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Well, today was my first day of rehearsals with the orchestra.  I primarily worked on the Ives since unfortunately, the Norman piece never arrived.  Who knows as to the cause of that, but mail around Christmas time is a pain.  Well, I started with the Ives after wishing the orchestra a happy New Year.  And, I have to say it went quite well.  I knew the score like the back of my hand, and it truly is a piece that I enjoy.  I believe in it, so that made it easy to convince the orchestra.  It was rather funny watching their faces as we went through the piece because Ives isn’t straightforward.  It is a bit (ok, more than a bit) bizarre, especially for a French orchestra, but they seemed to trust me, and it went.  I really think that I will be able to cancel tomorrow night’s rehearsal as it’s coming together fairly well.  The fanfares are only 5 minutes of music, so I think I can rehearse the two in about 20 minutes.  (The Tower Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, No. 1 will take more time than the Copland.  It’s more complicated.  (Feel free to insert your own overly obvious joke here.))  Our Town SHOULD be ok with about 30 minutes of rehearsal, so I think it will be fine.  The Ives was coming together (mainly because I think the strings had looked at their parts.)  The thing I don’t want is for it to sound TOO practiced.  It’s a weird thing to say, but I think some of the fiddler music in the last movement, for example, can’t sound too clean and thought out.  It has to have a spontaneous quality to it… Of course, that isn’t to say that it can be a mess.  It must be together, and it must have the right notes, in tune, etc…  But if it sounds too worked out and prepared, we are in trouble.