Let's Make Summer Music

End of week 3 almost

It’s almost the end of week 3 of Summer Music on the Shannon. Just one week to go!

Everyone is exhausted. You can see it in their eyes, in their stances as they lug their weary bodies round the Foundation Building, or prop themselves against the nearest vertical surface for a moment’s respite. The amount of work put in by everybody is phenomenal. The faculty is unstinting in their dedication to their students as they give private tuition, take groups of students for class, or sectionals (I must ask Bruce Dunn to explain what exactly that is), do rehearsals for both the student-faculty concerts and the professional concerts, stay up late at night transposing from C to b flat (or visa-versa), meet with colleagues to see how to improve things, endlessly day in day out for 2 whole weeks!
The students (especially the more dedicated serious ones) also put in long hours learning new pieces, practicing scales, honing newly acquired skills and tips, and rehearsing endlessly (so it seems) in sectionals, quartets, quintets, trios, and full orchestras.
The behind the scenes staff work tremendously hard to keep everything running smoothly as far as possible. There is the office staff who manage the accommodation allocation (always a difficult and time-consuming task), do the printing and photocopying of transposed pieces for the faculty, print off lunch and dinner vouchers, posters informing everybody of bus times, schedules, informal concerts, rehearsals, organize activities such as the daily Options period, co-ordinate the one-a-week private lessons and the master classes, sell tickets for the annual Barbeque, and generally provide a communications centre for the programme. Then there are the supervisors who ensure that curfew is observed by the under-18s in residence and make certain that they get up in time to catch the SMS shuttle bus to UCH each morning, manage the shopping for breakfast supplies including delivery to new arrivals and replenishment for those already in residence, accompany those who have chosen the swims option to the 50m swimming pool, help out with the art option, sell programmes at the nightly concerts, and generally be available as extra transport when somebody needs urgent picking up or dropping off.
And then there is the transport staff of drivers who ferry everybody from accommodation to UCH each morning, and back in the evening, as well as transporting the players to the different concerts, be they in UCH or St. Mary’s Cathedral, or the Georgian House, or in Kilmallock, Bruff, Kilrush or Kilkee, and delivering the students and parents to same. There is also the weighty matter of transport of equipment and props for the concerts.
And I haven’t even mentioned the UCH staff who provide the essential support in the background without which the programme could not run at all.

So it’s not surprising, given the amount of hectic activity, that everybody without exception is very tired this Friday night/Saturday morning. No doubt some are in bed asleep, but I can guarantee that most are still discussing what needs to be done to ensure that tomorrow’s concert is a success.

On that note, I’ll sign off and go to bed.