Rehearsal Impressions

Some impressions from the rehearsal I sat in on:

• Sight-reading for two hours is tiring. I am not very good at sight-reading, and I certainly had a few instances of overlooking key changes and that kind of thing. (Actual train of thought at one point: "Wow, it sure is different playing second violin instead of first. Everything sounds different than I expect it to. Oh, oops, we have four flats now instead of two sharps. There's the issue.") Fast runs with lots of accidentals got fakity-fake-fake-faked, but I was generally able to jump back in at the starts of measures for at least a fraction of a beat. My rate of bowing in the right direction was slightly better than chance. At least I only got totally lost (as in not knowing what measure we were in) twice.
• Orchestra etiquette/procedures come right back even if you haven't played in an orchestra for, oh, about two weeks short of 20 years. It was second nature to arrive about 15 minutes before the start of the rehearsal, put my case where no one would trip over it, keep an eye out for the tuning protocol, play the bottom part of the divisi parts and turn the pages while sitting on the inside of the stand, keep an eye on the section leaders for where I should be in the bow, and change bows at a different moment than my stand partner on long notes. Being a guest, I did not put any markings in the music. Hopefully I also managed to watch the conductor as needed, though based on a few of his comments, he would have welcomed more attentiveness from everyone.
• My stand partner and everyone who talked to me could not have been more welcoming. It really seemed like a nice group of people. Actually, my stand partner was awesome. She was very helpful about quietly pointing tricky stuff out before we got started on a piece: cuts, which repeats to take and which not to, parts that were solo, etc. The one time she noticed me get lost, she managed to point out where we were and help me jump back in. At the break and at the end of the rehearsal, she insisted, "You're doing great!" The conductor, despite one or two moments of (I'm paraphrasing), "Seriously, people, pay attention," seemed patient, knowledgeable, witty, easy to follow, and very efficient in his use of rehearsal time. It doesn't get any better than that.

The bottom line is that this orchestra seems like it could be a really good fit. The next step is for me to "stay in touch" and check in about sitting in on the first rehearsal in September! At the same time, I am still keeping communication open with the other orchestra (which I've also heard back from in the meantime) in case something falls through or in case they are an even better fit. Fingers crossed for a good musical fit, social fit, and schedule fit.