The community orchestra for which B. plays in the viola section held a concert on Friday, in its usual church venue in west San Jose. Under music director George Yefchak, they gave a miscellaneous program, the best-played piece of which was the Mazurka from Delibes' ballet Coppélia. The brass drowned everyone else out, but that usually happens in this sort of item. An abridged version of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet also worked out pretty well. (Besides some judicious trimming elsewhere, the arranger cut out the recapitulation, except for the lush return of the love theme, which he stuck into the exposition.) But a full appreciation of the Adagio movements from Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony and Khachaturian's Spartacus was a bit beyond this orchestra's capacity.
There were a few hilarious date errors in the program book. It would have been difficult for Rachmaninoff to write that symphony in 1872, as he was not born until the following year, and Astor Piazzolla, also on the program, wasn't writing anything in 1892, as he wouldn't be born for decades. (I think they meant 1982.)
B. had a bit of a family audience this time. Her sister G., niece E. (G's daughter-in-law), and grand-nephew H. (G's grandson, E's nephew - my, family relationships can get complicated, can't they?) came along and sat in the audience right, from which they could best see B. on stage. I, partly in my role as B's sherpa, was sitting over on the left for tactical reasons. When a church representative asked the audience how they'd heard about the concert, "You're with the band" got the most raised hands. H. was new to this sort of event, I think, but afterwards he said he liked the music.
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