Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Practice, practice, practice

This post’s title is the punchline to an old joke.

An elderly New Yorker (often identified as Polish-American pianist Arthur Rubenstein) is approached by a tourist, who asks him, “Pardon me, sir, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?”

"Practice, practice, practice..."

And that’s how it came to pass that, last Sunday evening, my nephew and his oboe debuted at the Isaac Stern Auditorium / Ronald O. Perelman Stage  --  the nation’s most renowned classical music performance space since its opening in 1891  --  at the corner of 57th Street and 7th Avenue in midtown Manhattan.

No, it wasn’t a solo debut, or even a featured debut.  As he continues to progress as an oboist, those may happen at some future date. 

He and dozens of his fellow members of the Garfield High School Orchestra performed as part of Carnegie Hall’s Spring Instrumental Music Festival.  The other performances at the evening’s concert were by the orchestras from Delaware, Ohio’s Rutherford B. Hayes High School and Kirkwood (Missouri) High School.

Alas, I’ve seen only one review of the performance thus far:

They were magnificent  --  my sister

I’m sure I’ll hear much more about the trip, the stage, and the performance when my nephew, sister, and brother-in-law return to Seattle tomorrow night.  In the meantime, to get to Carnegie Hall either “practice, practice, practice” or take the F, N, Q, R, or W train.