—by Amy Nam

During the time that I was a student in Montreal, a large community orchestra hired me to play on their outer space themed concert. Stravinsky’s Le roi des étoiles kicked off the program, followed by John William’s Star Wars Suite, and lastly Holst’s The Planets.

Although my French vocabulary wasn’t large, I understood numbers and enough basic rehearsal phrases to be comfortable in a Francophone rehearsal environment. And indeed, the rehearsal was fine.

The concert also began without incident. Immediately after the Stravinsky, the conductor turned around and spoke to the audience for a few minutes in French (I didn’t catch anything after the first word). During this time, the second harpist (also not a Francophone) and I turned our music to Star Wars, set our pedals, and poised for the first glissando.

The extremely lethargic upbeat was my first clue that something was very wrong. After spending a moment in confusion, I realized that we were playing the Stravinsky—again!

I exchanged aghast looks with the other harpist, and then we hurriedly (and quietly) turned back our music and reset our pedals.

I’ll never know why we played the Stravinsky twice or what the conductor told the audience in between times. Perhaps he said, “Let’s play it again so you can laugh at the harpists’ faces who have no idea what I’m saying right now!”

For once I was thankful for those precious tacet measures that begin almost every orchestral harp part.