11-06-23

In addition to our quarterly newsletter, the musicians of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra thought it could be interesting for the music lovers in our community if we added a monthly blog to our offerings. The purpose of the blog will be to discuss topics we get asked about all the time, with the space to explore them more deeply. To kick it off, this first post will focus on what exactly goes into preparing for an orchestra concert.

As I was preparing to perform Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto for the Alabama Symphony’s first Masterworks concert of the 2023-2024 season, I was struck by how many people asked me how rehearsals were going weeks before the performance. This confusion and subsequent surprise at how much we rehearse a program all together in advance of a concert makes sense; after all, for most people, memories of practicing with an ensemble harkens back to middle school or high school days, with near daily rehearsals over a month or two in preparation for a single concert. Even those of us with undergraduate degrees in music will recall having  half a semester to get ready for a concert with our university orchestra. As professional orchestral musicians, we typically have between one and four rehearsals for a concert or series of concerts, with rehearsal length being between 2 and 3 hours in length. What is deceptive here however, is that this is just one part of the preparation picture. The kind of work that happens on stage as a group can be thought of as the final phase of a project, and includes such details as: Acclimating to a conductor’s artistic vision and tempo choices for a piece, listening and adjusting to the ensemble around us, balancing and tuning chords, and for the strings specifically, matching bow styles. For us to all have our individual parts learned and prepared ahead of time, there are some important considerations we keep in mind. 

The first consideration is that we need to start practicing parts well in advance. In the world of a classically trained musician, there is no equivalent of pulling an all-nighter to finish a term paper! There are several reasons for this – one being that the physical demands of what we do won’t allow it without causing injury, or at best diminishing returns. The type of learning required for consistent and immediate recall of musical material demands the investment of intense periods of focus – in smaller intervals, over a long period of time. This is especially true of passages with many notes that elapse very quickly. If we start very slowly, proceed carefully, and build speed over time, we dramatically increase security and accuracy in our playing. When you have one chance to get it right when it counts, this confidence in the method of preparation is incredibly important.

We also have to be organized. For the above strategy to work, time needs to be carved out of nearly every day, and prioritized for optimal focus. We need to keep a careful eye on the calendar, make note of what difficult repertoire is coming up, and plan accordingly. Just ask our Principal Flutist Lisa Wienhold what she has on her music stand at home over the summer months! If you hear her playing the gorgeous solo from Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe in January, chances are she was thinking about it the previous June. When an unfamiliar work appears on the schedule, it becomes especially important to get the part early and scan for any sections that may require an above-average amount of attention. In addition, there are some weeks that we may have as many as three separate programs to prepare. As a result, the amount of music we have in front of us, and the difficulty level of that music, is a constantly changing and shifting landscape. 

Finally, there is outside work we all do to gain a more global understanding of the repertoire we perform. Familiarizing ourselves with an entire work can look like a number of different things, but most often it involves listening to a variety of recordings, clocking likely tempos, and paying extra careful attention to tricky transitions. Studying the score of a piece (this is what the conductor uses as they are conducting to track all the parts at once) can be very helpful in deepening an understanding of how our individual part fits into the whole orchestra. Refining ideas about phrases and other musical details are often made in this part of the process, and will better inform our time spent with our instruments. 

If you have any burning questions about life as a musician, or ideas for topics you would find interesting to read about, please let us know! We are reachable through our website and social media platforms.

Thanks for reading and stay connected!