Orchestra Debut & The Power of Being Positive
This weekend I had the honor and privilege of performing with the Rochester Pops Orchestra. It was an absolute dream come true. Maestro Brock Besse arranged and orchestrated “Jealous of the Angels,” “Not Yet,” and “Snowstorm.” To hear those songs come to life in a whole new way was breathtaking.
I arrived in Rochester Friday afternoon, and that evening was our first rehearsal. Maestro Besse arranged and orchestrated eleven pop songs, including the three originals listed above, as well as the following cover songs;
I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)
Breathe Again (Sara Bareilles)
I prepared the pieces based on the vocal scores Brock sent me via email, and the orchestra had been rehearsing without a vocalist. I’ll admit, our first rehearsal I was shaking in my fold-over boots! Maestro Besse is unbelievable at what he does, and i cannot remember the last time I had to watch a baton and keep someone else’s tempo. For the last 8 years I’ve been leading songs from my keyboard, and if I happen to forget an entrance or make a mistake, the band follows. However, the orchestra is reading pages and pages of sheet music. If I miss one entrance, I let the entire orchestra down! Needless to say, the pressure was on.
As a songwriter, I don’t typically read or write sheet music, most of what I do is by ear. So even though I knew all the melodies, I found myself stumbling over the sheet music during rehearsal (not to mention I was having iPad issues).
Wow. Hearing the strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, and background vocals was amazing! After the first rehearsal that I completely stumbled through, I went back to my hotel room to reflect. There was a tiny little voice of discouragement creeping in that said, “You should have been better prepared.” “I can’t believe how many times you messed up in rehearsal.” “You’re going to let this entire orchestra down.” However, in that moment I had a choice. I could focus on my feelings of inadequacy, believe the lies of the enemy, cry my eyes out and run back to Nashville, OR I could work my tail off, do the very best I possibly could, and enjoy every second of the experience. I chose the latter.
That night I worked as hard as I could. “Breathe Again,” by Sara Bareilles was a song I really tripped over in rehearsal, so I sang it repeatedly. I also knew I needed a better system for the way I was reading the music. Since I haven’t read scores in years and was confident in the melodies, I typed all the lyrics with instrumental break measures written in text. Not exactly the most technical thing to have on my music stand, but I believe whatever gets the job done well is a great solution.
Around midnight I threw in the towel and decided the most important thing in singing all of these incredibly challenging songs would be my health, which meant 7 to 8 hours of sleep.
The next morning we had a 9:30AM rehearsal. I woke up telling myself, “Today is a new day, and this rehearsal is going to be incredible.” I stepped into that auditorium with confidence, ready to work hard and prove to the maestro he hadn’t made a terrible mistake in flying me in to sing. After a quick microphone check, guess which song he wanted me to rehearse with just piano and background vocals in front of the entire orchestra? “Breathe Again.” Praise God I had practiced the way I did the night before, we nailed it on the first run through. (Wipe sweat from brow).
We ran the entire show in order, and it was smooth as silk. I was extremely focused on making sure I didn’t miss an entrance, and aside from a few mistakes in “Let It Go,” everything was great!
I took it easy that night, and the next morning I watched my home church live stream and tried to speak life and be positive. However, deep down there was this little fear that said, “What if you mess up that part in ‘Let It Go’ again?” “What if your voice cracks?” I haven’t been nervous to perform in years! I knew that if I missed one entrance I would let down all 73 people behind me.
Well, I wish I could tell you that I sang the entire show flawlessly and that I didn’t miss a single entrance, but that’s not the case. And you know what? That’s okay, because I’m human.
The first song I got to sing was “Not Yet.” Friends, to hear the orchestra bring that song to life was amazing! Having a dream come to pass while singing a song about not giving up on your dreams is quite possibly the most empowering feeling in the world.
Katy Perry’s “Firework” was the second song in the set. You know that fear of missing an entrance? Well, it happened. The arrangement is awesome, and has a large instrumental section where the bridge happens on the recorded version. It is 16 measures long, and then I’m suppose to come in strong on the chorus. I missed it friends. My heart sank. I tried to jump back in, and it was not happening. Again that little voice in my head, “I can’t believe you missed that entrance, you’ve just let this entire group down.” But instead of bursting into tears like I most likely would have done a few years ago, I told myself, “Well, you were scared of missing an entrance and you just missed a big one. Now you don’t have to worry about it anymore because it’s over. They haven’t kicked you off this stage and you’re still alive. So you can either wallow in what just happened or enjoy every second of this debut orchestra performance.”
I don’t know where that voice came from, but it was one of the most internal adult conversations I’ve ever had. That’s exactly what I did. I shook it off (as T. Swift would say) and enjoyed every second of the rest of that concert.
Maestro Besse was kind enough to let me introduce each of my original pieces, and wouldn’t you know that two songs after “Firework” was “Snowstorm,” a song about wishing you could go back and do something over. So naturally, I felt it was a perfect moment to be transparent and said, “This song is about the moments we wish we could go back and do differently, like being the guest vocalist with an orchestra and missing your entrance.” Thankfully the gracious audience giggled and didn’t seem to mind my flub. Some were kind enough to say they hadn’t noticed after the concert. Minnesota nice is what I call that.
The concert was titled “Jealous of the Angels,” and Brock outdid himself with the gorgeous orchestration for this piece. I became emotional introducing the song, and while the orchestra had been playing the piece for several months, many of them hand’t heard my story. I heard sniffles behind me and there was this overwhelming sense of unity on stage during that song.
First half of the concert complete. Deep breath. The second half was full of Adele, London Grammar, and “Let It Go,” BIG vocal songs. My voice felt good, but I was starting to notice a little fatigue from singing all weekend. I’m happy to say I didn’t miss anymore entrances, however the big note at the end of “Let It Go,” well again, I wish I could say it was perfect and the entire room magically froze when I sang it. Yeah, it didn’t. It sounded strained and broken. You can’t win ‘em all.
My two worst fears for the day realized, but guess what, I’m still alive. People in the audience had nothing but incredibly encouraging words, I had a blast, and Maestro Besse is already talking about bringing me back.
I’m writing this blog post to share this unforgettable experience with you, but also, maybe more importantly, to encourage you to focus on the positive. It would have been really easy, and pretty natural for me to focus on the two huge mistakes I made during the concert this weekend, but I didn’t. Instead, I chose joy and I chose to enjoy every moment and be okay with the fact that I’m not perfect (which is really hard as a perfectionist). The things we choose to speak both in our minds and out of our mouths are so important. "Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” (Proverbs 18:21). Our thoughts have the power to ruin our day, week, month, or bring life and happiness to it.
I am so thankful for the grace the entire orchestra showed me, as well as the incredible gift they have given. This opportunity was truly something to check off the bucket list, and I honestly felt like I grew so much this weekend. Guys, God is so awesome!
Love you all, thanks for taking the time to read this post. Hope to have YouTube links to view selections from the concert soon.
