There was CORY-OGRAPHY!

I had a great night’s sleep on Friday night, so I only needed 4 hours last night (I guess). I woke up stupid early because obviously there were many important things to worry about. In no particular order:

• should Keith wear his good black shoes to wait in the rain for our ride or should he wear his hikers and change at some point?
• if he wears his black shoes, should I take a towel to dry them off?
• what should we eat for breakfast?
• where is the lady who is going to give Keith the different jackets he is supposed to wear?
• will they have his size, because he is really hard to fit in a jacket?
• how should he transport his black pants?
• where is our ride picking us up?
• what if we miss the bus?
• what if Keith is as nervous as I am?
• what about the cleaning people? (they were going to come and bring clean towels and sheets)(because I made Keith go ask about it yesterday. I thought they might go for it and THEY DID!)
• where should I put the towels?

Okay, that’s not nearly everything, but you get the point – there were incredibly important things to think about. I even forgot to Wordle. Keith’s alarm went off at 7:30, and he immediately fell back asleep. He did not seem to be as nervous as I was.

Keith was to wear grey pants and a white shirt, before getting a black band blazer to wear for rehearsal. After rehearsal, he would switch to black pants and a red jacket. I successfully worried away any problems with the clothing. At 9:15, one of the band patron’s who never misses a rehearsal or a concert was kind enough to pick us up (Neil was driving to the concert with his family) and drive us the 35 minutes to meet the bus. The bus made two stops after ours to pick up others who lived along the route. Cory band members live all over the place and many drive quite a long way to rehearsal. The concert was in Bradford-on-Avon in England at the Wiltshire Music Centre. We got to go over the Severn Bridge, which I had never heard of until the Buster Day (because it closed for the first time ever). It goes a mile over the river Severn to connect Wales and England. The river still seemed to be pretty angry about the recent storm.

We arrived and I was hanging out with the same guys that I hang out with at rehearsals. They are so kind to me, always asking if I’m okay and if I need anything. And giving me licorice hard candies. Best. We sat in the hall and waited for the band to rehearse. When they arrived, I instantly noticed Keith was not wearing a tie or blazer. Augh. Had I not worried sufficiently? Wait. Others were also just in white shirts and grey pants. Maybe it was a trend. He might be trending. Trendy. Either way. The rehearsal was nearly 90 minutes long – checking sound for soloists, waiting for tech to catch up, just running through things and teaching the deps the choreography – CORY-ography. I know. You already saw the title, but I wanted to make sure I was clear. And that you noticed my clever word play. They actually just practiced moving around the stage – cornets were antiphonal at one point, they moved to opposite sides of the stage, front row came out front, etc. No actually dancing or anything.

After rehearsal, we were invited to a buffet. Fabulous. We were lingering and were among the last to arrive, yet the picture will show that there was not a shortage of things to eat. WHAT FUN. Plates of candy bars. YES. I did eat actual food, and only one little candy bar. After the show, we were given zip lock bags and told to take whatever we wanted. What I wanted was sweet chili and lemon pea snacks. Weird, eh? (oh, that reminds me – the people next to be asked at intermission where my accent was from. (I have an accent!) I said Minnesota. They said they thought Canada. I said as close as it gets). After eating, I sent Keith to get changed. When he came back, I was looking the other way and my buddies whistled and cat-called, and when I looked up to see that Keith making his uniform debut was their reason, I laughed A LOT.

