One week remains before the concert. I'm in the final stages of preparation: polishing, revising and practicing very hard. For the past couple of days I've had some sort of cold virus, but I think I'm getting over it now, and I'm not feeling as overwhelmed as I did yesterday. It's starting to look as though I might get a pretty good turnout for the concert. All of my extended family members in town have agreed to come, and I sent them fliers in the mail as a reminder. I sent an e-mail to the whole school, and many teachers have replied with encouraging e-mails saying they'll come. A lot of my classmates have told me they'll come, and the facebook event page has 50 confirmed guests and 60 or so "maybes." I'm also counting on a lot of people from P Crest and their parents; all my music teachers; various neighbors and friends of the family; my parents' coworkers, and whoever else shows up. My hope is that I can get most of the Catlin upper school faculty to come, since that's actually a lot of people. I went by to put fliers in all their boxes at school yesterday, and realized that 40 fliers was not enough - I need closer to 60! If even half of the faculty come, that's a whole lot of people. To those faculty who read this blog: would anyone mind plugging my concert at the faculty meeting tomorrow?

It's nice to realize that this will be a supportive crowd. They all want me to do well. They also will have a much better time if we put on a good show, so I'll do whatever I can to make that happen. I'm starting to figure out what I want to say in between songs, how we'll do introductions, how we'll move through the show. At this point, here's what I'm thinking for the set list:

You Look Good to Me (trio)

Work Song (quintet)

Pegasus (quintet)

Charlie Brown Theme (trio)

Body and Soul (duo)

Blues for Smedley (quartet)

Chopin Ballade (solo)

One for Mark (trio)

I'm Not So Sure (quintet)

Original by Spencer (in the works - most likely quintet)

Seven Steps to Heaven (quintet)

This is all material perfectly suited to my strengths; I try hard to remember that whenever I begin to doubt myself. The thing is, it's also very difficult material, and I still have plenty of work I want to do. Yesterday I had to put my ambitions in check for how much I can still improve in the next few days. Here's what I'm focusing on: I want to improve my comping and soloing on I'm Not So Sure. I want to be able to solo and comp better on Seven Steps to Heaven. I need to finish revising Pegasus and practice it. And I need to learn the form extremely well on One for Mark (though that's almost there - it's getting to be so much fun to play, now that I'm starting to figure out where the groove is.) Everything else I'm very comfortable with, and although of course I'm still a weakling compared with the players on the recordings, I'll be happy with whatever small improvements I can make before the performance. Also, I'm excited to play the Ballade - again, by no means am I Arthur Rubinstein, but that's a dramatic piece and I'm starting to get it under my fingers. 

Check out this Cannonball Adderley video I've been watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBxAC4ywaJ4&feature=related