Our fairy princess violin soloist for this concert invited several children to the stage to try their hands with the violin and in less than 5 minutes she had them in a position capable of scraping two different strings with the bow. As we played "Jumbalaya" to accompany them, she purposefully floated from one child to another in her pink cloud dress, grabbing their arm and swinging it forcefully to increase their sawing motion; all the while she played her own violin's open strings so that they could hear the desired result. No hiding in that virtuoso get-up–she's a teacher. Of course children with violins can be a dangerous thing. Hard to stop the curiosity and it can be hard to scream over the innocent exploration of open A and D strings. At one point our conductor ardently yelled, "Hai! Stop!"
Later in the program we invited everyone in the audience with instruments to join for a rendition of My Grandfather's Clock. Flutes, violins, shakers, recorders, and melodicas played along in a pointillistic cacophony and I wished that among the sweet Japanese parents, just one could have yelled, "That's my Tommy!" We are the Harold Hills of Hyogo.
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