What happened to the soloist . . .

Andrew asks "what happened to the soloist?"

The short story: she skipped a beat.

A longer version: she skipped a beat in the beginning of her most exposed and complicated part.

The full story: Instead of singing a dotted half-note, she sang a half note and began the complicated ascending-descending triplet figures a beat early. There was nothing for the conductor/orchestra to do except "keep it all together" until it was time to bring the choir back in. The choir responded perfectly--they came in confidently and securely. (this was right before the staggered "pecattor" entrance from the choir--a wonderful section). The rest of the performance went off without a hitch.

The moral of the story: superb vocal talent isn't enough. Singers must be able to count and sing the right notes.

A second moral of the story: conductors must anticipate mistakes and keep their cool in the face of the unexpected. Luckily, all those involved kept going on as if nothing had happened.

Could it have caused everything to crash into a horrible mess? Yep. Did it? Nope.

What was I thinking? If only Lindsey were singing the solo . . .. . .