Our concert weekends can be a bit hectic... on the music side of things, we do run a pretty fast and tight schedule. On the Saturday, we have two calls of rehearsals (2 times 3 hours)... one in the morning and another in the afternoon. My wife and I seem to have gotten a reputation for doing this... rehearse intensely and then leave a lot up to the concert and individuals themselves... keeps everyone alive in the performance, and we like to improvise and play around in the concerts themselves... so, we have to have guests who are highly prepared, skilled at their instruments, and able to wing things at the drop of a hat...

... and not all musicians, even professionals, are happy doing that. But we love it... and for us, that is the reason why we do music... not to overprepare and practice and then pretend to be spontaneous for show.

Then the following day is two concerts.. after a short seating rehearsal of max one hour, then we have a children's concert... and then the main chamber concert. Guests arrive on the Friday, and then leave either Sunday night or Monday morning.

It is our little whirlwind of activity and chaos...

... but for us, the chaos starts in the week before... not counting the programming, logistics, administration, planning, and publicity... Mundane things like cooking and planning up meals for the weekend as everyone stays and eats with us. And cleaning the toilets and bathrooms, and preparing all the guest rooms.... Our concert weekends are a even more intense, as we all live together in the house for those two days!

... and that further winnows down the people that we ask!

We are sort of trying to recreate the music share houses that we had when we were students... where we would just get together and play stuff... except in this case, we have concerts... and get paid as well!

Anyway, this concert weekend is now a happy shared memory with the audiences.... and with the intervening two free days that we had, we have gone out to check out and drive a potential new harpsichord to add to our collection. About 12 hours of road driving for my wife and I to pick it up, then to take to a technician... before deciding whether or not to commit to purchasing it.

We had a look earlier in the year, and loved the sound of the instrument, but were unsure about the keyboard action as it was a bit stiff and heavy... but it had to wait for a few months before we had a free few days to do the whole round tripping... and that had to also line up with the harpsichord technician as well!

Let's see... either tomorrow, we will have a new instrument... or not.

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