Diary of a Traveling Harpist
It’s 4am. I’m awake (barely), bags packed and I’m ready to do the one hour drive to the airport to make a 6am flight. I’m headed to Brisbane for a two week stint with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO). It’s been nearly four years since playing with them. Four years! Thanks, Covid! Nevertheless, I’m booked in for the work and my smile couldn’t be wider. It’s an epic QSO and Queensland Ballet production of Strictly Gershwin at Brisbane’s QPAC - Queensland Performance Arts Centre.
If you’ve been to ballet before you’ll know it’s near impossible to see the orchestra. They’re cooped away under the stage in the area called ‘The Pit’. It sounds awful but thankfully, it’s the 21st century and the air-con does make its way down there so it’s really not such a bad place to perform. You do, however, wonder what is happening on stage, the prop sets, the costumes, the lighting. Every time the audience claps you wonder what magnificent leap was just executed flawlessly. From the audience, the dancer's petit yet insanely lean physique and delicate placement of each step appear almost inaudible. I can tell you as someone who’s worked in ‘The Pit’ that if you didn’t know any better, you’d swear it was a herd of elephants prancing around up there.
Something a little different for this show, however. The orchestra’s relevance and appearance in the show is equally as important as the dancers and so we share the stage, musicians and dancers unite! An orchestra with jazz band, ballerinas, tap dancers and a four-piece barbershop quartet. We smashed out 11 performances in just over a week. Every show just as magical as the last. Every audience just as wowed as their previous patrons. It’s razzle dazzle. It’s glitz and glam. It’s glissandi city and my fingers are fully calloused. It’s Gershwin, baby!
Two weeks working with QSO is a reminder of how much I love orchestral playing. I relocated to FNQ nearly four years ago but prior to that my career down south was filled mostly with sessional orchestral work. I’m entirely grateful to live in paradise and still be able to travel around the country for work. As the arts industry dusts itself off from a harsh Covid chapter I look forward to the next gig away. It's always an adventure. Wherever that be, we’ll just have to wait and see!