So I suppose the purpose of an orchestra uniform is for all of us to look uniformly identical. Our conductor does not support my view that my solid black shirt and skirt needs a little more life and personality to it, but tonight I felt more strongly than normal that my outfit could use a little tweaking to become something more "Maria". At our concert last night, I wore a colorful scarf with shades of green, blue, and purple along with some bright teal knee-length socks which I proudly sported when I had to hike up my skirt a bit to navigate the stairs safely. Although she didn't comment on the socks, she sent one of the first violins over to tell me I had to take the scarf off. Two years ago (I vaguely remember this), he wore a slightly over-sized red bow-tie instead of the customary black one and also had to "fix" the "problem" with his uniform. I heave a mighty sigh and concede that I suppose it makes some sense to be forced into visual conformity when part of a musical ensemble. I did, however dramatically replace the scarf around my neck when we stood to bow.
A few days ago, I could have gone on forever about how annoyed I am/was with the orchestra, but for now I'll focus mainly on the improvement in the past few days.
We sounded a lot better last night than I had anticipated, let's just hope we can keep it up for contest on Friday.
I am back to my rightful spot as third chair! I'm not going into the stupid reasons why Ms. Johnson decided to put me in seventh chair last concert. Even she can't defend her reasoning. If our section leader keeps skipping orchestra (we meet forty minutes before school starts for the rest of the students, so it's not unusual for people to just sleep in and skip), she may be demoted and I could end up as second chair by the end of the year. I might also eventually beat the current second chair viola. Anywho, the first two violas are seniors so I'll be first chair next year no matter what. Sadly, the grand old viola section will go from being the largest section of the orchestra this year with twelve members to the second-smallest with the maximum possible size being seven violists. Most likely we'll have only four, but three wouldn't be out of the question either.
The conductor is an extremely disorganized person and really isn't all that great of a teacher/conductor (although she's a nice enough person), but she's been making massive efforts to improve lately. I hope that they are effective for both her sake and ours.
3 comments:
I have little doubt that your colorful scarf with shades of green, blue, and purple and your bright teal knee-length socks were far less deviant than that which I saw at the Academy's orchestral concert on Tuesday.
There were two:
a first violinist plainly sporting white socks with a black suit...
...and a second violinist in an ill fitting black suit with black socks that did not go so far as to cover the ankles. His flesh was exposed!
Whereas innovation on form demonstrates genius, failure to achieve the form is complete mediocrity.
Conformity is competence in craft, by the way.
My stand partner didn't match everyone either, but his error was of the nature of the two that you saw: his tux jacket was actually navy blue rather than black. He wasn't too concerned by it, but it was an issue for the girls in the first stand.
I hate Mrs. Johnson. She's one of the reasons why I quit.
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