Impressionnismes at Chapelle royale du château de Versailles

Jerome has been invited to play in the orchestra at a concert taking place on March 27 at the Chapelle royale du château de Versailles.  This will be a big ensemble, including symphony orchestra, organ and chorus.  (As an aside, the Great Organ in the royal chapel was inaugurated by François Couperin in 1711.)  The musicians are mostly students from the conservatory in Versailles.  Under the French system, the conservatory at Versailles is a "conservatoire à rayonnement regionale", which is a couple of steps up from the conservatory nearby that Jerome attends, which is a "conservatoire à rayonnement communal".  So they should be pretty good mucisians.  Expect Jerome to be the smallest one - as usual!  On the program is Flos campi by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville by Gabriel Fauré and André Messager.  These are complete works, so it is quite a bit of music for Jerome to learn.  And there are only a limited number of rehearsals.  He'll have to come well-prepared.  Also, the rehearsals are long: one scheduled rehearsal is a whole day, morning and afternoon, on a Thursday no less, so that will mean missing school.  It's not a children's orchestra anymore.

This concert is part of a series Jeudis musicaux de la Chapelle royale.  More information here: http://www.cmbv.fr/Activites-artistiques/Jeudis-musicaux-de-la-Chapelle-royale .

As an aside, before Christmas Jerome's teacher gave out concert tickets to two of her most dedicated students - Jerome got one of them.  So he will be going to see the violist Tabea Zimmermann play with l'Orchestre de Paris on February 12.  I guess I'll buy a ticket and go with him!  He's not quite old enough to go on his own to concerts yet, even if Silke is.  Silke had managed to get herself a reduced price ticket (20€ instead of 100€) to a performance of the opera La Pietra del Paragone by Rossini last Tuesday evening.  She has no problems at all getting around Paris on her own.  Yet another advantage of Paris: she would be far too young for a driver's license in Canada.  When she saw the Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris, her reaction was that it was highly unrealistic - not because of the time travelling mind you, but because the main character gets lost in Paris.  Silke scoffed at that, "It's impossible to get lost in Paris! All you have to do is to find the nearest Metro station!"