I am now an experienced orchestral soloist! :-)
Being a fiddle player who has always enjoyed classical music, I long ago thought that once the kids were grown and out of the house, I'd maybe find a community orchestra to join. See what it's like. As the kids and I got older, I realized that I probably just couldn't cut it in an orchestra -- all that bowing the same way, not haphazard like I do, for example.
It turned out, though, that last January, a few months after my youngest left home, the new director for the Serenata Chamber Orchestra, Jen Drake, invited me to participate. I couldn't let it pass.
This is my second concert with them, and it was a "Downton Abbey" themed event. One of the pieces was a couple tunes from the movie "The Titanic" (because in one of the early episodes of Downton Abbey, the Titanic sunk). And Jen asked me to play a fiddle break between the two orchestrated fiddle tunes in the piece. I played "The Rose in the Heather" -- all 32 bars, or effectively about 30 seconds. Really different for me, trying to figure out how to fit it in, and I'm not sure I did it the best way, but people had fun.
My wife managed to snap this photo during my solo.
From the concert's program, a bio-page of the soloists, including yours truly.
Famous at last. Well done Ken.
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