Friday 10 May 2002

I was going to spend the last couple of days practising for next weekend's gig with Mhairi and Adrian, but yesterday was almost entirely taken up with catching up on mail, and writing a response to the SAC music strategy.  Despite my reducing of the study to the bare essentials a few weeks ago, it's now full of paper, and most of it has to be dealt with one way or another.  Even though I make a point of only opening the mail when standing above a waste paper bin (this saves on journey time), paper accumulates at a frightening rate.

We had a very productive AGM and board meeting on Tuesday, with lots of sound advice and candid opinions flying around the table.  I've put together a programme for our open air gig in August: Jamie's going to sing, and I'm just waiting for the site meeting to get fixed up, so that I can figure out what kind of stage and/or PA we'll need.  And joy of joys, both McGillivrays are free for concert and recording at the end of January.

I finally got to the piano today and rediscovered how wonderful Schumann is, and what big hands Brahms had (ouch).  I've also agreed,  subject to a decent fee of course, to spend quite a lot of time over the next few weeks playing the piano in the RSNO, the repertoire including Stravinsky's Petrushka.  I'm always a bit embarrassed when people ask me to play the piano: "You do realise I'm not a real piano player", "Have you asked everyone else?", "Is it hard?" are my usual responses.  The first rehearsal's a week on Monday, so I may have to learn a lot of notes quite quickly - thank heavens for digital pianos, volume control, and headphones.  When we last moved house from a spacious high-ceilinged Victorian flat to our cosier 1920s semi, I gave my parents back our piano, and had a digital one delivered the day after we moved.  Somehow I foresaw the need for late-night note-bashing.