Wow. Here I am post premieres. These shows were unlike anything I could have imagined.
Thursday's show came after three days of rehearsals and I was feeling so good. We had a good turnout and a super enthusiastic crowd. The focus and energy on stage was incredible. I felt like we really nailed the music better than I could have ever imagined. I mean, we had never performed these 8 songs together before, something had to go wrong right? But, no. These musicians gave it their all and the show went off without a hitch. I find out after the show that the one hitch that happened was a computer glitch. A glitch which meant that the show did not get recorded. This lives up to the musician lore out there which says that the best shows do not get recorded. I was dissapointed but I was on such a high from the show that it didn't get me down. I counted my lucky stars that I had the foresight to schedule two shows in order to get a recording instead of one.
Saturday's show came after a day off. It was really exciting to see and hear very positive responses from audience members from Thursday. But for some reason, it made me more nervous. I can't explain it. I learned that a debut show feels really different than the second show. Expectation makes things different.
And then, the craziest thing happened. I was in the green room 15 minutes before the show was supposed to start and had my horn on my arm. I reached to take down a plastic chair to sit on and bumped my horn. Background info on me; I'm a klutz. I bang my horn into things all of the time. Luckily I play an instrument that is tough and I have never had any problems because of it. This night, however was different. All of the sudden the third valve wouldn't move anymore. I still can't figure out how it happened. Everyone rushed around, grabbing trumpet players from the audience and calling others. One trumpet player showed up with an extra student horn that he had, and Chris Credit ran to my house to get my flugelhorn. I also had a student in the audience who had her horn. We had to start the show about 35 minutes late and I had to play the show on a student horn plus my flugelhorn. We all tried to see the good in this. It did bring the band together in a very special way and I have to say it knocked the nerves right out of me. I did feel sad however not to have been able to play my horn and have my sound. I also felt guilty for having made the audience wait.
The band played great once again, there were incredible moments and the music went off very well. There were some little mistakes, but the energy was fierce. We had an even larger crowd than on Thursday. So many musicians came to both shows, I have never felt so supported by the Seattle music scene. But beyond musicians there was a diverse audience from young to old.
Since the shows I have been trying to process and determine the next step. Leading up to this, I really didn't know what this would lead to. I feel very strongly now that I need to record these 8 songs in a studio and get the best recording possible. I also know that the band will play again. I am working on booking gigs at schools in conjunction with another gig to make it work financially.
I am really incredibly grateful to have had such a great premiere experience. The feeling I had on stage was unlike anything I had felt before, and I loved it. I had spent so much time leading up these shows imagining worse case scenarios; I wouldn't have the music written in time, we wouldn't get enough rehearsals, we wouldn't learn the music well enough to pull it off, only four people would show up, and so on and so forth. It's crazy that the two things that went wrong were both things that I never could have imagined.
I am so thankful to so many people who made this show possible - my great circle of family and friends who supported me through it all, the musicians, Beth Fleenor, Oliva Taguinod, Arie Pytel, Francisca Garcia, Mell Dettmer, Paurl Walsh, Erica Langley, Charles Atwell, Brianna Atwell, Brad Hebert, and Kirk Nordenstrom.
B'shBLOGestra: words, thoughts, jokes & spectacles from Samantha Boshnack...
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Opening Night!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYDtThD60pE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oWokSkZaQI
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Jazz Now episode 51
Check out this nice shout out from Seattle's jazz podcast.
http://jazznowseattle.com/jazz-now-seattle-episode-51/
http://jazznowseattle.com/jazz-now-seattle-episode-51/
KBCS tonight!
I am going to be on KBCS tonight on Flotation Device from 10-10:45 PST. I will be playing recordings of compositions of mine from Reptet albums as well as B'shnorkestra and talking about the shows on Thursday and Saturday. Tune in - http://kbcs.fm/site/PageServer.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Rehearsals in full swing
We have been B'shnorking a whole lot over here on Capitol Hill. Me and these 11 awesome musicians have been working really hard on the new pieces. I must say its a lot of music, but we are getting it. It's been a mix of detailed work on composed parts combined with jamming on sections to get the grooves worked out. It's really coming together quite nicely. Not to mention there is a really nice vibe in the rehearsals because on top of being great musicians these are all nice people that are fun to spend time with. My chronic hiccup squawk showed up at rehearsal yesterday to crack up cellist Maria.
