DD In Concert - R2BC

DD is second from left on the clarinet

This week's Reasons 2B cheerful should include that we broke up for the Pesach (Passover) holidays yesterday, that the sun is shining, that we have guests coming for dinner tomorrow night, that I've finished all my freelance work, grading is up to date, and I've completed 23 days of The Minimalist Game. However, all that is eclipsed by the THE CONCERT!

Oh my, I'm so proud I can't tell you. And DD is pretty pleased with herself to. So here's the story. After four months of learning clarinet, DD was in her first concert yesterday. There was a lot of build up.

They had to have to have white shirts with buttons down the front. Apparently the buttons were very important. We couldn't find one so in desperation we bought a boy's shirt in Fox. I thought she looked like a waiter in it but I didn't say anything. When we got home she tried on her new ensemble (we had to buy black jeans and shoes too), looked in the mirror and declared, "Hello! And welcome to Masterchef!" So it wasn't just me. But it was only for one evening so we just got on with having an argument about practising (or not practising) for the concert.

The next day I got a tearful phone call from school. "Mummy I hate my shirt. Can we take it back and get one that's more girly?" Luckily I'd just shown my students the fantastic film, "Shine like a Star" Watch it here on You Tube if you've not seen it (click on settings to turn on English subtitles. There is an English dubbed version but I couldn't find it.) You'll do anything for your child to make her happy after watching it. And actually, I also hated the shirt.

So off we went again to the mall. Luckily Fox took the shirt back. Then we went into almost every clothes shop and found nothing. Eventually we found one plain, white shirt for £30. I refused to buy it. DD was in tears. "Sam won't let me be in the concert if I don't have a white shirt with buttons," she wailed. I phoned the clarinet teacher to find out how important the buttons were. He didn't pick up.

Finally, we found one suitable shirt in the whole mall. £15 if you're wondering. We came home exhausted but not too exhausted to argue about the lack of practising for the concert. I was getting seriously worried about it.

Before the concert

The next morning DD went off to school with her concert clothes in a bag. She was so excited. I got a frantic call from another mother. "I'm at the mall in Fox. Did you buy the boy's shirt? My daughter was in tears last night because her white shirt doesn't have buttons." I saved her life by directing her to the one reasonably priced white shirt for girls in the whole mall.

At 5.30pm me and another mother shared a taxi down into Hell. (Literally, the Jerusalem Music Centre is in the Gehinom Valley - otherwise known as the Biblical Valley of Death.) There we met our excited offspring. They were bouncing off the walls.

Reader, the concert was delightful. There were four clarinets, five flutes, a couple of trumpets, three saxophones, one trombone and a percussion section. Half the orchestra had only been learning for four months and the others were old timers of one year's standing.  They played short, simple pieces like, 'When the Saints Come Marching in,' and 'John's Brown Body,' although they are Israeli so no one else knew the words like I did. And there were some Israeli folk songs and nursery rhymes that everyone knew.

Each child or pair had a solo or a duet. One of the drummers, who looked about six, took a turn conducting. It was just lovely. At the end the musical director gave a speech about how every musician in every professional orchestra, even the army band that plays at every national ceremony,  started off playing nursery rhymes in a children's concert like this.

Afterwards DD said to me, "do you think I could be in the army band?"
"You'd have to start practising every day," I replied. And then I went back to sending video clips and photos from my phone to everyone I could think of who would tolerate it.

More R2BCs on the linky at Michelle's Mummy from the Heart.