Maybe I oughta make my will out right now...

The Monmouth College wind ensemble has its spring concert in two days (coincidentally that's Founder's/Scot's Day, but that's a whole different rant). Ergo we need to log in all the rehearsal time we can. Tonight was our informal dress rehearsal, informal because a) it's not the night immediately before the concert and b) we were rehearsing in the basement rehearsal room, not on stage like we normally would for a dress rehearsal.

And why weren't we rehearsing onstage?

Because the religion department of the school decided to invite a theologian by the name of Martin Marty to our school to give a lecture and talk to some of the religion classes. And they picked tonight to have the lecture, in the same auditorium where the ensemble rehearses.

Ordinarily any sane sensible conductor would talk to the religion department and work out this snafu, or else postpone the rehearsal a night.

But not Blomster. Oh, no. We went right on with rehearsal as scheduled, lecture be damned.

At first I thought it would be okay. After all, we'd pulled this stunt earlier in the month when people were on the first floor trying to rehearse for a play. But then about forty-five minutes or so into rehearsal a professor sticks her head into the room and tells us that they're having a lecture upstairs, and that they can hear us all the way up there. Blomster stops rehearsal and tells her that we've got a concert coming up and this is the dress rehearsal for it, and there's nothing he can do. The professor leaves, and someone in the ensemble makes a remark that she's one of the more easily pissed off proffesors.

No apparent harm done. We kept on rehearsing.

We had made it about halfway through the eighth movement of "Pictures at an Exhibition" when who should pop in next but Reverend Fannin, the chaplin. And she did not look happy. My first thought was, "Oh shit, now we're in trouble." I expected Blomster to stop rehearsal and Fannin to chew all of us out; my guess is that she expected us to pack up and go home after that first warning. But no, Blomster kept conducting and we kept playing. One of the percussionists went over and talked to Fannin. I don't know what he told her but she eventually left, still not looking too happy.

Blomster was pretty vocal about his opinion of the whole thing. His opinion boiled down to "we were there first, the students are the ones paying for an education which includes music, blah blah blah." A lot of the students agreed with him, including me (to a point). In fact the only person I talked to who didn't agree was one of the student chaplains. Actually, he kind of agreed with Blomster but said that if he had known about this earlier in the week he could have contacted the Green Army (aka the campus moving crew) move everything back over to Austin Hall, which had been our old rehearsing quarters while the auditorium was being remodeled.

What's my personal take on this? I think that the religion department could have found some place else to have their lecture. There are scant places on campus for the ensemble to rehearse, especially two days away from a concert, not to mention we would have to worry about hauling equipment back and forth between the auditorium and our alternate rehearsal spot. All of that, two days before a concert? I don't fricking think so!

All that's left for me to say is that this is going to make my 10:00 class tomorrow morning very interesting. See, the guy who was making this lecture this evening is coming to speak to my class, and odds are that my professor for that class was at the lecture tonight. And she'll most likely have something to say about what happened. And I don't know whether to out myself as a member of the "trouble-making" wind ensemble or not.

-Lady Iapetus, She of Many Identities

Maybe I oughta make my will out right now...

The Monmouth College wind ensemble has its spring concert in two days (coincidentally that's Founder's/Scot's Day, but that's a whole different rant). Ergo we need to log in all the rehearsal time we can. Tonight was our informal dress rehearsal, informal because a) it's not the night immediately before the concert and b) we were rehearsing in the basement rehearsal room, not on stage like we normally would for a dress rehearsal.

And why weren't we rehearsing onstage?

Because the religion department of the school decided to invite a theologian by the name of Martin Marty to our school to give a lecture and talk to some of the religion classes. And they picked tonight to have the lecture, in the same auditorium where the ensemble rehearses.

Ordinarily any sane sensible conductor would talk to the religion department and work out this snafu, or else postpone the rehearsal a night.

But not Blomster. Oh, no. We went right on with rehearsal as scheduled, lecture be damned.

At first I thought it would be okay. After all, we'd pulled this stunt earlier in the month when people were on the first floor trying to rehearse for a play. But then about forty-five minutes or so into rehearsal a professor sticks her head into the room and tells us that they're having a lecture upstairs, and that they can hear us all the way up there. Blomster stops rehearsal and tells her that we've got a concert coming up and this is the dress rehearsal for it, and there's nothing he can do. The professor leaves, and someone in the ensemble makes a remark that she's one of the more easily pissed off proffesors.

No apparent harm done. We kept on rehearsing.

We had made it about halfway through the eighth movement of "Pictures at an Exhibition" when who should pop in next but Reverend Fannin, the chaplin. And she did not look happy. My first thought was, "Oh shit, now we're in trouble." I expected Blomster to stop rehearsal and Fannin to chew all of us out; my guess is that she expected us to pack up and go home after that first warning. But no, Blomster kept conducting and we kept playing. One of the percussionists went over and talked to Fannin. I don't know what he told her but she eventually left, still not looking too happy.

Blomster was pretty vocal about his opinion of the whole thing. His opinion boiled down to "we were there first, the students are the ones paying for an education which includes music, blah blah blah." A lot of the students agreed with him, including me (to a point). In fact the only person I talked to who didn't agree was one of the student chaplains. Actually, he kind of agreed with Blomster but said that if he had known about this earlier in the week he could have contacted the Green Army (aka the campus moving crew) move everything back over to Austin Hall, which had been our old rehearsing quarters while the auditorium was being remodeled.

What's my personal take on this? I think that the religion department could have found some place else to have their lecture. There are scant places on campus for the ensemble to rehearse, especially two days away from a concert, not to mention we would have to worry about hauling equipment back and forth between the auditorium and our alternate rehearsal spot. All of that, two days before a concert? I don't fricking think so!

All that's left for me to say is that this is going to make my 10:00 class tomorrow morning very interesting. See, the guy who was making this lecture this evening is coming to speak to my class, and odds are that my professor for that class was at the lecture tonight. And she'll most likely have something to say about what happened. And I don't know whether to out myself as a member of the "trouble-making" wind ensemble or not.

-Lady Iapetus, She of Many Identities