Tomorrow we have our first rehearsal with Lalo, I'm really looking forward to adding him to the mix and having three percussionists on three tunes.
When not in rehearsal, I have been spending many hours listening to these rehearsals and practicing my parts and conducting. It's pretty exciting, although I wish I could stop getting quite so excited so that I could sleep at night.
Tomorrow we have our first rehearsal with Lalo, I'm really looking forward to adding him to the mix and having three percussionists on three tunes.
When not in rehearsal, I have been spending many hours listening to these rehearsals and practicing my parts and conducting. It's pretty exciting, although I wish I could stop getting quite so excited so that I could sleep at night.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Workin out the details...
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Posicore and beyond....
Another late night here. It's crazy, but I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. The music is almost all written. I just have one more piece to finish. The next rehearsal is on Friday. I am very excited because my good friend and very talented vocalist Maeg O'Donoghue-Williams-Sukarwanto is joining us for this rehearsal. I wrote her a piece based off of an Indonesian poem she recited for me.
I realize that my blogs up until now may be coming across kind of posicore. Posicore is a word friends and I have made up to describe people who are overly positive, in a not-very-connected-to-the-real-world kind of way. Beyond the excitement and exhilaration, there have been some frustrations. I have spent a lot of time wondering why it is that most people do not care if new works of music are being created at all. How many people actually go out to hear music that is adventurous or pushing boundaries? I would say its an extremely small fraction of the population. In so many ways music has no right to be a business, it's more spiritual than that. Because it is so commercialized, the people that are presenting music or people on the radio try to guess what people will like and play to the lowest common denominator. Of course there is great music being made that is doing well, but it is incredibly hard right now to push through to the masses if your music is hard to describe or makes an audience think.
It is also interesting that even amongst those of us who are trying to get more avant-garde music to the people, we can't even support each other. I received my copy of the Earshot Jazz magazine (Seattle's jazz publication) this month, only to find out that they did not do any coverage of the event at all. And this was not for a lack of trying.
I have been working very closely with good friend and fabulous clarinetist/publicist Beth Fleenor to get the word out on the shows. She is why I am doing this blog and she built the website. Her company, The Frank Agency, has been doing the publicity. It has been a lot of fun to brainstorm with her and work on all of this. Even though I wish music was less connected to business, it is still my profession. I do also enjoy the business details (publicity, booking, grantwriting) and think it is important. Right now there is no way around tending to these details if you are serious about trying to make your own music.
I do spend a lot of time worrying and working to try to get the word out about the shows. I will continue to do so. I really want as many people there as possible. But ultimately I have to take my strength from writing the music and playing it with the band. Otherwise, all of the other stuff could truly discourage me.
I realize that my blogs up until now may be coming across kind of posicore. Posicore is a word friends and I have made up to describe people who are overly positive, in a not-very-connected-to-the-real-world kind of way. Beyond the excitement and exhilaration, there have been some frustrations. I have spent a lot of time wondering why it is that most people do not care if new works of music are being created at all. How many people actually go out to hear music that is adventurous or pushing boundaries? I would say its an extremely small fraction of the population. In so many ways music has no right to be a business, it's more spiritual than that. Because it is so commercialized, the people that are presenting music or people on the radio try to guess what people will like and play to the lowest common denominator. Of course there is great music being made that is doing well, but it is incredibly hard right now to push through to the masses if your music is hard to describe or makes an audience think.
It is also interesting that even amongst those of us who are trying to get more avant-garde music to the people, we can't even support each other. I received my copy of the Earshot Jazz magazine (Seattle's jazz publication) this month, only to find out that they did not do any coverage of the event at all. And this was not for a lack of trying.
