Part 9 Carnegie Hall NYC Monday Presidents' Day

Today is the day! Here we are in front of the poster advertising our concert on Carnegie Hall. There is another 250-singer choir starting the show singing the music of Joseph Martin and they can't have that many people backstage, so our dress rehearsal today will practice us entering the hall halfway through the show tonight. Margie has a ticket, so she'll get to see it all; we won't. (And still haven't, although they've promised to send our Director 1 CD of it.)

Since we don't have to rehearse until 1p, we went and ate another big brunch at the Red Eye Grill and then headed off to walk in Central Park. We were lucky that the weather was so conducive to walking outdoors and the hotel was so close to everything that we could get everywhere we wanted to go on foot except Ground Zero (subway) and back to the airport (bus).

Once long ago I had a delightful Sunday brunch at the Palm Court of the Plaza Hotel, so I wanted to find it. And a lot of SCS friends had told us to look for the black door next to the Plaza that led to the food courts underneath the hotel. Apparently it was like those in Harrod's in London with great things to eat. We found the black door and the food courts easier than the way into the Plaza's lobby but we finally made it to see the Palm Court and some spectacular floral arrangements.

Dress rehearsal began by entering through the stage door, which was right next door to The Russian Tea Room, where we planned to eat after practice. We walked up steps to a 5th floor rehearsal room where we got instructions about getting down to the Carnegie Hall stage.

It happened so suddenly it kind of took me by surprise ... when they called us, we walked down five flights of steps to a stage door and there we were! Margie got to take the tour of Carnegie Hall were they explained how all curved surfaces contributed to the excellent acoustics and sound quality.

Some of our non-singing friends got to sit way in the back and listen to our first rehearsal with the orchestra. I've sung with orchestras before but never one that good! When they played Shenandoah I forgot to sing and even the men shed a tear along with us women.

Something I'l remember about Mack Wilberg: you're never so good that you can't use help. He had people sitting in the audience who gave him notes after every piece of music about what went well and what could be improved. Again, the practice went so fast and then we had to get off the stage.

On to the Russian Tea Room for food before walking to "30 Rock" for our tour of NBC Studios.