Friday 22nd July
This morning Niels our great percussionist did the warm up so we could rehears ‘’TAKETIKA’’ and our samba song while we got warm for our lessons and practice. When you walked in the main building you could hear trios and quartets playing everywhere. In the afternoon we had a really long general rehearsal for our first concert. It was mainly about going on and off stage with all the small and big instruments. Emily aimed for 30 seconds to get on stage ready to play so she was using a kitchen alarm to measure it. First we made it in 33 seconds so we were really proud of ourselves but it was just beginners luck: next time it was getting worse and we ended up walking on stage in 55 seconds so Emily was getting grumpy – she said she was also very hungry and so were we. There were other confusions: which instrument you need (Alto? Bass? Normal flute?), who you are sharing the stand with, who is taking the music sheets, which alto flute you take – we ended up playing different alto flutes the whole day which made US grumpy.. The concert went very well after all. Our special guest star was the wonderful soprano Roberta Alexander who made this flute recital very special. The programme contained Neflac (NTK+YIP) orchestra, YIP and NTK ensembles and soloists. The audience seemed very pleased with the pieces and the performers and we think their favourite was the Haydn Farewell symphony where we left the stage one by one in funny ways (waving goodbye, running away, pulling each other by the arm and even our conductor, Jeroen left before the piece ended). We gave two encores, Gershwin’s Summer time with Roberta accompanied by flute orchestra and Ravel’s La flûte enchantée performed by Roberta, Emily and Andrew- wonderful colours. Big success, YAY!
Maartje, Danielle and Zsuzsi