For the remainder of these posts, I’ve elected to keep them short and sweet. This is mostly because Life has been remarkably busy the last few months, and will continue this way until after Midwest. Consequently, I won’t have as much time to focus on writing articles until January. ( Sometimes Composing and Teaching are full-time jobs in and of themselves, let alone combining the two, as has been the case lately.)
The 18th performance that I attended was Swan Lake which was put on by the Metropolitan Ballet, on October 29th.

This was only the second Ballet I’ve ever seen, if you count the Nutcracker performance I got to see 10 years ago put on by the same company. Overall, I quite enjoyed it. My favorite scenes were those with the chorus of swans as it was magical to watch when coupled with the costumes and lighting. I learned a lot by watching the choreography in real time along with the music. Perhaps someday I’ll compose a ballet! I may ned to see a few more first though, before I attempt this endeavor.
Thank you to one of my lesson parents who thought of me and passed on the tickets when they could not attend as planned!
The second performance, ( #19) I’ll mention in this post was the Orono High School Production of BrightStar, the musical on November 19th. I was invited by one of my students as it was her first musical performance, and I wanted to support her. I had my reservations, as it was a high school play, and casting is not usually the best from past experiences, but boy was it a delight to watch! What impressed me the most was the stage direction and the level of participation by all members of the cast and crew. Members of the ensemble were used in just about every scene and they participated in much of the action and scene setup. Kudos to whoever was in charge of stage direction and choreography. All of the students put earnest effort into their acting and singing, and not a bored-looking person, or unconvincing line delivery on stage was found!
