Some of you know that I'm a professional organist and church musician. This afternoon, the choir which I accompany had a concert. There were two halves, with an intermission between. An organ solo was placed at the beginning of the second half. It was a piece that I thought would be a beautiful and meaningful addition to the concert when I learned the concert's theme, almost one year ago. I didn't yet know the piece and set out to learn it, with today's performance as my goal. I deeply love the piece and have spent many, many hours practicing to prepare and knew I was ready to play it well today.

The logistics after the intermission were awkward--the plan was for the choir to not come back in until after my organ solo. I walked out to play, arranged my music, and the audience didn't even notice and continued talking. (The organ console is positioned off to the side.) I sat there for at least two minutes, thinking they would notice and SHUT UP so I could begin. Finally, I felt like I really needed to begin. The piece is extremely quiet for the whole first page, and I heard the talking continue as I played. Incredibly, there was talking throughout my entire seven-minute performance. I feel kind of sick about it. It was really important to me to play this piece, and the audience treated it like background Muzak.

I'll make some suggestions for logistical changes for future concerts so this doesn't happen again. And yes, I'll have other opportunities to perform the piece in the future. I'm writing this mainly as an outlet to express my disappointment and sadness that this audience of 250 or more didn't receive the gift I carefully selected, prepared, and wanted to share.