On playing at concerts, part 3

Yesterday we had our yearly concert:

It was my first concert after my year away, and it felt great. The two last rehearsals had been for me a bit borderline for concentration – there were both things that ran very well, and practicing more was boring, but also things that didn’t work well, and there was clearly no time to fix them. So overall I was in a right balance of relaxed and focused when I walked on the stage for the concert. It was also interesting to see how the calm of the musicians calmed down Mariano, the conductor.

I enjoyed playing with my fellow musicians so much! We are such a closely-knit group that we support each other, know who has difficult parts, and cheer the soloists as much as the audience, if not more. I didn’t feel like performing yesterday, the fun of being together was stronger than the stage fright. I took this picture at the soundcheck (sorry for the bad quality) – I love how some are concentrated, some relaxed while waiting for their cue, and in the middle Thorsten smiles. This picture sums us up so well 🙂

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Book recommendation: “The life-changing magic of tidying up” by Marie Kondo

I bought this book a few years ago and I cherish it, as a call for more clarity, simplicity, lightness in life. There is something deeply liberating in trying out KonMari‘s advice to gather all items of a specific type, see them all together, see the different ages of your life from where they come from, and decide to keep the ones that sparkle joy. This is a very condensed summary of her method, that she explains in detail in the book, with a great deal of thoughtful tips. I am aware that this book is very very popular and that countless reviews have already been made; still, I wish to shout my little +1 for it. One can decide not to answer the call immediately, but could consider specific tidying advice, and improve one thing at a time.