This past Sunday morning (two days after Friday the 13th!) we awoke at 7:08 am to a loud rumbling and then a fairly violent shaking sensation that went on for what seemed like a minute and a half (it turned out to be 15 seconds). Earthquake! For real! I got out of bed and checked around the house, everything seemed to be fine. Got back into bed, ten minutes later another big one came and all pretense at sleep was gone. I stumbled to the computer to see what the Geological Survey had to say about the strength and location of the quake, woke up the computer and then watched as the computer fizzled and died. Power outage! Statewide power outage, in fact.

On this island there wasn’t much damage except for some items falling off of shelves, but on the Big Island there was considerable damage. Miraculously there was no loss of life and only a couple of injuries, pretty amazing considering that it was a 6.7 strength earthquake located only a few miles offshore. In the past few days it has been discovered that a couple of huge reservoirs have been damaged, which is really scary to contemplate considering that there are many people living in the path of a possible catastrophic flood. (The reservoirs have since been drained pending repairs.)

Unfortunately for the Symphony, the power didn’t come back on for over 15 hours, and even then it was a slow and incremental process. Apparently the turbines are huge but delicate and required a methodical startup process. So the afternoon concert scheduled for that day had to be canceled. It’s amazing how dependent on electricity we’ve become! It was also strange to think that the rest of the world had more up-to-the minute information than we did; apparently the cable news stations, glad for an event to fill an otherwise quiet Sunday, had extensive coverage of the event.

The conductor for the concert that day was our artistic advisor Joanne Falletta, which was ironic considering that her other orchestra in Buffalo had just suffered from a rare October blizzard that paralyzed the city and caused a citywide power outage there, also. (If I was a musician in Norfolk, where she is also the music director, I’d be wondering what kind of disaster was about to hit the city!)

We’ve been getting a lot of phone calls and emails from friends and family wondering if we’re all intact and healthy, so I’m very glad to say that on this island, at least, other than some spoiled food resulting from the power outage and some electronic gear fried as the power came back on, we’re all fine. It was strange, though, to see the city all dark. Kind of an ominous sight.

Here’s a couple of links for your amusement about the earthquake and power outage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMW1Vg7VYt8&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihphK4yBMAM&mode=related&search=

and best of all, this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3weqoyhgZc&mode=related&search=

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This past week we had a surprise visit by the music director of the Milwaukee Symphony, Andreas Delfs. The conductor that had been scheduled to direct the concerts canceled at the last minute due to illness and our management was able to persuade maestro Delfs to make the long journey to Hawaii. I really enjoyed working with him, and envy the lucky musicians in Wisconsin and also in St. Paul who work with him on a regular basis. We hope to see him return again soon!

Hey Paul, welcome to the world of slings and arrows! Glad to see you're taking comments now, too. I think it livens things up a bit for the better. Glad to hear you're ok - I just heard from Drew Eckard about his fun, and I'm glad that no one was hurt. How was Delfs? I've heard some good things, but nothing directly from someone who has worked with him. Private message or email me your thoughts. BTW - love the title, I live in fear of the dreaded "Earthquack", also!

I'm trying to find an excuse to lead into another topic so..........

Did the earthquake scare the wits out of you enough to expand your upper range by a semi-tone, "ha ha"?

Do you have any comments on upper range playing on your instrument?

Thanks!

Hmmm- upper range on the bassoon-- a stiff reed and a high-note bocal is a good start. Using the correct fingerings helps, also. Include the high notes (up to high f) in your daily warm-up and reed making tests.

That's a start!