Lch3 wrote: Sun Apr 12, 2026 6:59 pm
Saw the second hour livestream.
AWESOME PROGRAM - choir, music, hymn selections, and Joe were all amazing.
I expect this will be on their YouTube channel.
Thanks for sharing this.
Thanks. I suspected that they might livestream it or archive it or something.
A year or two ago I did Brahms Requiem with them and it was real sad attendance, this was nearly packed... Not like Easter Sunday would have likely been, but a lot of people.
I work with this choir several times a year, and this is the best I've heard them sing.
This is the first time ever that I sat in front of the trombone section. Damn it's annoying. !!! Those poor violas who always have to put up with that.
The trombones played fine. It's just annoying.
Also, not sitting next to them we can't do any side glances like "yeah this is the spot. We're not lost" etc.
I also got to sit next to my forever buddy, Mike Scott (bassoonist).
That's the closest he and I have ever sat next to each other on a gig. There's a pretty big thing in Memphis called the Memphis Jazz Workshop for high school kids. I play a real small part of that each year, not that I'm qualified to do more, but all of you know that there's not much of anything I can do every summer other than repair instruments. He brought me one of their golf shirts. I cherish it.
Here's something else:
hot lights, a symphony orchestra crowded together, a big choir, everyone breathing deeply...
I started out with Fat Bastard's tuning slide in the normal place where it is for a gig, and ended up with it eventually pulled out about a 1/2 inch to 5/8 of an inch farther, which is the place that I end up pulling it to at home when (and I usually don't even practice for two hours at a time at home) I'm practicing my tail off for a couple of hours and the thing is actually completely warmed up.
This is the first time I've ever pulled it out that far on a gig.
This is probably something that all of us need to consider on a gig like this when our instruments actually get completely warmed up (rather than just the mouth pipe and the valve section getting warmed up - because we only play for about 30 or 45 seconds at a time in the loud and fast movements of a symphony). It's easy to start cracking notes up higher in the staff when the pitch starts riding up due to the entire instrument actually being warm, because we're trying to play them in tune and the instrument is trying to play them sharp based on where we have our tuning slide, yes? (I had a few B-naturals at the top of the staff - remember, this is a B flat tuba - in one chart, and I was laughing inside because I know the arranger: They lived in Memphis for a while, and they are a tuba player.)
Yes, I let a few double-low BB flats fly on that orchestra arrangement playing along with the Widor organ toccata at the end (postlude). This tuba likes that pitch very much, it comes right out, tends to
NOT ride sharp, and as loud as you please. My friend Mike - the bassoonist (he's about four or five years older than Mrs bloke and I) was turning around and cracking half of a smile.
I'm not saying that you won't like it, but I'm just trying to describe it. There's one piece that I'm playing where very little of what I have written is roots of chords, and it's a bass trombone part. I rehearsed it on cimbasso, but it's so crowded up there that I'm going to play it on the euphonium tonight - to give the trombones more space.
