beckham.” Suddenly we were all raving about the gorgeous conductor and how surprised we were that there is such a thing as a gorgeous conductor. Ching said she’d been wanting to say something earlier but was afraid I’d give her a slightly frightened look. Vikki said she’d snuck a picture of him looking up in their direction before the piece had started (photography isn’t allowed during performances). She had to prove to her friends that Beckham (as in the soccer player) had conducted the concert she’d been to.

After a frantic scramble to find my ticket (it was right where I thought it was, but folded into the corner of my bag so I couldn’t see it) and get back into the theatre, it was time for the second half of the concert. Sleep was originally a choral piece commissioned by a woman after the death of her parents. She wanted to use Robert Frost’s poem - the title comes from “and miles to go before I sleep.” So Eric Whitacre wrote it, and word got out about this beautiful choral work. When he asked the Robert Frost Society for permission to publish, they said no. When he wrote a really nice letter explaining “you see, I worked really hard on this piece and I think it could become part of the basic choral repertoire,” they said no. They even threatened to sue if there was ever a public performance using the words of the poem, but that he was free to publish it when the poem became public domain in 2038. Rather than have the work sit under his bed for so many years, he called up his poet friend and said “hey, could you do me a favour? I need you to write a poem in the exact metre of Robert Frost’s. Oh, and I’ve painted sound pictures of some of the words, so I need them to be in the exact same place as they are in his poem.” This was a Friday night. Saturday morning he got a call asking him to come over and take a look at the poem. The man had stayed up all night by the bed of his three year old son and written a poem much less dark and much more sweet, but still dwelling on the image of sleep. It brought a whole new dimension to the work and “it’s much better than that silly Robert Frost poem anyway. Never really liked it.”

Blue Bells of Scotland had an impressive trombone solo. Trombones aren’t supposed to be played that fast, I think it defies the laws of physics or something. Council Oak was an interesting piece about a Native American tribe’s struggle against the white men. They would hold council around and old oak tree that’s still standing today, although now it’s beside a busy highway.

Equus was cool. When Eric Whitacre started talking about the beauty and mystery and majesty of the horse, I just looked at Ching and whispered “marry me now.” Triona said she thought of me when he announced that piece - I‘d mentioned riding in passing earlier when we were talking about nails (I tend to keep mine short as a habit that started while riding). It’s strange how odd it sounds to listen to a piece based around five. There are five letters in Equus, so he wrote in 5/4, made 5 bar phrases, used intervals of 5 (ok, the last one isn’t odd). It was a neat piece, and once it started it didn’t stop at all until the end was reached (“perpetual motion” music). Ten minutes long. Exhausting.

The audience got to participate in Cloudburst. We were the rain! My hands were numb trying to snap my fingers for so long, but if Eric Whitacre tells me to snap my fingers for one of his pieces I’m darn well going to do it until he tells me to stop. I did pause to shake my fingers out now and then. The concert got a standing ovation, even from the people who’d just stumbled on a free performance at the Opera House that afternoon.

When we walked out of the SOH, the sky over the bridge was amazing (I need some new descriptive words). Frozen, etched clouds glowing a shade of yellow unheard of in SW Ontario and backed by a brilliant shade of blue. As we walked around the harbour, the colour slowing changed to orange and pink and red.

We had dinner with Triona and Vikki back in Newtown, at the North Indian Diner Ching and I found on our first day in Sydney. I’m stuffed. Vikki has moved into my (former) bed at Billabong Gardens, although she moves into her new house on Wednesday. As long as the weather goes back to being nice we’re going to the Taronga zoo on Tuesday. I can’t wait!!! It’s one of the main attractions for me. (Surprise, surprise)