Murphy's Law

Weirdest thing happened this morning at our Coffee Concert featuring MN Orch conductor laureate Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. Intermission had ended, the orchestra tuned, and Stan, who is about to turn 85 but has more energy than I do, came striding out and took his bow. We got ready to start Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, which begins with a long, low hum in the contrabassoon and organ, before the trumpets come in with the famous theme from 2001. Only, as the applause died and Stan raised his arms, the room rumbled a bit, and kept rumbling, at roughly the same pitch as the opening hum of the piece.

Stan, startled, looked around to see if the organ was already playing for some reason. It wasn't. He looked next at Jorja, who tried to quietly explain that the construction outside on Marquette Avenue was causing the noise. (What are they doing to that poor street, by the way? It looks like a war zone from 12th all the way up to the light rail station!) Orchestra Hall is pretty well soundproofed, but when you've got jackhammers and other heavy equipment working underground right next to it, there's really no avoiding some intrusion. Stan didn't understand what Jorja was telling him, and by this time, people in the audience were looking around worriedly, and wondering if we were ever going to start the piece.

It was around this time that a woman about 20 rows deep on the main floor started talking. I don't mean whispering. I mean talking in a full, clear voice, although I don't know whether she was speaking to anyone in particular. I couldn't make out much of what she was saying, but as half the hall began shushing her, I distinctly heard her say, "What? They haven't even started yet!" Which was true, but as the entire orchestra plus Stan was now staring at her with confused looks on our faces, she might have been able to ascertain that she was part of the cause of that.

Meanwhile, the rumbling stopped. For about three seconds. Then it started again, and Stan again looked to Jorja for help. At this point, we'd all been waiting for nearly two minutes. Jorja shrugged, and said, "We're gonna have to play through it." So Stan raised his arms again, and cued the contrabassoon and the organ, who came in perfectly in time with a giant hacking cough from the front row. Some days, you just can't win for losing.