A rehearsal by any other name: the nature of the dress
After spending the previous day on a bus from Adelaide to Melbourne (except those tripping the light fantastic- see previous post), our musicians would have been understandably keen to spend today experiencing the delights of the Victorian capital. But as the first rays of the morning sun caught the spires of the Eureka Tower, a realisation also dawned- there was to be no Chapel St shopping or Yarra River strolling this morning to recoup. A more pressing commitment awaited at the Town Hall: the dress rehearsal.
Dress rehearsals are strange things. Having rehearsed a program for weeks and performed it once already, one would think that performance number two would be a relatively simple affair. Everybody knows their part backwards, so we just walk on stage, play the concert and be home in time to catch Lateline Business. No dramas. Not quite.
Each hall is different and the dress rehearsal is a chance for orchestra and conductor to come to grips with any unique and subtle acoustic differences. Dynamics get tweaked, balances altered and even tempos might be modified to allow the orchestra to sound its best in a new hall. Contrary to popular belief, performance dress is not required to be worn and the number of AYO T-shirts peppering the orchestra was a dead give-away as to the collective state of the orchestra's laundry.
With rehearsal over, the afternoon was free to laze about, snooze, or do some frantic last minute practice on those trickier passages (as a hypothetical only). The anticipation about tonight's concert is high, particularly for any fresh faces in the orchestra. For many people, playing in the AYO for the first time is the realisation of a long term goal and it is this unadulterated excitement that makes AYO concerts unique. Early tomorrow morning, participants will fly back to their home states, but with Season 2 taking place in Sydney in the middle of the year, the AYO bandwagon still has some miles to roll for 2011. Stay tuned.
Jack Chenoweth