When it rains, it pours...and sometimes freezes

Two VSO musicians share their concert emergencies NOT related to the power going out!

I left my car at the Middlebury Inn Saturday morning and joined Hilary in her car to go to the orchestra meeting. Due to the ice on the road we were half an hour late, but had a good meeting and rehearsal that afternoon. When the lights went off before the concert we brought our clothes upstairs, in order not to have to look for them later in total darkness, and joined Soovin on stage, where he entertained the confused audience with his gorgeous Bach Chaconne performance, in the dark.

Our early drive home was uneventful, but when I returned to my car it was draped in inch-thick ice. I couldn't get my hand in the door handle, let alone open any of the doors. Poor Hilary had to bring me all the way home. Thanks Hill!

--Dieuwke Davydov

Saturday Burlington was harder to walk around than I've seen it in 35 years - streams of water over ice and various mixtures of slush, snow and ice. Of course it would have to be the one time in my career I'd forgotten a white shirt. So I'm navigating up to Macy's in a panic at 7:30, by 7:47 standing under an emergency light in the catacombs trying to calm myself as I struggled to remove the endless number of pins from the shirt, especially the two whose heads were hidden so ingeniously I considered ripping the shirt to get them out.

Finally I made it upstairs at 7:55 to catch the last 1/3 of the Chaconne - from panic to mesmerized in 30 seconds.

--David Gusakov