boah tarde

Boah Tarde (bo'-tard) means good afternoon. I have had my first chamber orchestra rehearsal this morning and am now back in my room after lunch (shrimp, fries and rice). Muito lindo (very nice). Rehearsal went well all in all. The first hour was a bit uncomfortable while we got to know each other. After break, things settled in and I thought we got alot more done. One of the violist did his masters in US in kentucky so he speaks fluent english. a big help in keeping rehearsal moving. I will rely on him heavily over the next week!!!

Group plays pretty well overall. The concertmaster, who happened to be gone today, has been rehearsing them over the past two weeks, but not alot of detail work. It is just a matter of working my tempos, working through transitions, and helping them to understand the music. We played the entire program today so they could see the final goal, then we started rehearsing a bit. We are doing some scenes from an opera to close the concert. The theatre we are performing in has its 100 year anniversary this year and these two people have been performing opera in this theatre for over 25 years, so they wanted to feature them to close the concert. Very nice music, but I just need to figure out where they are going with it. No tempos shown in the score, so I was just guessing. This will take some time on my part to work through.

The pics posted are from the rehearsal site today. The rehearsal room, the outside of the theatre, the view from atop the building, etc. Rehearsal room is kind of like a ballroom with a very beautiful ceiling. Throughout rehearsal, various groups of students came and went as they were on a tour of the center and they are allowed to come in and watch rehearsal for awhile. It was kind of nice to have an audience throughout the rehearsal.

Arley will pick me up around 3p to go to Pindoretama for the wind orchestra rehearsal tonight.