Wow, the large-scale planning concert series for 2025 went a lot smoother than expected. We had the principal guests locked in quickly... and then it was a bit of a nervous wait to see if the dates that we had passed onwards to the venue would be properly booked and entered into the system. For some reason, it took a little longer than expected... and through that time, we were wondering if the suspiciously easy run was just a bit too easy. But then we got the confirmation emails and the deposit request... which we immediately paid to lock in the dates!

Meanwhile, on the large scale planning side of things... we also locked in two regional concerts, and had strong leads on another two more. So, the potential to have a few more concerts further afield! And these ones will be just the core two of us... and that means that we can use them to pay ourselves a little bit and buffer up the ensemble finances for the rest of the year.

Two grant applications are in... each for a different aspect of the main concert series. One for funding student guest artist positions... so that we can try to have some stability and assurance with our training programme... and the other to fund a composition commission that came about via one of our principal guest artists next year.

With those things out of the way... we have to start on a marketing and programming for the concerts... but that will have to wait a little bit while we finish our next few concerts.

In the coming couple of months, we have four different concerts with different programmes. The first one is the core two with a batch of student guest artists as a fundraiser for the university and as a showcase for the historical keyboard collection; the second, a concert/talk with the core about some of the instruments in the keyboard collection; the third with the core for an outreach concert; and the fourth, our last big chamber concert for the year!

The second and third are pretty easy to organise. Those are just the two core players... myself and my wife... so no detailed scheduling required, we just scrounge the time that we need when we have a moment at home! My wife is in a pretty busy period during that time with the university student recitals and I am travelling a bit as well... so, to offset that we will be repeating and mixing up repertoire that we have done in other venues and concerts.

The first one will need some time with the students to help get them on board... the bulk of the concert is the two of us... again, with some repertoire reuse from other venues that this particular audience wouldn't have heard. There are two shorter pieces that will require the students, and we have a rehearsal on the day of the performance... these are good players (that is why we invited them!), so it shouldn't be a problem! But I need to write up that little scheduling information tomorrow and have that out to everyone.

And the last chamber concert is always a logistical adventure of getting people in from out of town, settled into accommodation, catering to their needs and food, as well as preparing and rehearsing for the concert! Thankfully, we always choose good players and nice people... in fact, that is the purpose of this ensemble... good people and good musicians! Bonus that it is some awesome repertoire, AND we all get paid! So far, no complaints!

The main rehearsal puzzle is the limited rehearsal time. We have made this a deliberate feature of the ensemble... and we have two 3-hour rehearsal calls on the day before the concert and then a short 1-hour seating call. We don't want to over-rehearse, and we like the fact that everything is still up in the air (in a good way!)... plus, we pick musicians that we trust from a musical point of view... and also the ones that aren't going to freak out if everything isn't pre-planned!

I've played in lots of ensembles where people talk the game... but end up planning everything! And for me, that isn't what music is supposed to be about!

So... I have to plan the 6 hours of rehearsal, and how that will be divvied up into the various players and pieces. What might require more time and what can be winged with less... This time is a little bit different to others... due to the fact that my wife will be snowed under, we have less programming time for solos and duos by me and her.... so, more scheduled rehearsal time will be needed. Add to that, we have an unknown quantity in one of the musicians... a local that has recently returned, we don't really know for sure what his skill and temperament is like. So, we have taken a gamble on that... but we have also made sure not to lean too heavily on them for this concert until we know them better!

My wife and I had a quick chat about the scheduling for the rehearsals... and I think we have come to a decent time division. Phew.... after that, it is all up in the air for the musical gods to see where things will land!

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