Monday, March 23, 2009

A Soloist's Worst Nightmare

Sometimes the most exciting concerts are the ones where something goes wrong. A few seasons back we had a soloist whose e-string snapped while she was playing. As is custom, she grabbed the concertmaster's violin and continued playing while her instrument was passed back to the section to be re-strung. The performance (both hers and that of the section violinists who fixed her violin) brought down the house. Last season our former principal second violinist Eric Kline broke his e-string while soloing with the KSO on our annual runout to Greeneville. The audience was still talking about when we returned a few weeks ago. Recently violist Yuri Bashmet experienced one of those heart-stopping moments. It's okay to laugh: it looks like his million-dollar viola exploded, but it's really a pretty easy fix.

1 comment:

Tyler Cabell said...

Sometimes that what happens when you play a string instrument, but it was a great effort, and it could happen to anybody