A couple of days ago the Wall Street Journal published an interesting article regarding various issues that are sometimes specific to outdoor performances. It got me thinking of some of my own experiences over the years, and how challenging (and humorous) it can be to try and give a convincing performance under less-than-ideal circumstances. I’ve been trying to think of my top few (or bottom few) stories, but it’s hard to narrow it down. Some I’ve witnessed, some I’ve been involved in as a musician.
There was the concert at the Hollywood Bowl when a helicopter decided to hover over a performance of the Mahler 5th symphony until Michael Tilson Thomas stopped the concert and walked off (it resumed several minutes later, but the copter still came by a few times). Aspen is legendary for these sorts of incidents. I remember a hilarious episode as a student when, during a particularly delicate afternoon orchestra program, someone’s very large dog (out on the lawn) simply would not stop barking. It was funny because a) the barking seemed pretty random during pauses in the music, like a commentary b) the house manager ran around frantically but couldn’t find the dog, who appeared to be moving from one location to another and c) the barking was really loud.
Aspen was also where I once saw a (different) dog jump onto the stage during a chamber orchestra concert. He wandered around for awhile and left; everyone just kept playing. That was a weird summer; a few days later I saw a prominent violin soloist whip his bow off the string just before a lengthy orchestral interlude, only to watch it sail into the audience about six rows back. He casually jumped off the stage and waited patiently as his bow was passed to the aisle, then got back up and made the next entrance.
At Tanglewood I remember numerous concerts that were almost entirely drowned out by storms, sometimes to my great relief. And then there are the hazards to the musicians themselves, beyond the possibility of getting your instrument wet or maybe getting electrocuted. One prominent wind player recalled an orchestral concert in which he was playing an extended solo and was forced to observe a mosquito land on his arm, bite him, and fly off before the solo was finished.
I’ve had snakes backstage, storms, raccoons, all kinds of stuff. Anyone care to write in with his or her personal favorite episodes?
My first summer at the Brevard Music Festival (1999) I played a concert with Marvin Hamlisch. There came a point where he did a solo and the lights were turned off the orchestra and a single spotlight went on him. Well, the bugs went off of us and went straight for the spotlight… and him. Like slow motion, I saw this huge sucker of a bug come in like a kamikaze pilot and I watched him get pegged in the eye. He had to stop, walk offstage, get cleaned up and then resume the rest of the show.
Ormandy was conducting the CSO in the “Cow Palace” in Madison in the early 70s. The building is next to RR Tracks. During the Tchaik 4th, a train came by and blew it’s horn multiple times. Ormandy didn’t miss a beat(literally), he turned to the right and ‘conducted’ the train and then said “it was in tune”.
Great composure!!
Thanks for opening Pandora’s box Frank! 🙂 Hard to choose one but I think my favorite “workplace hazard” memory was at an outdoor wedding several years ago. This one seemed fairly straight forward for my string quartet, although clearly had some wackiness built in –music for the release of the butterflies (each in a little Chinese take-out sort of container given to the attendees), music for the sand-blending… I think the bride had selected the ‘fad” package for her ceremony. The setting was a large property on a lake. The grounds were really beautiful and included several white peacocks brought in to stroll around and add to the general picturesque-ness (word?) Problems started as soon as we began to play -the peacocks started screaming. A blood curdling sound like amplified New Years party horns. Pachelbel’s Canon with orphanage on fire obligato. Hard to forget that one..
My mosquito memories will always include the Waukesha Symphony concert at the Oconomowoc Bandshell where a number of wind players did their partners a favor and swatted the little vampires on their backs resulting in white shirts with pronounced red spots! If only we could have brought along the bats from various churches.
Finally, though no hazard, my non-standard poodle, best dog I ever had, used to cry when I tuned my violin.
Once upon a time, the birds tried to out-sing our performance at Boerner. For each increase in dynamics the group had, they notched it up a bit on their end. Charming!
I played a concert at the Roundtop festival where Sheryl Staples(then with the Pacific SO, now with NYPhil) and Ron Leonard were performing Brahms Double. A storm was coming in and got bad just as we started the Brahms. As soon as they started playing their extended solo section after the orchestral intro, the power went out. They continued doing their thing, and right before the orchestra was going to come back in, the lights came on and we continued playing without incident.
Hi Troy,
This summer the pianist William Wolfram played in a concert of Bartok Contrasts where the lights went out for some reason (he posted the story on facebook). They finished the performance with stagehands holding flashlights nearby.
This is a good topic and one that deserves more attention. I’ve often wondered why OSHA doesn’t look into more of the inherent problems associated with symphonic/opera/ballet performances than it does.
Then again, perhaps people really don’t care about the musicians (especially those in pits). For example, did anyone else notice that article in the UK Telegraph about the soprano that fell into the opera pit? Although I’m glad she wasn’t seriously injured the article didn’t mention a word about whether or not she fell on any musicians and if they (or their instruments) were damaged.