Charity

I was asked a couple of days ago by my landlord, who is also a cantor in the nearby church, if I would consider to help out with the sound technique for a church concert. "You only have to lower and raise the sound when needed", he said, and it's a charity concert for Ukraine, so there is no money for the job. Fine, I said, it'll be fun to meet some new people. I heard the faint warning bells inside my head as I said "Yes, I can do that". I was picked up by 8.30 in the morning and I gradually learned about the job. Rigging all morning for a one and a half hour concert with a 7-piece band accompanying several soloists, a couple of choirs and recitation, and the concert is going to be repeated tomorrow as well, with a different set of soloists added. I've lived a long time and knows a lot about this kind of job, therefore I was sort of mentally prepared and knew I could do it but I smiled to myself when thinking about first description of what I could expect, "a bit of lowering and raising of volume".

I was free a couple of hours in the middle of the day but was back for some more preparation and soundcheck before the concert at seven. In the end, the concert was a big success and we raised over 20000 Swedish krowns (2000€) from the 200 people who came to the concert. Tomorrow we'll do it again, in another church, this time a bit closer to home, and because we've done the concert once, all the volumes are set so it will be a lot quicker to prepare this time. I was home by eleven at night after a somewhat longish Friday, lowering and raising volumes.