The concert was great. THEY SOUND SO MUCH BETTER OUT OF THE LOUD REHEARSAL HALL. I so enjoyed all the pieces. The soloists were all just terrific. (None of this was any surprise, but yet still delightful.) Keith’s solo passages were in the last piece in the first half – although I didn’t know that. With the start of each piece, when it wasn’t that one, I could relax. I thought I would close my eyes and listen and be really casual when he played his solos. Until right when he was going to play, then I stared at him really hard and willed everything to go well. And it did. Phew. The second half featured the band’s telling of Treasure Island. I wish you could hear it. You could if you want pay £8 for a month of service at WOBplay (https://wobplay.com/view?asset_id=wE9jGXW1eG&segment_id=Egv2DOg5n6) that will let you listen to the band’s award-winning performance at World of Brass in November. You would just have to pretend Keith was playing at that time. (I actually recommend it, because it’s really good.) During Island Vibe there was actually choreography (still not really dancing, but…). The cornets were all standing , then quickly crouched down at the same time and slowly rose playing a thing that made it cool. The smile on Keith’s face was priceless. At one point, Keith had to spin around 360. (He is NOT as good at spinning as Benjamin. Just really not in the same league.) He did not fall down. Treasure Island ends with a big band-ish Beyond the Sea. Keith was on the right side of the stage with the 4 front row cornets. These are GOOD players, but, man, did they look like brass banders playing big band. Keith looked like he has been playing big band over 40 years and couldn’t have been more in his element (spoiler: he has and was). The encore was Keith’s second favorite circus march (of course he has a second favorite circus march) Rolling Thunder, played at an absolute breakneck speed (just the way he likes it). It was a joyful second half and YAY!

We drove home in rain and WIND. I was a little afraid going back over the bridge, because the wind was catching the bus and making it shudder. I gave myself a small chance of surviving if the bus went off the bridge, but Keith was going to sink like a bowling bowl Bad. He held my hand and protected me. He said we weren’t going off the bridge, so that is all he had to do. He was right. We got home 11 hours after we left.

He really wanted me to write about my experience, because he wanted to read and remember it. But I know you want to hear from him. Here he is:

First off, Barbara’s comment that the band sounds better not in the band room is literally a night-and-day difference from the band’s side of things too. I find the band room very loud, very dead, and very difficult to play in, but the stage was a completely different story. All of the previous “this band is so loud” feelings drifted away. I was so pleased by that. The acoustics of this hall were really very nice.

It wasn’t a perfect performance by me, but it was something that pleased me for my first opportunity to play with such a band. I started a bit tentative and it got better and better the further into the concert. Part of the tentative start was not actually due to nerves. Part of it was that after the rehearsal and before the concert my lips felt very chapped, so I put on some chapstick, knowing there’s always a risk of having too much and I didn’t think I had hit that point. But, once the warmth of wearing the jacket in the warm lights hit and some sweat formed on the face, the mouthpiece was sliding around my face too much. I shouldn’t have put on the chapstick. It affected my playing. I have large and crooked teeth (sounds attractive, eh?) and it’s important that my lips are not too slippery because I need the mouthpiece to stay in position over the right part of my teeth, otherwise the natural position it wants to go doesn’t want to work very well for me. Luckily, I was able to slowly get it wiped away over the course of the first half of the concert and things improved as it dried out a little. For you musicians out there, no I don’t play dry. But, I really don’t like playing sopping wet either. I’m somewhere in the middle.

I often have concerts where I get stronger and stronger and better and better as the concert goes on. I think that it’s most often a matter of gaining comfort in the situation as I go and I believe that was the case here. At the beginning of the concert, I was the outsider, the chapstick thing was getting to me, and I wasn’t really playing as myself. At the end I felt strong, much more in my element, and as though I’d have no problem playing the entire concert over again right away if I had to. Part of this as well was programming. Most of the second half was Philip’s awesome Treasure Island suite and two of the pieces in this (Island Vibe [based on Michel Camilo’s On Fire] and Beyond the Sea [straight-up Bobby Darin]) were big band jazz and there is no place I feel more at home as a trumpet player than playing lead in a big band.

And lastly, I want to comment too on the soloists on this program. There were solos by Tom on principal cornet, Helen on flugelhorn, Ailsa on solo horn, Chris on trombone, Glyn on euphonium, the entire tuba section, and probably someone else I’m forgetting right now. Every single one of these solos was excellent.

To quote Philip’s son the narrator as the young Jim Hawkins in the Treasure Island suite, “And that was that.” (It’s a very funny line in the concert–you’ll just to see it.)

And now Barbara is reporting from behind me that new weather reports are rolling in that Storm Franklin is hitting the Severn estuary area with level 8 winds and 20-feet over flood level.