September 14-27, 2019 - Rehearsals
September 14, 2019
Three rehearsals, a dress, and two weeks to go.
I'm going to tell the true, funny stories of the rehearsal process, but will only name names for the positive ones. Our program was not solidified by any means when we started practicing. We knew we had the three young composers' pieces, and I had orchestrated Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" for the ensemble of musicians we would have that night. We also knew we were going to do an improv led by Jeness with the students.
Even though I was flooded with scores and parts that we were sorting, I felt that everything would be all right when Luis walked in the door. I was ecstatic, and he was all smiles. He gave me a hug, shook my hand, and I knew that I had gotten through to him.
Most of the 2019 mentors were engaged to return for the concert. They included:
Jeness Johnson, Cello
Emer Kinsella, Violin
Jonathan Sacdalan, Clarinet
Hee Jin Yoon, Harp
Ben Phelps, Percussion
Terence Young, Electric Cello
Tom Hiel, Piano
Molina, Flamenco Guitar
Akira Nakano, Piano & Conductor
Additional musicians included:
Miriam Koudourra, Tympani
Caroline Espinoza, Flamenco Guitar (Molina's Partner)
Tommy Faragher returned as a back-stop producer for the rehearsal. The amazing Claire Morison was on hand as the Assistant Creative Director/Co-Concert Producer
All three composers would have a piece performed and play in the orchestra:
Christopher Lee, Piano & Guitar
Luis Diaz, Piano, Guitar, Conductor
Jayleen Montoya, Guitar
Board member Miyeko Heishi also refused to miss any rehearsal.
For the initial rehearsal on the 14th, we met Ashley Jarmack, who was subbing for Jonathan Sacdalan. Over the next years, Ashley would become one of our absolute favorite mentors and musicians. You will read about her later.
Some things that went awry off the bat at the first rehearsal:
We were at Cal Perc Studios again. They rented out their warehouse as a rehearsal space which was awesome because we wouldn't have to pay cartage for the percussion instruments. Ben could pull whatever got added as we went along to experiment. That part was great.
Problem: I was supposed to send an Uber for Tommy, and I was so hung up with sorting parts, that I forgot. Fortunately, he hopped in one and came over.
Upon distributing the parts, one of the musicians comes up to me and says, "Maestro, you know I don't read music right?"
One of our other key musicians was young and new to the business and liked to party. He or she was 45 minutes late to rehearsal. This was a union rehearsal, and I'll tell you why that piece of information is important.
In the real world, if someone is late and the rehearsal goes overtime, you just start billing from the point at which they enter. And if they didn't cross the 3 hour straight time mark, you just don't pay them the overtime. That apparently isn't how it goes at the American Federation of Musicians (AFM).
Also, after all was said and done, for Pension & Health, I had sent across 12% for everyone, but it was actually 12.01%, and I owed them five dollars and some change. I will not admit to this, but perhaps a bowl of pennies showed up at the AFM front desk.
(Side note: I also lost a bet to one of my bosses, Bill Fain, and I paid off this bet in pennies as well. He called me a few choice words, but to this day still has the bowl of pennies on his desk.)
As we were still running around getting set up to start, Jeness suggested that she rehearse the improv with the kids. I cannot describe what happened as the room went silent as they started to play. The students had evolved in improvisation so much since the last time they met. Even this first rehearsal was really something special.
Jeness became the de facto concert master right there.
We weren't expecting to put up a conductor for most of the pieces because the Noon-to-Midnight musicians the kids saw at the Music Center as a field trip in June, went conductor-less. (Insert laugh here.)
Chris Lee's "Tower of Babel" went relatively smoothly. He was playing the piano part, extraordinarily cleanly. I conducted this for rehearsal with the intention of vacating for the show. But as we went along, we added things, mainly percussion, and so I stayed on the stand.
I had a great moment this day. I turned back to Tommy to ask his opinion on the additions, and he replied, "You're doing great." It completely boosted my confidence to have his endorsement.
Luis had wanted to conduct since the beginning, so we let him. His piece was called "JN", and I never found out what it meant. Interestingly, it became pretty apparent that the only instruction he'd ever had on conducting was the few times we did it in class.
This is the moment when I really started to appreciate Ben Phelps. I wanted him to allow some kids to play some of the easy percussion parts. He refused. He was going to cover all of them, and boy did he. But Ben is also a completely accurate metronome. And when Luis started conducting, Ben began flailing his arms around from the back, trying to get Luis in rhythm while hitting all of his entrances.
