KZNYO and the Great Camp of Greystone 2009

So two weeks ago I went away for a week to a camp called Greystone....It's a week away for all the kids in the KZN Youth Orchestra to go and rehearse the repetoire for the year...boy was it hectic...the orchestra consists of 72 kids...including me...and then split into two...one is the A orchestra and the other is the B orchestra or otherwise known as the development orchestra...both A and B orchestras have their own pieces but the whole orchestra does play pieces together... We hardly had any time to ourselves...on Monday we rehearsed for 9 hours, Tuesday we rehearsed for 9 hours, Wednesday we rehearsed for 6 hours but did 3 hours of activities, Thursday was another 3 hours of rehearsal, then 2 hours of activities...followed by frantic practising for the groups participating in the talent show...I'll get to that in a moment...then on Friday we rehearsed for 2 hours and then played a concert for our parents for an hour...it was fun though and it brought the orchestra closer together.





Now for the Thursday night talent show...4 of us did the almost impossible...no one thought anyone could do this...we made our conductor... the great Lykele Temmingh...blush like a red tomato...we were four girls in our group and we decided to sing two songs...one being "Man, I feel like a woman" by Shania Twain and the other being "Mamma Mia" by Abba...oh wow was it funny...we did "Man, I feel like a woman" with no problems and nothing exciting to talk about...but then we hit "Mamma Mia"... we firstly made sure that he was sitting in the front row so the that the chaos would begin...I sang the first line and walked up to him and walked back...we could see on his face he wasn't worried...Joss sang her line and did the same as I...he began to look a tad worried...Claire sang her line and did the same as Joss and I and Lyk looked really worried...Vikki then did the same as us and we had him terrified...We did the chorus and left alone..for that time only...with the 2nd verse we repeated our actions...but...when Vikki walked forward we all did and we surrounded Lyk...he looked so petrified and as we said "Mamma Mia" we knelt in front of him!!! He was shocked...petrified...and didn't know what to do with himself...poor old man...never seen him turn so red in my life before :)

The fun only lasted a week and now I'm back at work :( But I have great news..."Oklahoma" has started and I am having a blast with that. us winds have it harder than the strings coz at least they can laugh and play at the same time...WE CAN"T!! So for the first time we are playing the song "Pore Jud is Daid" and the director was singing the lyrics...my word...we were in stitches...even the conductor...Russ...had to stop the song he was laughing so much...I have to say that Rogers and Hammerstein were on some seriously strong stuff when they wrote this thing coz...wow...it's a piece of work.

Another bit of great news though...I have now got students :) Dad was working on site at a customer and he mentioned I teach piano...a guy took my number from Dad and seemed to have passed it onto my students mother...now I am teachinga brother and sister...Remo and Carmen...I am taking Carmen for her first lesson this Friday and Remo I have taken for only two...but this kid can play for a 12 year old...the only pity is...he can't read music so I have had to take him back to the basics so he can at least do an exam and do the sight reading section...

Well that's all for now...
Much love
Bugz