The Night Before

So tomorrow night about this time, we'll be getting everyone situated on stage for our first night of "Joseph Smith the Prophet" at the Tabernacle. I'm pretty excited. Though the week didn't start that way.

First of all, one thing I've learned over the years is that, starting about 10 days before any given performance, you begin getting cancellations from your performers. Some have legit emergencies that come up, others mistakenly double-booked, but most just don't have any sense of commitment or what they put you through when they cancel so late in the game. So, as usual, I had about 6-7% of the group cancel on me in the last couple weeks leading up to now. And with a group over 300 in number, that's a lot of people. The really unfortunate thing is that they always tend to congregate in one section of the orchestra or choir. This time it was tenors and violins. So I emailed about 8 more violins, all of which could not do it.

MORAL: Don't cancel on people. Period. Once you make a commitment, keep it. If you absolutely HAVE TO break it, find a replacement solution before you contact them. Let them decide whether they'll take it or not. It's the considerate, honest and professional thing to do.

Then last Saturday I woke up with the worst flu of my life. Now granted, I don't get sick often, so some of you may have scoffed at my pain, but I was out for the count. I couldn't spend more than a half hour or so at a time out of bed it seemed. By Monday, I was still really sick and my flight left that night. I tried to reschedule, but they wanted $1 million to switch, so I decided to infect their entire crew and every passenger with my disease. I started to wonder whether I should get a replacement conductor, just in case. It was that bad.

But Tuesday morning came and, I believe miraculously, I was at just about 100%. Just in time for our only choir rehearsal in the Tabernacle. The rehearsal went flawlessly. Everyone was ready to go, totally prepared, we had an awesome accompanist and an extremely kind and helpful Tabernacle staff, I got to wear what I call a "Madonna" mic (Britney wears one too, but she's insane and so does Garth, but he's country), so that was pretty cool.

What's wonderful about such a great rehearsal, is it totally puts me at ease until the performance. Which is tomorrow. And if it goes anything like our rehearsal on Tuesday, it just well could be the most spectacular performance I've ever been involved with yet. Maybe I'll let you know.