After a break from observing singer rehearsals, I finally reached that point where I am contributing to the performance: the orchestra rehearsal. It was great to see my classmates for the first time since the end of finals. The maestro was just printing up parts from the new rental company, so he was forced to read from the vocal score. Most of the work we did was for Act 1 and the finale of Act 2. For the latter, we had to go over cuts, for which there were many. But minus a few sight reading errors, we read through the first Act relatively quickly. Unfortunately, there were other problems. Several musicians were unable to come to today's rehearsal, most of the brass and a few winds. Luckily, we have three more rehearsals this week. With technical difficulties put aside, everything is going smoothly and no major roadblocks are in the way of sounding like the great orchestra that we are.
Funniest Part of the day: little note on page that says it was left blank for easy page turn. Adds " it's a great place to write your favorite conductor joke".
The parts that leave room for conductor jokes are the James Newby reduced arrangements of the G&S operas. When I was Music Director for YEOMEN OF THE GUARD for the Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island, we used those parts. When I did THE SORCERER with the same company, I decided to use Sullivan's own orchestrations instead, for a number of reasons including the fact that Newby does not use a bassoon and I have a very good friend on Long Island who is a bassoonist. Many of Sullivan's original orchestrations (though not PRINCESS IDA) can be downloaded free from the Internet Music Score Library.
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