Cindy called a couple weeks ago to tell me our friend Rhonda was playing in a concert on the twenty-fourth. The concert would begin at one o’clock, and Cindy said she’d pick me up at noon.
“I want to bring cookies,” she added. “Do you think a hundred will be enough?”
I put on my coat ahead of time on Wednesday, which was good, as Cindy runs early. She offered me a cookie as soon as I was in the car. She and her daughter had baked three kinds for the concert: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and white chocolate chunk. Furthermore, they had individually wrapped each cookie in bags purchased at a dollar store, cut to size, and fastened with twist-ties. And if all the cookies were as delicious as my white chocolate chunk, this was going to be one fortunate group of concert-goers and performers.
Cindy decided that the two of us needed something warm to drink and that we should go to the nearby Starbucks to get it.
“Terrific,” I said. “I have a gift card.”
“Don’t use it up,” she answered. “I’ve got this.”
“Cindy, you don’t understand,” I countered. “I’ve had this card for years. I’d love to use it.” So that’s what we did. We had such a good time getting our drinks with the card that we ended up giggling as we pulled out of the drive-thru.
As we were getting out of the car at Westminster Presbyterian Church, I was delighted to see Dan Long doing the same. Dan taught orchestra in the Ann Arbor Public Schools for thirty-five years and is one of the warmest, nicest, most upbeat people ever. It’s a good thing he was as early as we were, because it took him all the time available before the concert, and a sizable chunk afterward as well, just to greet the concert-goers.
Cindy kept counting the house as the audience streamed in, wondering if she’d brought enough cookies. I hadn’t thought that would be a problem, given the scheduling of the concert and the fact that it had not been listed in the Observer. As it turned out, Cindy had reason to worry. There had to have been over a hundred people in the audience. Plus, of course, the performers.
Dan explained at the outset that this orchestra was for people who had played an instrument at some time in their lives and wanted to do so again, not with regular performances in mind, but “just for fun.” They practice once a week, in a downstairs room of the church, and once a year they’ve had an open rehearsal in that room. “This is an upgrade for us,” Dan said of this year’s concert space: the sanctuary of the church, which is warm and intimate and beautiful.
The concert also was warm and intimate and beautiful. Dan introduced each piece and spoke a bit about it. Introducing Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, Dan surprised the man sitting in front of us by saying, “Steve, I’m going to ask you a question about this in a minute.” The question, when it came, was, “Bach wrote how many of these preludes?” To which Steve immediately responded, “Twenty-four.”
Later, when speaking of a piece by Salieri, Dan asked Steve, “Can you connect Salieri’s opera Falstaff with Beethoven?”
Steve thought a moment, and answered, “Yes,” to the delight of the audience. Then he added, “How long do I have?” Steve, it seems, is a musicologist. He was more than happy to draw this and other links between the two composers and musicians. He wasn’t the least rattled, despite not knowing, he told me later, that Dan was going to put him on the spot. He enjoyed it, and so did the rest of us.
Dan did something particularly endearing as one piece began. One of the violinists in the first row had her music fall off the stand. Dan stopped the orchestra to let her retrieve it. But, rather than have her suffer the embarrassment of having everyone watch her fumble, Dan turned to the audience and told a quick story. On himself.
“This reminds me of the time I was conducting and had my music fall off the stand,” he said. “I was doing this,” the tall, narrow man added, bending down and scrambling for his imaginary music with his left hand, while continuing to conduct his imaginary orchestra with his right. By the time he’d finished his anecdote, all was well with the violinist, and the concert continued.
It was a delightful concert, warmly received, and everyone who wanted a cookie got one.
26 April 2024