More cowbell

A quick story from this last week; during rehearsal on Tuesday morning for the Young People’s Concerts we spent a good amount of time rehearsing Zhou Tian’s new piece, “First Sight”. The piece was inspired by dancing he saw in a very traditional village in China this past summer, and there is a rather raucous and energetic bit towards the end as the dancing reaches a climax. It’s texturally complicated and required some rehearsing to make sure certain voices were emerging, which involved me asking for more strings here, less winds here, more brass here, less percussion there.

Tom Turner, our principal viola, always ready with his trademark deadpan commentary, says, “I dunno, guys, I really think it could use some more cowbell.” Which of course elicited some giggles - apart from the snappy pop culture reference, there was no cowbell in Tian's piece, and furthermore cowbell is usually not a big feature of orchestral music.

Or so I thought. Two days later, during a FutureClassics rehearsal, the orchestra began to read through a new composition – which, about a minute in, had an extended section featuring cowbell. I smiled, the viola section had a laugh. Live and learn…