Thank goodness *that's* over!

We managed to survive the Christmas rush, attending four services in two days. It started with 10 AM Sunday morning, to celebrate Advent IV. No choir for that one. That evening there was a 7 PM Christmas service at the Lutheran church. We arrived about 20 after 5, after a nice, easy dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. (Their new mango curry pizza is wonderful!) I brought along my viol and my bandura, and intended to tune the 4 octaves of the latter instrument when we got there. I figured there would be plenty of time, as the choir rehearsal didn't start until 5:45.

So much for expectations! The organist was already there, and was unhappy that middle C on the principal was out of tune, despite the organ having been tuned that week. As I was present at the tuning, I had some concept of how to fix it. Fortunately, it was one of the facade pipes and the problem was obvious. Somehow the flanges around the aperture had been flattened out, so I simply bent them back to their normal position and voila! The organ, she is in tune.

At that moment our violinist appeared. I hadn't expected her until 6:15, but was glad to see her. We worked out which pieces she would play and when, and even had the chance to go through them. It is pretty stressful rehearsing something for the first time an hour or so before you have to perform it! Luckily, she is a professional, and quickly mastered the parts. I went back to continue tuning the bandura when I heard a scream. The violinist had missed a stair and had fallen to her knees. She was a bit shaken, so we sat with her for several minutes while we made sure nothing was seriously wrong.

The choir was now showing up for rehearsal. Most of the folks were out of town, so we had greatly diminished forces. In fact, other than having two sopranos, we were basically one on a part. I had taken this into consideration when programming the music, making sure there was a lot of solo work. Still, we needed to go through it a few times. Finally I got back to the bandura and managed to finish tuning it.

As part of the prelude music, the violinist and I played "Greensleeves on a ground." It consisted of a repeating series of chords that I played on the bandura, over which the violin had variations on the famous melody.

During the service itself my wife sang "Vom himmel hoch" as a solo, accompanied by violin and tenor viol. It was lovely. All of the music went very well, and we got many compliments as we were leaving.

We then headed over to the Episcopal church, where we sang a concert intermixed with carols at 9:30 and then the "midnight" service at 10 PM. We had diminished forces there as well, but at least had two on every part. The music was challenging, and we hadn't had long to rehearse it. The adrenaline kicked in, and we managed to sing it better that evening than at any of the rehearsals. We certainly did not peak too soon!

Christmas morning it was back to the Episcopal church. In addition to doing one of the readings, I played "Carol of the Bells" on the bandura during communion. The folks there were quite appreciative.

We visited some friends afterwards and had lunch with them, and then they came to our place to watch "Life of Brian," one of my favorite holiday movies. In the evening we visited some other friends, sharing our truffle liqueur and their homemade limoncello, while reading and answering questions from a trivia game. It was a lot of fun.

Next morning I woke up congested - I had finally caught my wife's cold...