Concert OOPS! Good For Hilarity!
Many of you who read this already know I direct a community band, the Mississippi Community Symphonic Band. (The band's home page is here.)
Of course being as how we are a concert band, we put on concerts.
Last night we put on our oh, about thirty second concert since we got started, nearly six years ago.
We must be doing something right, because we regularly put more than 80 people on the stage and have audiences of 500 or more.
One of the many things I do to prepare for these concerts is to put together the Narrator Notes, a set of scripts for Dr. Chris Shelt, our announcer, to read to introduce each piece for the concert.
Chris is a good friend, and is the choir director at Belhaven University, and he always injects his own inimitable personality into the announcing, including everything from horrible puns to good-natured pokes at various members of the band.
Sometimes I even write these into the notes.
At our concert last night, we had about 80 musicians on the stage, and about 500 people in the audience, which the auditorium director told me is an excellent turnout for the middle of February, which is typically a slim month for audiences.
At this concert, we premiered my latest arrangement for band, for which I had written the narrator notes to include the following:
In our first musical stop of this medley, you’ll mosey along with some of the old cowhands as they sing “Oh, Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie,” then we amble on up to north Texas for a stop at “The Red River Valley.” Onward into cattle country, we hear the cowpokes’ song, “I Ride An Old Paint,” and we wind up driving oxen as the wagon train rolls westward, as we hear “Bound For The Promised Land.”
But when we got to that part of the program, Chris announced it something like this:
In our first musical stop of this medley, you’ll mosey along with David and some of the old cowhands as they sing “Oh, Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie,” then we amble with David on up to north Texas for a stop at “The Red River Valley.” Onward with David into cattle country, we hear the cowpokes’ song, “I Ride An Old Paint,” and we wind up driving oxen as the wagon train rolls westward, as we hear “Bound For The Promised Land.”
When he first mentioned my name, I put on an astonished look, put my fist on my hip, and stared at him until he finished. When he was done, I took the microphone I had near the podium, and announced to the audience, "We will be holding auditions for a new announcer immediately following the concert." This got a good chuckle from the audience.
We played that piece, then when the program had an Edward Elgar piece called "Nimrod" as next to be played, Chris began announcing the tune after that, which was Leroy Anderson's "The Girl I Left Behind Me."
I checked my program, and sure enough, "Nimrod" was next, and I checked my copy of the narrator notes, and sure enough, I had left that entry out of the notes I gave Chris! OOOHHH NO!!
I glanced at the band and could see puzzlement and consternation on their faces, so I held up the Anderson score and mouthed to them "We're going to play this one!" I could see they all shuffled their music and were ready.
When Chris finished announcing the Anderson piece, I took my microphone again and said to the audience, "You can see in your program we are scheduled to play 'Nimrod' next," and then to Chris, "I guess that page was left out of your notes?"
He responded, "That would be correct."
So I said, "Okay, we'll go ahead and play 'The Girl I Left Behind Me' now, and we'll play 'Nimrod' next." I made a dismissive gesture to Chris with my hand and said, "You can just make something up about that." The audience chuckled again.
We played the Anderson number, and it went quite well. Anderson was a marvelous arranger; he really knew how to put a piece of music together.
We finished that one and Chris took the mic to announce the next number. He said, "Our next number will be 'Nimrod' by Edward Elgar." The audience laughed, as we all knew he was winging it, making it up as he went. He continued, "This is a number that needs no introduction." The audience roared.
He went on with a few more words about the number being part of Elgar's Enigma Variations, which he had gotten off the music of one of the players while we were playing the preceding number, and wound up, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Alfred Reed's arrangement of Edward Elgar's NIMROD."
When he was finished, I took my microphone again, and announced to the audience, "The auditions for a new announcer are OFF. He did a great job!" The audience loved it. They laughed and applauded and generally had a great time.
So we played the number and finished out the rest of the concert and everyone, both the players and the audience members, had a great time.
If you weren't there, you SHOULD have been!
There's nothing like playing an evening of great music with great people and a great audience to put a smile on your face for the rest of the week.
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