Wednesday 26 January 2011

First orchestra

A. had a singing lesson at his Ulpan (Hebrew language course) with a teacher from the Jerusalem Music Centre. And as the good husband he is, he asked the teacher for an amateur orchestra for his wife. (Hihi, I'm still getting used to our new titles.) And so I went to look for this orchestra and their weekly rehersal yesterday's evening. I had an idea of where the Music Centre was placed, so I walked in what I thought would be the straightest way. But Jerusalem is very hilly, and it turned out the road I had to cross to where some 20 metres down - so I had to go back and start over.

But I found it! And enjoyed 2½ hours of music with this Israeli wind band called HarEl (which should mean God's Mountain). It has some 35 members, some years older than "my" orchestra back in Denmark. But some of the music was the same, even the same arrangements of Disney's Aladdin, and Leroy Andrson's Trumpeter's Lullaby (we also played The Syncopated Clock; I was happy!). And the conductor's great-nephew plays in the orchestra; family business as usual. ;) They even asked me to join them for a school concert on friday, so I must have done a good job.

It was nice to play again, and music is a universal language. I didn't understand much of the instruction, cus all was in Hebrew, though my staff-mate was helpfull with traslating - but all the musical expressions (mainly Italian) were the same. And I learned the Hebrew word for trompets: khatatot.

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