Next was Movie Night. March 2008. OH MY GOD we got Mark Mothersbaugh to come in and hang out with us. Mark, his wife Anita and his arranger Christopher Guardino all flew in from LA to be our guests at Movie Night. (!!!) We performed music from Psycho, King Kong 1933, Spiderman, and a ton of Mark's music: the soundtracks from Life Aquatic and The Royal Tenenbaums. Like Mark, his music is fascinating and unique. His use of acoustic instruments and computerized sounds makes it stand out from the crowd.

The difficulty in this process was to make the orchestra sound that unique - the musicians were using techniques in their playing, embouchure's, bowing, style on the fingerboard. This was a bigger challenge than we realized, but went for it without our seatbelts on! That weekend, Cleveland saw the biggest snow storm of our lifetimes. Starting on Friday night, March 7, 2008, snow started falling by the bucket load. By Saturday morning, we had 3 feet of snow and the city shut down. Literally shut down. And the snow kept falling. Cleveland State and the rest of the city was closed. I am a Michigan girl, so snow is no biggie to me. In fact, I really like it. I drive a Subaru, own lots of boots, would not buy a house without a wood-burning fireplace, have been skiing since I was 3, and I actually get excited at the thought of being snowed in. But this was deeply sad to me as the show was canceled. Bah. Cleveland has the equipment necessary to plow streets quickly and salt the roads...but this time the snow came too fast and too heavy.

That Friday night, Philip (my then boyfriend and now fiance), Mark, Anita, Christopher and Tom Welsh (director of music and the Cleveland Museum of Art) and I decided not to stay in. As I mentioned, I drive a Subaru, and those cars can get through anything. We picked them up (we were piled high) and went to the Velvet Tango Room. A cool little sexy bar that sits in between Tremont and Ohio City. (two neighborhoods on the near west side of Cleveland). We were the only people in the place, besides the bartender. We were there drinking, laughing, singing, talking until 4am. It was warm and lovely, red lights, dark wood, fancy drinks, pretty plates of food and comedy that you just cannot pay for. It was one of the best nights ever.

By Saturday afternoon, the snow stopped and the city was covered with 4 feet of snow. The weather forecast said the snow was done, so the mass clean up began. CYO had rented a screen that was temporarily installed in Waetjen Auditorium, we had put in lighting (so the audience could see the screen and the musicians could see the music) and had prepared a huge show! The forces of CYO got cooking on Saturday afternoon and we reschedule the concert for Sunday evening, March 9. CSU was open, Mark, Anita and Chris changed their flights to Monday, and we made all the necessary phone calls, newspapers, internet, radio and TV announcements that we could.

The CYO Musicians showed up on Sunday afternoon and we rehearsed (for the first time, since our Friday evening and Saturday morning rehearsals were canceled) with the film. Two hours before the show. Right.

Well - of course they did it. We had a big audience (I would say 80% came, which is great!).

Music and Its Industry: Part Three