My first concert with HarEl

Today I played my first concert in Jerusalem with the Israeli wind band HarEl, that A got me in touch with. It was a concert on a school for children aged 6 to 12, where girls and boys are divided to seperate classes and areas - and therefore we played two concerts, first for the girls and then for the boys.

In the hall - I liked the decorations on the walls (not so clear in this picture).

We played a variety of music to show the children the different instruments (Pink Panter on saxophone, Trumpeter's Lullaby, drum-solo in Sing Sing), and hopefully they've been inspired to start playing themselves. Though at home in Greve when I've attended this kind of music-promotion, the children had a chance of trying the instruments afterwards, and we didn't do that today - maybe because there were so many children. I fled the hall during the break, it was way too noisy for me, even with my earplugs; and it was not only the children's sreaming talk, but also my fellow musicians who contributed to the noise.

Once again I was reminded how well we've been brought up in the music school in Greve; to not play in the breaks so our ears can rest from all the sound, to play not only notes but also give them full and nice sound so the music is worth listening to (I even saw some of the kids, who're used to this way-too-high level of noise, stick their fingers in their ears, because the sound was bad), not to sms during the concert - and other small stuff like this.

But the kids were cute, I especially wanted to take one red-haired girl with me home, she was adorable! The girls were mainly in pink and purple colours, the boys in blue and black - and every one of the boys had a kippa on, some also the four set of strings coming out from under their clothes, that their more religious fathers and uncles also wear.