Jingle, Jingle

I was greatly relieved to sing the last "jingle" yesterday. But I have to admit that by the third performance, I was enjoying "Little Bolero Boy". I doubt I will ever again be able to listen to either "Bolero" or "Little Drummer Boy" without thinking of the other sing.

There was much more tomfoolery happening at yesterday's concert. There were six or eight red Santa Claus hats in the orchestra. (Still no ho ho ball cap on Jeremy Reynolds' cute bald head. He said the cap belongs to Tish Bryant and she forgot to bring it. I think I'm going to have to Google around for another of these caps to gift to Jeremy as he wears it so well.) During "We Need a Little Christmas", Bruce prompted the chorus to salute the conductor at the point in the song where we're singing "We need a little music conducted by our maestro." It was totally unexpected by Maestro Michael Hall and he laughed and grinned at us, then applauded us when it was over. During intermission, some members of the brass and winds sections borrowed hats from the mariachis. Then during the 73rd verse of Feliz Navidad, the hats appeared on the heads of these musicians and, during the final 16 measures, they stood up to make their hats obvious. There was also a mariachi hat strategically placed on top of the harp. (I'm sure there's a technical term for these enormous hats, but I don't know what it is.) We were playing to a sold-out house (yea!) and everybody in the house, whether on stage or in the audience, seemed to be having a good time.

For your reading pleasure, I leave you with yesterday's review in the Washington Post of Saturday afternoon's Christmas concert at the Kennedy Center by the Washington Chorus.

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I've learned from friends in D.C. that the board handed Bob Shafer a script from which he was to give his closing remarks. He — wisely — read about two sentences from the script, then spoke eloquently from his heart. My heart aches for this dear friend who has been through hell this year. He is gifted and talented and deserves so much better treatment than what he's received from this board.
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