An Afternoon of Music

​                          Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:   
     "Equal And Opposite Reactions"      http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
     "Hail Mary"                                           https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
     "Tropical Depression"                        https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

​An Afternoon of Music

     I came up with the idea a few weeks ago when Dennis, a former piano student, got in touch with me. He told me that he'd been working on the 3rd movement of the Beethoven Sonata number 17, and he was wondering if I still taught and, if so, might he make a guest appearance at one of my student recitals?
     Now, I don't teach much anymore (though I did have one piano student for a few months over the summer) so I don't have student recitals anymore. But I still have musician friends, and after considering my former student's request, it occurred to me that if my musical friends were game for the idea, then we could surely pull together a recital. 
       I first brought up the idea to my friend Carol, who is a fiddler with the local Irish music quartet, Roscommon Sessions.

     Carol thought a recital was a great idea and so, it turned out, did her quartet members. Next I asked my son, Tommy, if he would play his guitar and sing. He, too, liked the idea. I asked one more of my former students, Jonathan, if he might have a piece on hand that he could perform with us. He said he'd get back to me and soon after came up with a piece to play.
         And so, with a couple of pianists, an Irish quartet, my son on his guitar and me on my ukulele, we had a nice bench of performers. All we needed was a performance venue. 
         My first thought was to try and reserve Graves Recital Hall, the beautiful Columbus venue for both student and professional performances, 

... where I used to hold my student piano recitals.

     However, Graves, while a lovely space, is a good trek across town for most of us. The other possibility that occurred to me was to have our recital in my living room. 

       After all, I have a nice piano, and the location would be more convenient for most of the performers. And we could have a reception afterwards. The only problem with my living room is that it's not all that big. Still, when I ran it by the performers, the idea of having the recital in my living room won the day. 
     And so we had our performers, our venue, and a chosen date and time of Saturday, October 4 at 4 pm. It was to be an afternoon of music followed by a buffet reception. All we needed now was an audience. I invited people, some of the performers invited people, and before I knew it we had a total of 27 people coming.         
      Now, rustling up 27 chairs wasn't a problem, as the offers came pouring in from people to lend me their folding chairs. Nor was fixing food for that many people a problem. If there's one thing I can do, it's whip up a buffet for a crowd.

     The problem, as I saw it, was going to be shoehorning that many chairs into my living room and dining room so that all the guests would have a view of the performance.  Not to mention leaving a space for the Irish quartet to play. "It'll be cozy," my friend Carol assured me.   
        In the week before the recital, folding chairs became my preoccupation. I lined up my stock of loaner chairs and time and again I configured and re-configured them and endeavored to come up with the best possible configuration for everyone to have the optimum possible view of the performers.
         "What, you're moving chairs around again?" said my mate Tom any number of times in the days before the recital. 
          "Yeah," was my continuing response. 
          "If you have too many people you could always seat some in the family room," he'd say. "Even if they couldn't see the show, they could hear it."
            "No," I'd say.
             "Don't worry, it'll all work out fine," he'd say.
             "          ," I'd reply while continuing to haul folding chairs too and fro.
            By the day of the recital a couple of people had cancelled and I'd come up with a satisfying layout: fifteen seats in the living room,

...and eight in the dining room,

...and two seats on the stairs, one for me and one for my mate, Tom.

     I'd set up a microphone for the singers to use: Tommy with his guitar and me with my uke.

      So now that my anxiety over where and how to set up the chairs was calmed, I continued anxting over what would happen when the music was finished and it was time to eat: we'd have to shuffle the chairs around, get all of them out of the dining room so we could hustle the food that my daughter and her friend, my culinary helpers for the event, would (hopefully) have set up in the kitchen and ready to move out to the dining room table, which we'd first have to move back to the center of the dining room after the chairs were moved out, either to the family room, where we'd set up tray tables, or out to the patio where we'd set up tables,

...or around the living room where I planned to set up a bench to use as a table...Anyway, I couldn't imagine how it was all going to work out without devolving into chaos.
         "Don't worry, it will all work out," said Tom.
          "          ," I replied.
       The music was to begin at 4 pm, and my daughter, her friend, my mate, and I spent almost every minute of the day until then readying up the house and the outdoor seating,

...and fixing the food,

...and, of course, washing dishes along the way.

      My student Jonathan arrived early to warm up his piano piece,

...and after he'd warmed up he came out to the kitchen to help.

     Shortly after 4 pm, when all the guests and musicians had arrived,

...our afternoon of music began,

...with me,

...followed by Tommy.

      For one of Tommy's songs, "Rock Me, Mama Like a Wagon Wheel," we had a sing along on the chorus, for which I provided the words on the program sheets.

      Next came our pianists, both of whom gave stellar performances.

     Our recital finished with about 15 minutes of beautiful playing and singing by Roscommon Sessions.  

     Then the recital was finished and it was time for the reception, which, despite all my agita, rolled out smooth as glass, with Theresa and her friend whisking out the buffet,

...and everyone else chipping in to move around the table and the chairs.
​      And soon everyone was digging in.

      As our afternoon of music moved on to an evening of conversation,

...and more music,

...the guests and musicians generally agreed that the music, the food, the feeling of community that we all enjoyed on this day were exactly what we needed in these troubling times to sooth our soul and refresh our spirit.