At every break, I kept hearing him tell Luis, "Down is down". Luis had a small habit of conducting beat one to the side. Ben conducted along through all of the remaining rehearsals.
Jayleen Montoya wrote a piece called "Secret Identity". I ghost wrote/orchestrated a bit during mentoring, though all the melodies were Jayleen's. She had a legit premise and story. Again, we were going conductor-less. And we did so for five bars. I knew the piece the best, so I slid into the conductor role, and Tom Hiel took over at the piano.
Yes, I will admit that I messed up in one section in rehearsal as Jeness starts frantically waving her arms for us to stop. (It would have been more productive if she and Ben did this arm waving stuff in rhythm.) I stopped after the fourth beat of the measure, and Jeness says (very kindly, constructively and definitively), "You know we're in three right?"
Sigh. That is my conducting story that gets repeated all the time.
"Pictures at an Exhibition" was a behemoth. I, for whatever reason, believed that a lot of these musicians would have it in their repertoire, and it would be a snap. I should have gotten a clue when I heard Ben rehearsing the 16th note runs from "Tuileries" I had given to the xylophone, so I wouldn't have to play them on piano.
In the arrangement, I had a lot less piano, but Ben told me to just play the majority of the time, and I did.
Because there will be a lot of clips in the concert chapter, I am posting the mock-up version of "Pictures" if you're interested.
Click on the video below to hear my arrangement of "Pictures at an Exhibition".
What was really amazing about this rehearsal process which became the staple as we continued with live events and recordings, the mentors kept mentoring. They were not just hired musicians. Whenever a student sat by them, they would talk about their pieces and what might need improving. It was amazing.
Kristen and Thwe of Zaw Studios were there to film the rehearsal. At the time, Adrian and I were having discussions about creating an educational virtual reality app. It is why Megan Lubaszka joined the Board, as she was at one point deeply entrenched in VR at Gensler (the architecture firm we both worked at). Adrian was continuing to help nonprofits while refining his studio's process, so both straight video and 360 were filmed for the rehearsal. This is nothing pretty, but since we paid the union the extra bowl of pennies to allow filming, here are clips of the rehearsal.
And this video is 360 (as are the concert videos), so move your mouse around explore. There is some bonus material over the xylophone.
One thing that you'll notice is that Tommy was standing at the piano talking with Luis about orchestration during a couple of pieces for over an hour. I told Luis later that I would have paid dearly for that coaching with Tommy.
September 21, 2019
There was nothing earth shattering on the second rehearsal except the music sounded better. I should also thank Claire for arranging lunch. Also, we didn't shoot any video this day, so it was pretty much a blur. One union musician yelled at another to put his phone away as he tried to grab a video. This was a non-filmed rehearsal. It was funny. Ben also really resisting having any student play percussion. We negotiated down to Luis playing the church bells in one movement of "Pictures".
September 27, 2019
Our third rehearsal, and our first night in the Aratani Theatre. The acoustics had changed drastically since the Dream concert in 2013. They'd hired an engineer named Mago who specialized in sound. He mic'ed everyone to a T.
But this rehearsal was most memorable for me because of Luis. That kid somehow knew the amount of money and time being put into him. He walked into the theatre, went up to each musician individually, looked them in the eye, shook their hand, and thanked them. Completely unprompted, this made the 2019 Inception cohort for me.
To give you a true picture, we were still shaping the program order for the next day.
I've spent a good deal of therapy excising some of the "excitement".
Jonathan discovered that one of the movements was mis-transposed in "Pictures"
The flamenco guitar duo didn't want a student to perform with them on guitar and pushed him off to piano
Luis could not find the downbeat on the church bells and was still conducting one to the side
The flamenco guitar duo was forced to add the student
My mom called to tell me that she didn't like how I listed her friends in the program, and I had to redo them
Student guitarists couldn't find their entrances on Jayleen's pieces (my score was then circled 500 times in orange high-liter to help get them in)
Some players didn't show up for their portions of "Pictures" rehearsal
The list goes on, but I'm stopping there. It was a sh-t ton of work, and by the time rehearsal was over, we still didn't know program order.
Also I was so pissed that a couple of musicians had self-bowed out of "Pictures" without telling anyone, that I was ready to drop them from the concert altogether.
After the theatre was cleared, save for Claire and the Aratani Stage Manager, I let go so many F-bombs (that I used up my lifetime supply) until I felt the tension dissipate.
Claire and I walked around the Little Tokyo Japanese Village and ate ice cream for a while.
We were 22 hours from show time.
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