Today was Racine’s Solo & Ensemble competition, and although I had great fun playing for ten different entries (eight of whom made it to the state) my important deed of the day did not happen on the piano bench.
The story began just after 9 when I played the accompaniment for a talented young man from church named Quinn for his clarinet solo. When he finished, the judge all but did cartwheels in praising him for a fine performance- and she finished her remarks by asking him if he was playing in any other events that day, and when he listed them off, she said something to the effect that he would very likely be a very busy young man at state. (Contestants who are given a I* rating get to perform their piece at the state competition in early May.)
Cut to a little after 11, when I went to the room where Quinn was to play his saxophone solo- but as soon as I caught sight of him, I knew that something was very wrong. He had a stricken look on his face and his eyes red as though he had been crying – and his mom looked similarly upset. And the reason was that that they had just seen Quinn’s rating for the aforementioned clarinet solo, and it was a I. . . not a I* . . . meaning that he would not be going to state with it after all. Sometimes people play or sing well and still don’t get a I*, but for the judge to have been so effusive with her praise and to have even mentioned state – and then not advanced Quinn- was astounding. I tried to think of some possible explanations, but I was grasping at straws, trying to make the best of what was an irredeemable disappointment. (I was just trying to get him to leave behind his bitter disappointment at least long enough to play well for his sax solo.)
And then Quinn suddenly handed his saxophone to his mom and grabbed his clarinet because a school mate had just come up to say that the clarinet choir with which he was performing was about to go on- and I realized that I would have at least ten minutes before he would be playing his solo – and decided to run downstairs to the tally room in the main office and see if I could get Ed Bergles, the coordinator of the competition, to examine Quinn’s original ballot just to make sure there hadn’t been a mistake- or otherwise to see what comments she had written. This was a big deal for him to do this because the tally room is perpetually busy with processing the ballots of twenty different sites, all operating continuously – and my request meant first of all figuring out what school Quinn was from (I had no idea- it was Horlick H.S.) and then getting out the manila envelop in to which all of the ballots from every Horlick competitor that morning had been placed. And sure enough, third from the bottom of a stack of maybe 50 ballots was Quinn’s – and I could barely contain my glee when I caught a glance at it and saw a I* rating written at the top, clear as day. So the judge had indeed given Quinn a I* which sent him on to state- but something happened in the tabulation process and Quinn’s rating was erroneously posted as a mere I. . . still a high rating, but not high enough to warrant advancing to state. I thanked Ed vociferously for taking time in the midst of an incredibly hectic day to check this out for me. (By the way, he quite rightly pointed out that the error almost certainly would have been caught by someone at Quinn’s school when the ballots were processed and distributed to the students, and the error would have been rectified in plenty of time for state. But this way the error was quite right away.)
Just as I was heading out the tally room I asked Ed if it was okay for me to tell Quinn, and he said “of course” – and I went flying back upstairs, taking two steps at a time, because I didn’t want Quinn spending one more second unnecessarily upset. And I actually found him in his next room, standing before the judge, ready to play his sax solo and just waiting for me to get there. I motioned Quinn to come over to me, and I whispered the good news to him- that the posted rating was an error and that in fact he was headed to state with his clarinet solo. I wish you could have seen the amazing smile that came over his face at the news- or the extra joy with which he played two bourees by Bach. Afterwards, he thanked me so enthusiastically, as though I had single-handedly changed his rating from a I to a I*. All I did was set the wheels in motion whereby the error was discovered right away- and ran up the stairs so Quinn could get the news in time to play his sax solo with his cloud of doom dispersed and his love of music fully reclaimed. I get credit for barging into the tally room, pleading my case, and then racing back upstairs with the news like that ancient Greek who ran the first marathon. But as far as I’m concerned, the real hero of the story is Ed Bergles, coordinator of the entire competition, who so easily could have said “take a number” or “send me an email” or “come back at the end of the day” or “don’t bother me” . . . but instead stopped everything he was doing in order to check this out. And thanks to Ed’s diligence and quick work, Quinn’s rating went from a I to a I-star. . . which in the world of solo & ensemble is more than the difference between gold and silver. . . it’s the difference between making the Olympics team or having to stay home.
Quinn is on his way to the Olympics.