I did it!

[gilana]

My concert was last night.

We had to be there to start warming up at 5:45. I took what I tried to make a long relaxing bath around 3 pm, got ready as slowly as I could, and finally got too antsy and walked over at 4:30, arriving at 5. I had to lug along a heavy batch of programs because I had offered to design them, and there was a whole nightmare with Kinkos in which they were not done at 4 pm Thursday as promised, done but unacceptable condition Friday 7 am, I had to keep calling and finally walk over with a disk Friday morning, re-printed and mostly done but the machine broke Friday 4 pm, and the last batch finally couriered over to me Friday at 9 pm. Whew! But I got a lot of compliments on the design, so it turned out ok.

Anyway, when I got to the church, luckily other people were there so I could twitch at them instead of sitting home alone. I get really nervous before any sort of performance, but I've done it enough now that while I feel all the adrenaline and nerves on one level, my brain also knows that this is just what I do beforehand and everything will be fine as soon as I begin. I sort of enjoy it in a sick way; it's sort of part of the performance.

I knew that miss_chance was going to be there, but I didn't know if any other friends would show up. I especially didn't know if Tim, my ex, would show, and I wasn't sure if I wanted him to or not. He's been to all my other concerts, and his opinion is probably more important to me than anyone in the world (I know, I'm still working on that "ex" part...). Anyway, I saw him walk in, and I was really thrilled. And then the icing on the cake was three other unexpected friends, so I had a *very* satisfying cheering section.

The concert started, and we managed to get through the two short pieces before the Requiem much better than we've done them before, which was a relief because there are things we usually totally screw up. Had a quick break, and then up again for the big one. It was hard to let myself really get into the music, my brain was going double-time thinking about the notes and watching the conductor and thinking about the style to sing in, but I did manage to at least listen to the other parts while I was singing, which I don't always remember to do. When we first started rehearsing this piece I honestly never thought we'd be able to do it. But all of the complicated little runs that so threw me at first are second nature by now, and all of the tricky entrances that we consistently missed we made even when the conductor forgot to point at us, or pointed at the sopranos instead, and it felt GOOD.

My solo is on page 47 of the music. At first I was looking at page numbers, and we were on page 20, and I thought it would never come. And then we were suddenly at the beginning of the movement and I had to step forward and wait for the solo bit, and I have never been so terrified in all my life. My heart was pounding out of my chest, my knees were weak, my mouth was dry, and I was utterly convinced that I would open my mouth and only a weak little pitiful sound would come out. But then the part came, and I heard the soprano part that come before I come in, and everything just automatically happened. I'm pretty sure I didn't even glance at my music, which is good because I think it would have just confused me. I just opened my mouth and let it out, and I don't know how it sounded to the audience over the orchestra, but to me it sounded loud and clean, and have no idea idea what I did for breathing but the last section, in which there is no good place for a breath and I always have to squeeze out the last note, seemed to come out just fine. I'm torn between being anxious to hear the recording and feeling like I'd rather have the memory of a flawless performance than risk having that tarnished.

Looked at my friends afterwards and got some very satisfactory reactions; a lot of smile, plus a comic look on Tim's face that said "I didn't know you could do THAT!". I sing quietly a lot, but it's pretty rare that I really sing with my full voice, and it's quite a difference.

After the solo, I was shaking in reaction, and started to come in early for the next part twice (I think time was moving twice as quickly for me than the rest of the group at that point), which hopefully no one noticed. Finally got it right and got back into the rhythm. I didn't make any of the mistakes I had worried about; there were one or two bits that I think I might have sung wrong, but I decided not to look back at the notes to see, just keep looking forward. Overall felt really good about it.

We had a nice little reception afterwards with lots to drink (thank goodness, I've never sung that long without water before and I was parched!) and eat and everyone telling each other how great they were. One nice lady that I didn't know stopped me to tell me that not only was a lovely to look at, I had a lovely voice, which made me all glow-y. Found my friends and after I finished floating around and dealing with stuff we all went out to Uno's for a nice decompression dinner.

Came home around 10:45, my parents had told me to call if it was before midnight so I called and told them all about it, then crashed. And now it's a new day and there's no more choir until September, sigh. But at least I can see the last episode of Buffy with friends.