The DIY Chamber Concert

You know when you're just casually having Australia Day drinks, and you realise you could be a string quintet?  And then decide to have a quintet night?  And then agree to put on a concert with that same string quintet?  And do a quartet too?  On Star Wars Day?  Yeah.  So that's been my last 3 1/2 months...  Schubert, Schubert, and more Schubert.  Death and the Maiden (now known as Darth and the Maiden), and the String Quintet in C (or, 'squintet', as one of my kids read it) for 2 violins, 1 viola, and 2 cellos .

Our concert was yesterday, and as far as I can recall, this was my first time.  That is, first time performing as a small chamber group (gigs don't count here, obviously); that's not organised by someone else (such as, it's my recital for whatever will you be a backing string quartet); in which we had to do everything ourselves - rehearsals (duh), organising a venue, advertising, tickets, food, clean up.

Yes, you can only just see my head

As we had booked a 6pm concert that would go until about 8, I thought we should provide food.  Friday evening and Saturday I prepared finger food - I love my mini-muffin tins.  This was the first time I'd ever made cupcakes - I find them visually appealing but never really want to eat them.  Except for the icing.  But I figured everybody else in the world seems to adore cupcakes (ooh, more evidence I'm weird).  More than that, though, I only recently found Cake Wrecks (which I love!) and thought, I can do that.  I was right!  Not only could I successfully spell our group name (formed from our initials, ADEPA), but I did all three clefs - and, in true Cake Wreck style, I put the dots of the bass clef on the wrong side.  And only realised this after a friend put a photo on Instagram and a couple of others did the head tilt, phone turn, head tilt, eyebrow raise, then "How did they flip it without.. um... flipping it?" oops.

Anyway, the concert went well.  There were a few odd notes here and there, and my ricochet was not the most amazing ever, and I'm sorry for augmenting the C chord at the end of the first bit of the quintet.  Not all that many people showed up, but about half the audience seemed to be made up of my students and their families.   Although small in number, they made up for it with enthusiasm.  I'm pretty sure there will be more concerts to come!