The orchestra was accompanying well last week.  I sensed it, the soloist feltit, and the orchestra knew it.  We were in the zone.  THE Zone.  So, perhaps intentionally, but mayhap through instinct, our soloist hesitated ever so slightly at a cadence.  Not much, just enough to set up a luscious resolution and transition to a second theme.  This was not something we rehearsed.  It was something that simply happened.  And it was marvelous.  She executed, the orchestra responded, and we entered a different realm of performance.

The instant the unexpected happened, the performance changed.  The mold was reshaped and something magical occurred.  Like a scene from The Matrix, time slowed down, almost stopped.  My baton fluctuated ever so slightly and all 75 musicians responded by playing with the soloist.  You could almost see the rosin dust suspended over the instruments.  The eyes of each musician were more…