Concerts

It's been a bit hectic around here the past week:  concerts, more concerts, and a few recitals for my students thrown into the mix.  On Thursday, Friday and twice on Saturday I had concerts with the Arrowhead Chorale.  Dr. Peds was on call, so our super duper amazing babysitter, Sophie, who is home until after Christmas came for many many hours each day so I could be off singing.  On Saturday there was a shorter concert for kids, since our guest artist for the series was an animated storyteller.  I got tickets for the kidlets and Sophie so they could come and hear the stories and see me sing.  

The kidlets were mesmerized by the stories.  I knew they would be . . . trolls, monsters and treasure are just the things they like to hear in a good story, particularly Mr. Sneaky Pants, who was just glued to the storyteller each time she was talking.  They were somewhat interested in the singing, which is about what I predicted.  I thought it was good for them to hear the finished pieces though, since they hear me practicing all the time and think the music is really strange (second altos don't sing a lot of melody).  

Throughout the past few weeks the Arrowhead Chorale has been working on an extremely complicated, almost jazzy arrangement of Jingle Bells.  It was crazy difficult to sing, and I had to practice it at home a lot.  The kidlets thought I was singing in Latin because there were all kinds of crazy nonsense syllables thrown in.  They were not impressed when I practiced at all.  When we left to go to the concert, Ya Ya asked particularly if we would be singing that song.  I told her we were not, because it was not on the schedule for the shortened afternoon kid concert.  

However, when we were warming up, someone in the chorale suggested we add Jingle Bells.  They thought the kids would enjoy hearing a complicated, familiar Christmas song.  The conductor agreed.  Near the end of the concert, he announced to the audience "We will be adding one more selection, and you will probably recognize the tune"  He cued the first entrance, and I looked up and ALL THREE of my kidlets had their hands up to the sides of their heads in a gesture of pure shock and dismay, with the most disgusted looks on their faces.  Sophie, the babysitter could hardly contain her giggles, and I nearly burst out laughing on strage.  They were so hilarious.  In fact, I had tears in my eyes from trying not to giggle and I couldn't even sing the first four pages of the song.  I completely lost my composure.  

We're not a big fan of fancy arrangements of Jingle Bells around here.  But we do like Scandanavian stories.  The kidlets have been regurgitating the storyteller's tales in great detail for days.