It’s confirmed: we’re trying out a third conductor tonight! And I am very happy because there was a bit of kerfuffle about memberships dues not covering what this conductor requested as his fee, but the majority of members were okay with paying a supplement to obtain his services for this concert. If we decide he’s the one for us then membership fees will go up, and I’m perfectly fine with that; we pay a ridiculously low fee as it is, and more than doubling it only brings us to ten dollars per month the orchestra plays each year. If he’s as good as his reputation suggests he is, we’d be getting a real deal. Also, audiences would increase because of his affiliation with other musical events and organisations, and our recruiting of new members would also increase. There’s a lot of potential here.

Apparently we are playing Schubert’s third symphony as the main course for the July concert. So naturally, while looking for audio reference, I discovered that I own only the first, second, and fourth symphonies. I went away and thought about it for a while, then remembered that I’d bought a full six-symphony set the last time we did a Schubert symphony (the fifth?), because the set was less expensive than a single CD with the fifth on it. I had to hunt it out, though. It wasn’t with my other Schubert CDs. I blame the boy, who used to pull CDs out and then reshelve them in interesting new places. I checked my records and apparently I’ve played Schubert’s third before. I have no memory of it, but then, it was in 2003, which was six years ago. However I played it then, chances are rather good that I’ll play it much better now.

I am so very excited to be working with this conductor.

I dragged myself out of the maudlin cold-heavy apathy yesterday to go down town for a meeting about this meditation recording gig. I now have the equipment and some reference DVDs to inspire my delivery of the script. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I came home in a better mood than I’d left, and feeling much healthier, too. I practised not once but twice, the second time with a strict metronome set at ruthless performance speed. I uploaded vacation photos. I opened windows (HRH took the plastic off the front living room Wall of Glass, huzzah!). I made a delicious pot of chicken cacciatore (for some reason, there are never any leftovers). And I set up the breadmaker to start its thing at three in the morning so we’d all have fresh bread at breakfast (because I forgot to make it the regular way yesterday and there wasn’t enough time for me to make it last night before I passed out).

Today: Recording, laundry, celloing, doing something with the shoulder roast that’s defrosting. I can’t even remember if it’s beef or pork (it’s from the organic farmers, so doesn’t have a label beyond ‘shoulder roast’), although I suspect it is pork.

And shh, don’t make any sudden moves: I’ve actually been starting to think about Orchestrated with more interest again. The month away from it killed my momentum. I’m not sure whether to print the first draft out and read it while making notes longhand, or just go back to the beginning of the file and start work. I may just print out the first two chapters, as those are the ones that need the most rearranging.