Klarinet Archive - Posting 000046.txt from 2005/07

From: "Jim Lytthans" <lytthans@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Long Concert
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 17:17:54 -0400

My longest concert was performed when Richard Nixon was president. The
Pomona Concert Band was playing for a birthday celebration for him at his
home in Whittier. We played a two hour program, at end of which he was
supposed to show up. Well, his motorcade was some two hours late, so we
kept playing. Fortunately we had the full book there, so new music was
available. Lots of sight reading and some duplication, but not much. I
think we did some ten Sousa marches, overtures galore, Clarinet Candy twice,
etc. Lots of tired chops in the band, which was big enough (90 players) to
allow us to spell each other. A four hour concert for a somewhat
questionable president, in retrospect, was not the best afternoon in my
career. As concertmaster I did shake his hand, though. He said that he had
played clarinet as a kid in junior/senior high for a while. His library and
burial site is only four miles from my house, but I've never visited it. I
have played smany concerts there over the years, but never stepped foot into
the museum, or visited the graves. There are three graves, i understand,
The Prez, Pat and his famous dog Checkers.

-------------------
Jim Lytthans
Anaheim, CA

Clarionet. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his
ears. There are two instruments worse than the clarionet - two clarionets.

Ambrose Bierce: Devil's Dictionary 1911

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