Cancellations – A Muso’s Worst Enemy

July was a bad month for cancellations.  Between disagreements, misunderstandings, holidays and general disaster I lost out on about £400 worth of work for the month.  The missed teaching and function band dates I can live with, but there were two big disappointments for me.

The first one was a concert with a professional symphony orchestra.  I was booked through my diary service (MAS) to do a rehearsal and ‘proms-in-the-park’ style concert with Wesward Symphony Orchestra, based down in Torquay.  I was really excited about this gig, so I didn’t mind too much when I had to cut short a holiday in Corfu to get back for the rehearsal.  After a late finish at a gig the night before (squeezing in as much work as possible to make up for cutting the holiday short) I got up early on the Sunday morning to meet up with a couple of string players and share the drive down to Torquay.  The rehearsal went really well – it was fantastic to meet the brass section and make some new contacts, and since I was playing everything from 4th tumpet/2nd cornet to bumping on 1st, my playing was given good exposure and I seem to have made a good impression.

So, after a successful rehearsal (and ALOT of travelling) I was really excited about the concert the following week.  So, as you can imagine, I was so disappointed to hear only a couple of days before the concert that it had been cancelled as the promoters had not secured enough money to put on the event (Cockington Proms).  The orchestral contact who booked me through MAS has been very apologetic, saying that she’s doing her best to at least get us some of the fee due (for the rehearsal we did) and that she was highly impressed with my playing and professionalism and would definitely book me again (compliments I was very glad to receive!).  So, some good will hopefully come from the trip in terms of a part fee and maybe some work in the future, but I’ve heard anything on either front so far…

The second missed gig was a misunderstanding which resulted in me having to make a tricky decision.  I had been booked through a friend to do a rehearsal with Colombian percussionist Roberto Pla, who was doing some work in London.  I’ve never played any serious Latin-style music so the first rehearsal (and fundamentally audition) was always going to be difficult (and not helped by the fact I’d had a big T.Mandrake gig the night before and was hung over – not cool).  Despite being put well outside my comfort zone I really got into the music and Roberto is a very helpful and patient person to work with, and so we make a good enough impression to be booked for his London gig on 5^th August (‘we’ being my friends Nicki [sax], Kasha [trombone] and myself).  At the next rehearsal with Roberto, all was going really well until he mentioned the gig on 6^th August.  I nearly had a heart attack on the spot – 6^th August was my best friend’s wedding – OH NO!  What to do?  Give up the opportunity of an amazing gig or go to my friend’s wedding?  At the end of the day there really was no contest; she had been my best friend since we were 13 and there was no way I could miss her wedding (even when I heard how amazing the rest of the trumpet line-up was).  I was desperate that Roberto didn’t think I’d been unreliable and let him down but he completely understood my decision, and I’ve been in touch with him since, so I hope to get a call next time he needs an extra trumpet player in London.

My friend’s wedding was lovely – I did a reading in the ceremony and was a witness to their marriage, and I’m very happy for the new Mr & Mrs C!

I later heard from Nicki that the gig with Roberto went really well from a playing perspective, but it was an outdoors gig at the Docklands Festival and it rained (naturally) so only the hardcore fans braved the weather to hear them play.  Such is life!

The Month o’ May – Part 1

May was a busy month.  I’m not complaining at all, but it was a very busy month.  It began on May 1st (the being busy part, not the month which of course started on May 1st!), with a daytime rehearsal with the Canterbury Philharmonic Orchestra in Bethnal Green for a couple of performances of Verdi’s requiem, and an evening gig with a function band down at The Grand in Brighton.

I enjoy the Canterbury Philharmonic Orchestra/Canterbury Choral Society concerts for a number of reasons.  Firstly, they are a good orchestra and a good choir. The orchestra seems to be largely sourced from the London music college graduates, so it’s always a chance to meet up with my former Royal Academy of Music (RAM) peers, some of whom I don’t get to see very often (others I see very frequently!).  Secondly, they pick good repertoire; Verdi’s Requiem is a great piece both to listen to and to perform (I’ve also performed Belioz “Damnation de Faust” with them in the past).  Thirdly, they perform in good venues.  The rehearsal on 1st May was for two performances of the Verdi; the first of which was in Snape Maltings on Sunday 3rd May and the second of which will be in Canterbury Cathedral on Saturday 20th June.  Although Snape Maltings is MILES away from Windsor (a 264-mile round trip), the concert hall there is excellent (http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/).   And although the accoustics in Canterbury Cathedral (the location for the June concert and the previous Berlioz one) are not the best for hearing vocal performances, it is still a wonderful venue in which to play.  The problem with me taking on the gig at Snape Maltings in May was that it fell on the same date as my boyfriend’s birthday, which as you can imagine, didn’t go down particularly well as I was out all day and most of the night.  But because that gig was tied to the one in June and I couldn’t afford to say no to them both, I had to take it and sacrifice spending the day with my other half.  To be fair to him he didn’t kick up a fuss about it, although he was obviously disappointed.  But it’s one of those decisions you will face as a musician, and if I worked a normal 9-5 job he wouldn’t have expected me to take the day off if his birthday happened to fall mid-week (unlike this year’s birthday which fell on a Sunday unfortunately).  However, we did manage to celebrate his birthday that weekend – I packed alot in!  After getting home somewhere around 4am on Saturday morning after the Friday night gig in Brighton, we had a fun trip to the Zoo on Saturday and had a lovely dinner at a Thai restaurant in Windsor that evening.  After he opened presents and cards on the Sunday morning (his birthday) I faced the long drive to Snape while he had a long lunch with his parents.  The concert went really well and I eventually met up with him at a bar in South London where he was out with some friends who were also wishing farewell to a friend of ours who has gone to Ibiza to DJ for the summer season.  All in all, it was a busy weekend – thank goodness it was a bank holiday Monday!

My final thought about the Canterbury Phil/Choral Soc gig was this… There are four on-stage trumpet parts and four off-stage trumpet parts (I was onstage, playing 4th trumpet and tonking out the bottom end of the section – fab!).  All four on-stage trumpets were female, and one of the off-stage trumpets was also female.  Now, obviously it’s no shock to me to see talented women playing the trumpet, but it’s rare that in an 8-piece trumpet section the majority of those players would be female.  Very enjoyable indeed!

Canterbury Choral Society – link for the June concert:

http://www.mdesignsolutions.co.uk/cgi-bin/ccs/info_concerts.html?domain=info/concerts&name=nxtconcert