We had our final rehearsal tonight of the octet, singing through A Visit to William Blake’s Inn. Good group, and we are totally going to be not as good as we could be tomorrow night. Milky Way, of course, is a total bear, and it’s hard to rehearse any piece, much less that one, sitting around a dining room table, unable to hear your part, etc., etc.

Still, the solos sound good, and people are truly enjoying the music, which is gratifying. They’re very enthusiastic about all of it, and many of them have favorites, and that’s fun to hear. The group is good enough for me to hear what it will sound like with proper preparation, and that’s pretty darned good.

The next question is whether we will have an audience tomorrow night, and more importantly, whether it will be an audience with people who will jump at the chance to work on the three sample pieces for the next three months in workshop.

Extra creative bit for the day: I was imagining Anne Tarbutton singing Wise Cow Enjoys a Cloud today, which falls far short of hearing her actually sing it, and a vision came to me for staging. At the risk of short-circuiting the workshop process: Wise Cow is a shadow puppet and appears over William Blake’s head as he asks where she slept the night before. As the harp sweeps up, Anne steps from the shadows wearing a beautiful gown/costume, and releases from her hands a glowing cloud, which the Wise Cow catches and then eats: we see the cloud enter her body, where it glows even brighter than before.

That would work.