The Highest of Highs and the Lowest of Lows- It’s a Lesson we all Learn

Last nights performance at Jazz At Lincoln Centre was awesome! Miss Gremlin rocked the place along with 90 other kids from 8 local schools who utilise the program of Midori and Friends. Midori, a japanese violinist of note, had a passion and 23 years ago began a program to work in public schools in the city to bring music curriculum to children. It has grown from strength to strength and over 200,000 city kids have experienced the beauty of music and learning an instrument of their choice.

This year was the first time that the program had a performance at the prestigious Jazz at Lincoln centre and my baby was part of it!. She had her face front and centre on all the programs and the huge 4’x3′ poster adorning the lobby and elevator!

I have requested one of the posters, I didn’t want to steal it so we’ll see how that goes!

It was a huge day for the kids, they were bussed down the 70 blocks to Columbus circle around 2pm where they met with the other kids and spent the afternoon rehearsing and eating and getting into the vibe. Brooks Brothers donated concert shirts, shoes and pants to any child requiring it and in fact almost every child received a free high quality shirt! I didn’t need to run around getting stuff at all yesterday after all but you just don’t know these things.

We didn’t see her before the show and we were excited to see her. It was a very impressive space!
When they came on, I was excited, nervous and I may have teared up, ok I totally did but I was worried for her, she was so nervous! It looked like she was gonna hurl on stage!

They performed, it was spectacular, then we got to see the rest of the students perform with the evening finishing with renowned woodwind artist Paquito D’Rivera……

Afterward when we collected the kids, a drama unfolded which unfortunately put a dark cloud over the performance and now I understand why she looked so nervous. They had all been crying just prior to walking on stage.

It sucks when adults behave inappropriately towards children, and their experience will forever be tainted by this.

We get to write reports and file complaints now, when what we should be doing is reveling in the unique opportunity!

But we’ll try not to dwell on it, and hopefully the buzz of the experience can over come the shitty part.

We’re so very proud of all our school’s chosen performers, they really did a wonderful job. But I’m proud of my baby girl the most, she handled herself very well under very trying circumstances.

As for the huge poster with her drum playing self right in the centre, I did the right thing by asking if we could have it, so we’ll see what the next few days brings.