Adventures in Accompanying

I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Glorious! at the Arts Club, with the incredible Nicola Cavendish as Florence Foster Jenkins.

This brought back many funny memories of accompanying amateur musicians at the piano. I would play for weddings, and someone in the family would like to perform. Sometimes it was really fun, other times not!

At one wedding, the groom brought his violin and we performed the Meditation from “Thais”, without any rehearsal. For me it was the most satisfying kind of playing, I got lost in the music.
Another time, a singer made an early entrance after a piano interlude. She also didn’t get her pitch. I had to scramble, changing pages in my score, then pounded out the melody…it took us many bars to get back in synch. It would have been less painful if she had moved the mike away from her mouth until she got her pitch!!

In the play Glorious! it is great fun to laugh at the bad singing! But I also liked the affectionate tone of the play.
It is becoming more common for arm-chair critics to critique performances with a nasty and dismissive tone. There are performers I enjoy more than others, but I admire every one who gives the world their music.

Here is Florence Foster Jenkins, Enjoy!