This week marked the end of Kevin’s Blue Lake commitments; he had to go to Adrian MI for the Midwest mini-tour on Tuesday and Wednesday and then travel to Blue Lake for his homecoming (and final) concert on Thursday night.
Adrian: I’ve driven back and forth to Adrian three times this week…and while the town was a lot nicer than I would have guessed, I hope I don’t have to go back any time soon. Had my first chance to hear Kevin’s orchestra on Tuesday when I stopped by the high school before I had to pick him up…really thought they sounded great.
The concert was Wednesday evening…had a nice dinner with Mom and Joe before the concert (where the meat loaf was bland, the pie was canned, and the music was *not* to Kevin’s tastes). The BYISO performed well, and Kevin did a great job on his solo, even though he did have a ‘wardrobe malfunction’; his shoulder rest came off of his viola and that made it very hard for him to hit certain notes and play the solo quite right. I didn’t notice anything wrong with the playing but could tell from Kevin’s looks and facial movements that something wasn’t quite right.
The orchestra ends the concerts singing “The Lord Bless You and Keep You”……they sang it for the parents right before they boarded the bus as they headed out to Europe and I remember two things from that….1) it’s been a long time since I heard that particular piece of music and 2) I couldn’t hear Kevin at all as they sang.
This time it was completely different and Kevin pointed out later that he and the other tenor (all of the other boys in the orchestra sing bass) have been ‘encouraged’ that they need to sing loud to get the part across. And the tenor part, and Kevin, were much more noticeable this go round.
Blue Lake: Drive home Wednesday night after the concert (for the curious, I did force Kevin to listen to some 60’s and 70’s….ELO was on again and he was not happy to hear that!) and returned him to Adrian Thursday morning to catch the bus to Blue Lake. The rest of the family motored out to the camp Thursday night to hear the homecoming concert. The group performed the same songs as in Adrian (Kevin was hoping for one or two differences) and there was a noticeable ‘oops’ in the solo…not on Kevin’s part though, he had mentioned in his journal that this had happened before and had learned his lesson…he waits to hear the violin start to play before starting as opposed to looking at the conductor, and that’s where the ‘oops’ happened this time.
Kevin sitting first chair before the solo….for the journal-readers out there, Kevin’s disdain with ‘Max’ is easily understood after watching ‘Max’ in action….
Concert ends, Kevin says goodbye to his friends (the girls are all in tears as they hug each other and Kevin and everyone else) and we head home…arriving back here around 11:30.
They say they recorded the concert; I hope so because I didn’t tape it because they said they were going to record it. I did videotape Kevin’s solo in the fifth movement of Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite…you can hear that here.
