BrandyLee Hatcher – entry 6

This will most likely be my last blog while the official festival is still going on. Naturally as the festival went into the last week, the work got five times as busy to fit everything in. On Monday we had to go over to St. Mark's and prepare the space for recording the Concert Program V pieces. This time re-setting the church also meant rebuilding the stage to be twice as large.

In Program V there is a beautiful piece called Snow in June by Tan Dun that has over 100 percussion instruments. Four percussionists each have their section of instrumentation which they play from with a cello soloist. The piece is absolutely heart-wrenching and has such an interesting story behind it. The basic storyline is that a woman was once falsely accused of a crime and was sentenced to death. On the day she was killed, in the middle of June, it snowed because of the unjust death. Wu Han (artistic director) tells the story much better than I could ever write it, but only when you hear the piece can you feel the deep emotion behind it.

We have two more days left of the festival followed by two extremely busy days of tearing down everything and getting it put away before the venues are returned. We have to have St. Mark's completely torn down (stage and all) by 1pm on Saturday because of a wedding that day and we have to return all of the rehearsal classrooms and venues to their original settings by Sunday afternoon for teacher orientation on Monday. Things will be very tight, but we are going to relax on Monday so we do not get burned out too fast.

Events are being added for the last couple days left and right. With only six production members it is very hard to distribute all of us to cover ever moment of the festival. We are spread thin, but somehow we always managed to get it done. We have had some close calls with burned out bulbs or sound issues at the last minute. As time and work wears us down it has been taking more focus to remember every task that must be completed before each different type of event. A masterclass is different from a concert programme or KYPC concert or cafe conversation and prelude concerts, etc. All of the staff and other interns and so helpful though and we keep an eye out for each other to make sure the little details are not missed.

All in all things are going very well. Nothing has been perfect, but that is the charm of each moment. This job is all about learning not only how to make things go right, but also about dealing when things do not. After all, that is how life stays interesting.