Recital Time

Yesterday The Banana and Mr. Trouble on Feet had a recital.  The Banana played a fast song her her violin.  Mr. TOF played his viola. (He wore a tie, of course!) Later, at a second recital, The Banana played violin in a chamber quartet.

Because I live with them, the kidlets usually choose to have me accompany them at their recitals.  I’m not a great accompanist, but so far it has generally worked out.  The pieces memorized, and performed without music. The Banana’s song was a bit tricky this time because there were many parts that were similar but slightly different, and if she got ever so slightly off with the accompaniment, it was catastrophic, because getting back on track was nearly impossible.  We’ve been practicing for months and months, and she knew it upside down and backwards, but it was really tricky if either one of us made a mistake, and to not make a mistake, we both had to have razor sharp focus.  I always feel nervous accompanying.  I felt especially nervous about this piece.

On Monday night, right before bedtime,  we had a stage recital with their teacher.  The recitals are held at the university recital hall, so the stage is REALLY a stage.  Mr. TOF was so excited to play his viola on the stage, and his run through went great.  The Banana played her piece, but lost her place in the middle, and finding her was nearly impossible, so she played by herself for about 2/3 a page.  I did manage to discover where she was at the end, and we ended together, but it was a bit scary.  Her teacher previously mentioned that she could choose to play with music if she would like, but The Banana decided she could do it memorized, so she stuck with her plan.

I’m always amazed at that girl.  I would definitely pick playing with the security of the page in front of me.  She’s really great at memorizing, and she doesn’t really get rattled easily.

I, on the other hand, was rattled.  Really rattled, and as The Banana’s violin teacher pointed out, I had music in front of me.  Let’s just say I lost quite a lot of sleep Monday night, and Tuesday night, and I had to make a plan to keep myself calm and distracted all of Wednesday because my performance anxiety was growing. How would I ever find her if the piece started falling apart?   There were going to be a lot of really good musicians in the audience at this recital, and I really wanted things to go well.  I knew they would either go really well, or really not well.  There didn’t seem to be any happy medium with this piece.

The Banana played last at the recital on Wednesday. It’s so hard to wait to be the last performer.   Mr. Trouble on Feet was near the beginning.  He played wonderfully.  Other students played.  They did well.  A tiny piano student three people before The Banana began walking up to the stage with her mother to play her first piece at her very first recital, but when she climbed the steps, she turned around and ran right back down to her seat in the audience, sitting down firmly next to her dad.  No amount of kind encouragement from her teacher or mother could make her return.

“That’s exactly what I feel like doing,” I whispered to my husband.

He kind of giggled, and looked at my sympathetically.

Finally it was our turn.  The violin was tuned.  The Banana walked out onto the stage.  We began.

And she completely nailed it.

I was so happy for her.

And I was so relieved.

I slept so very soundly that night.