Date January 25, 2010
Day 6
Shows 17 – 18
Schools Miraloma Elementary
We’ve just started the third week of the season and already are on our 16th show! Today we’re at Miraloma Elementary School and everyone had a great time! The students asked fabulous questions. Each day we perform the same pieces but our show is never the same. It changes depending on the dynamic of the school, the teachers and the students. Each school has a unique culture and personality. It’s fun and challenging to experience the different communities. We’ll talk more in depth about community in future posts. Community is a huge part of the San Francisco Symphony’s AIM program.
Memorization
Since the beginning of our concerts we have been doing our speeches from memory. As each day of shows progressed we began to memorize each song, one day at a time. Today we performed our whole show from memory for the first time! 45 minutes of speaking, playing, interactive movement, choreography and fun, all by memory.
Playing from memory in a chamber music setting is not typical. No matter that we played our shows a number of times, each time we play something memorized for the first time it is very nerve-wracking. So today, each of us had our little memory slips but we made it all the way through and hope the kids didn’t even notice.
We memorize music as a group, and that makes it much easier and fun. Music is easier to memorize when you can “hear” the other parts. To get to a fully memorized show, we usually start taking music stands away from the beginning and ending pieces of the show. In each show we memorize an additional piece until the entire show is memorized!
We firmly believe in playing kids and family performances completely memorized. Not having stands on stage breaks down barriers between us and our audience. We feel that this bond is one of the many things that makes our performances outstanding.
