Rachel's Junior Concert

Friday, 9 April 2010 --
With our friend Margaret, the Grand Mother and Grumpy traveled to Bellingham on this Friday to listen to the musical concert arranged by our Granddaughter as satisfaction of her Junior year requirement. Although we proud Grandparents expected an excellent program, we were pleasantly surprised by the audience reaction to the final selection. More about that later.

On the way to Bellingham, we planned to revisit the Tulip fields near Mt. Vernon, and especially to have a piece of fresh berry pie at the Berry Barn after our lunch. Remember, on our previous visit, a couple of weeks previously, we had found the Berry Barn closed until April 1st, and so we had  to"suffer" without dessert. Our disappointment this time was that, although individual small pies were freshly-baked and could be eaten on the premises, the proprietor informed us that newly-enforced State restaurant regulations prohibited them from serving slices of pie ala mode as had been available two or three years before.

The Tulip fields were also somewhat of a disappointment in that there doesn't seem to be as many as in years gone by, and most of the ones that were there were at least an eighth of a mile from the nearest public road. The photo taken here, was done despite the sign that said, "NO PARKING AT ANY TIME". The Grand Mother chastised Grumpy severely.

Rachel's Junior Concert was a program that she had to arrange, including scheduling the performers (Rachel had to provide the piano accompaniment for each of them), reserving the Performing Arts Hall, advertising or promoting the concert, and designing and distributing the program brochures. The program comprised three parts: a bassoon duet, an opera aria, and a violin & cello duet. Wind instruments, voice, and string instruments; a nice variety.

The bassoonists were a couple of senior-level students from the college, I believe. Grumpy much enjoys the soothing sounds of the bassoon, in any case. But the well-synchronized harmony of these two were indeed a huge treat. The Grand Mother enjoyed the next piece (opera singing) much more than Grumpy did -- but that's just Grumpy!!
Finally, the violin and cello performers entered the stage. They were a high school brother-sister pair to whom Rachel had given piano lessons  starting when they were about 6-8 years old! Overcoming what seemed to be a bit of stage-fright at the very beginning, these two young people came alive with their beautiful blending of the wide range of notes from the violin's extreme highs to the cello's soul-vibrating lows.

When they had finished, the audience started applauding, then rose to their feet to give them a standing ovation. In addition, the applauding continued strongly after they exited, calling them back for three encores! Grumpy was bursting with pride that his Granddaughter had arranged such an outstanding set of performances for her concert.

She sure ought to get an A+!!