I have been working very closely with good friend and fabulous clarinetist/publicist Beth Fleenor to get the word out on the shows. She is why I am doing this blog and she built the website. Her company, The Frank Agency, has been doing the publicity. It has been a lot of fun to brainstorm with her and work on all of this. Even though I wish music was less connected to business, it is still my profession. I do also enjoy the business details (publicity, booking, grantwriting) and think it is important. Right now there is no way around tending to these details if you are serious about trying to make your own music.
I do spend a lot of time worrying and working to try to get the word out about the shows. I will continue to do so. I really want as many people there as possible. But ultimately I have to take my strength from writing the music and playing it with the band. Otherwise, all of the other stuff could truly discourage me.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
First rehearsal and more
Alright, I'm back.
Sunday morning was the first rehearsal of The B'shnorkestra ensemble for the September gigs. The day before it I threw a b-day barbecue for my good friend (and violinist) Paris Hurley. About half-way through this barbecue my nerves kicked in. Sometimes I think my brain is incredibly evil. It will imagine every worst scenario out there and kick my body into panic mode. But the party was a blast and I managed to get some sleep that night.
The rehearsal started with everyone introducing themselves. Not everyone knew each other. But soon after that I was thrilled to see each section working together on the parts, figuring it all out. We worked section by section. A lot of the work was things I needed to figure out. Conducting with one hand and playing with the other is not the easiest thing to do, but luckily the trumpet can play that way. As cheesy as this sounds, music really does feel like a jigsaw puzzle to me. I spend a lot of time making the pieces and putting them in their general spots and then as a band we put these pieces together. I was completely thrilled that by the end of the rehearsal we had run two pieces from head to toe. I had hoped to get to three, but I also knew that that was probably overly ambitious. There was a great feeling in the room at the end, and I was so happy to have created that in some way. I left feeling completely exhausted with a pounding head ache but also relieved that it worked (take that brain!).
I went from there to Mt. Saint Helens with my boyfriend, Chris Credit (and saxophonist) to relax and enjoy some really breathtaking scenery. That part of WA is pretty wild. Volcanos create some beautifully devastating landscape. We did some awesome hikes and I sang the remaining two songs I have to finish over and over in my head hoping to get some inspiration out there.
I am now back and ready to power through to the end. I listened to the recordings from the rehearsal and was happy to hear that it still sounded good even after a break.
Sunday morning was the first rehearsal of The B'shnorkestra ensemble for the September gigs. The day before it I threw a b-day barbecue for my good friend (and violinist) Paris Hurley. About half-way through this barbecue my nerves kicked in. Sometimes I think my brain is incredibly evil. It will imagine every worst scenario out there and kick my body into panic mode. But the party was a blast and I managed to get some sleep that night.
The rehearsal started with everyone introducing themselves. Not everyone knew each other. But soon after that I was thrilled to see each section working together on the parts, figuring it all out. We worked section by section. A lot of the work was things I needed to figure out. Conducting with one hand and playing with the other is not the easiest thing to do, but luckily the trumpet can play that way. As cheesy as this sounds, music really does feel like a jigsaw puzzle to me. I spend a lot of time making the pieces and putting them in their general spots and then as a band we put these pieces together. I was completely thrilled that by the end of the rehearsal we had run two pieces from head to toe. I had hoped to get to three, but I also knew that that was probably overly ambitious. There was a great feeling in the room at the end, and I was so happy to have created that in some way. I left feeling completely exhausted with a pounding head ache but also relieved that it worked (take that brain!).
I went from there to Mt. Saint Helens with my boyfriend, Chris Credit (and saxophonist) to relax and enjoy some really breathtaking scenery. That part of WA is pretty wild. Volcanos create some beautifully devastating landscape. We did some awesome hikes and I sang the remaining two songs I have to finish over and over in my head hoping to get some inspiration out there.
I am now back and ready to power through to the end. I listened to the recordings from the rehearsal and was happy to hear that it still sounded good even after a break.
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