VYOA Blog

At our first concert in Québec only about 50 people were in attendance. It was slightly disappointing at first, but this little audience was so into the music and so very vocal about telling us this; it was totally worth it to play for the reward: tons of enthusiastic clapping and vocal appreciation.

Loading busses after the concert at La Madeleine

The audience at our second concert in Paris was much larger – about 300 people. Our tour guide said that this was incredible for la Madeleine in the summer. Paris has so many concerts offered every night, sometimes attendance can be low. And, it is summer…full of holidays – July 14^th is Bastille Day – one of the most widely celebrated French holidays, much like our Independence Day.

This audience was softer in volume than the Québec audience. At first, I was worried that they were just being polite and didn’t enjoy our music very much. But, as I watched members of the audience, I realized that just the opposite was happening – they were really into our music!

Some people sat totally still with their eyes closed while others held their hands over their chests; all listening intently. Afterwards, audience members kept thanking us and telling us how much they loved and appreciated the concert. In fact, some told us that they thought we were a professional orchestra because of the caliber of our playing.

This concert was meaningful to me for two reasons. Two of our living composers (Troy Peters & Drake Mabry) were in the church with us today. AND, two of the composers whose works we performed on the program were actually organists at La Madeleine during the 1800’s (Camille Saint-Saëns from 1858-1877 and Gabriel Fauré from 1896-1905). Although I thoroughly enjoyed playing both the Bacchanal (Saint- Saëns) and the Pavane (Fauré), it was truly amazing to be playing these works at exact the same church were these men worked and played.

The whole time we were playing these songs, I imagined Monsieurs Saint-Saëns and Fauré sitting near the organ at the back of the church, listening in…. For the first time, I wondered if we were playing the pieces exactly the way these composers had intended for them to be played. I wondered if they heard their music performed in this very church 200 years ago and if they smiled, like I smiled as the last chord playfully bounced off the stone walls for several seconds before dying away.

Johanna Taylor, violin     (Photo: Troy Peters)