Lufthansa Baroque is a festival in London that has been going on for 25 years now. They play at St. James Smith Square and in Westminster Abbey. Peter is the orchestra manager for their house band so when they needed people to sell programmes in exchange for free tickets, he called me up. Wasn't that nice of him?
On Wednesday I had my first experience of being inside Westminster Abbey, and wow is it ever over the top with all of it's monuments and such. I'm sure I wasn't treating things with the appropriate level of reverence. My sense of history is lacking because although it was totally amazing to hear coronation pieces by Purcell and Handel in their original venue- what I was most impressed with was watching Peter fit three basses, a cello, all the stands for the whole ensemble, all the music, and two violins into his tiny little car. That was some masterful packing.
Peter invited me to come to the pub with the musicians after the show which was lovely- it turned out that one of the violinists was one that original Academy of Ancient Music tour that I saw at Interlochen- the concert that started this whole journey off.
In introducing me Peter described my coming to London thusly:
"She was coming to Guildhall to study with me but at the same time that I was deciding I didn't want to teach, she decided she didn't want to take lessons. So it's worked out well."
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When I was an exchange student, Westminster Abbey was free, so I could just wander in any time I was in the neighborhood, and I always did.
All those dead people have interesting stories, that's how they got into Westminster Abbey.
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