Let's take a glance
back at some of the things we saw in the KSO's September Masterworks
concerts. There was a violin section playing their instruments like
guitars in the bluesy slow movement of Gershwin's Concerto in F, most
of the orchestra snapping their fingers on offbeats and shouting
“Mambo!” in Bernstein's West Side Story
Suite, and if you went Friday
night…. you
may have seen me in the
audience. I feel I should explain why.
About
a month ago I was working in my garden, staking a tomato cage that
had fallen under the weight of the tomatoes it was supporting. A
glancing blow from a hammer struck my left index finger and caused a
small, simple fracture that has pretty much healed by now. Luckily
no knuckles were involved and no surgery was necessary. I
am now able to play some things
without pain, but not with abandon. My return
is most likely be the
Symphony Night Fever Disco Pops concert on October 2nd. All the while I have been
thinking about how many close calls there have been over the years,
what can be done and what shouldn't be done. True, gardening isn't
the sort of activity that should break fingers, but hey;
a Notre Dame football player blew out his ACL while celebrating after
breaking up a touchdown pass. And don't even get me started about
how composer Ernest
Chausson died.
I'd
like to thank Dr. Robert Ivy and his staff at Knoxville Orthopedic
Clinic for the very fine care I have received in this “manual
crisis,” and to Kimberly
at Ortho Tennessee for the physical therapy. The
challenge now that the bone
has healed is to restore the tendons in the knuckle, which sort of
froze up when the cast was holding it still.
So I attended a
Knoxville Symphony concert last week, for the first time in 27 years. People were surprised to see me, to say the least. I was so proud
of the job “we” did on four American classics! And the Champagne
toast before the start was superb. I can hardly wait to get back
into the swing of things, the fingers are back on the strings. There's a fresh batch of music to
learn. And a fresh batch of tomatoes to pick.
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