The God of Conducting Starting from Absolute Pitch

Chapter 330 The performance begins

As Chen Qiu gave the order, everyone in the Harmony Symphony Orchestra quickly sat in their seats, adjusted their instruments, and waited for the rehearsal to begin.

At this time, the people in the Haicheng Opera House on the stage dragged the huge stage decorations behind the curtain, initialized everything, and waited for the performance to begin.

The emotions contained in everyone's eyes are different.

Some people are looking forward to it, some are a little nervous, and some are excited.

As such.

But they were all very serious about this ensemble rehearsal.

After all, this could be considered their first official rehearsal with Chen Qiu, the orchestra and the performance department, and with stage directions.

This is different from all the previous rehearsals.

Therefore, everyone took a deep breath and waited for Chen Qiu's order.

Chen Qiu's eyes also crossed with Qin Xian beside him. After they confirmed that the other had completed their preparations, they raised their instruments/batons at the same time.

Accompanied by the fall of the baton in Chen Qiu's hand.

The Overture to The Marriage of Figaro begins.

The stage slowly opened...

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While Chen Qiu was taking the Haicheng Opera House to memorize the music rhythm and have them rehearse with the orchestra, the Haicheng Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra was also rehearsing at the same time.

Unlike the Harmony Symphony Orchestra, and similar to the Haicheng Opera House, their rehearsals were not led by Chen Qiu all the time, so their rehearsals were more guided by Chen Qiu, and then they went home to practice on their own.

At the beginning, the strength of Haicheng Radio Symphony Orchestra surpassed that of Harmony Symphony Orchestra.

After all, this is still a veteran symphony orchestra.

The strength of the people in the band are all listed here. If we simply discuss strength, except for some specific musicians, the strength of everyone else is basically above the others.

If they were not older and unable to perform many of the techniques that require high physical strength, it might take a few more years for the Harmony Symphony Orchestra to reach the per capita musician strength of the Haicheng Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra.

This also led to the fact that at the beginning, they actually had the idea that they were a veteran symphony orchestra and cooperated with the Harmony Symphony Orchestra.

It was fine at the beginning. When they first met, they really felt that the strongest point in the orchestra was probably Chen Qiu, and then the principal violinist.

However, as the number of collaborations increased, the musicians' understanding of music was gradually improving. Relying on their experience, the members of the Haicheng Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra were no longer able to resist the members of the Harmony Symphony Orchestra.

Therefore, without Chief Wu Jianhai urging them, they started practicing on their own after get off work.

Not for anything else, just to avoid becoming the biggest loophole in the entire performance and holding everyone back when we work together later.

Seeing how serious everyone was, Wu Jianhai gradually let go of his original intention of urging everyone to practice and began to focus on understanding the music and managing the orchestra.

Their band manager told him that the situation at the band was getting worse.

First of all, their band was originally a small band that relied mainly on funding, had a stable job, and would occasionally perform to earn some money.

Now, as the orchestra's strength is getting weaker and weaker, the overall level is gradually declining, and many companies have begun to suspend sponsorship.

If it was just the suspension of sponsorship from the company, it would be fine, after all, they mainly rely on subsidies from Haicheng TV Station and the government.

However, because of their performance, Haicheng TV Station is considering cutting the Haicheng Radio Symphony Orchestra.

On the other hand, although they say there is no problem, as time goes by, many musical instruments need to be replaced, and the natural loss of the orchestra will gradually increase.

If the other side doesn't have any money to give to the Haicheng Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, it won't be long before their orchestra becomes the second Haicheng Municipal Symphony Orchestra.

Now they have no money to buy new instruments or recruit new musicians.

Probably when all the people of this generation retire, the Haicheng Radio Symphony Orchestra will exist in name only, and the cooperation with the orchestra will be transferred to other orchestras, right?

Wu Jianhai looked at the document handed to him by the manager and a look of headache appeared on his face.

There was no way. He couldn't find this thing just because he wanted to make money.

Even if he lowered his face and went to other people to beg for some money, asking them to support the orchestra, the amount of money they could get would probably not be much more, probably a few hundred thousand at most.

Even hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in funding are possible.

With this money, it’s already a headache to pay the musicians a month’s salary, so how can we expect to continue to maintain the development of the orchestra?

Wu Jianhai threw the documents in his hand on the table, rubbed his eyebrows, and looked like he had a headache.

He asked the manager beside him.

"If, I mean if, if our cooperation with Chen Qiu, that is, with the Harmony Symphony Orchestra and the Haicheng Opera House Symphony Orchestra is successful this time, and the orchestra successfully performs an opera that can be regarded as top-notch in the country, then do you think... our orchestra can be revived?"

"Do you want me to tell the truth, Old Wu?"

The band manager sitting opposite him wiped the sweat from his head, shook his head helplessly and sighed.

"It's a pity. Even if our performance is successful this time, and this piece becomes our regular work, and we tour the country in the next year, and then go on tour to Europe after the tour, and every tour is successful, all we can do is probably to keep it from collapsing before we retire. That's all. If we want to make Haicheng Radio great again, then what we need is another conductor, the same conductor as the old one!"

When he heard the old conductor, Wu Jianhai's face showed gloom and pain.

Of course he knew that if the orchestra wanted to become perfect again, the best thing to do was to find a suitable conductor to reintegrate the orchestra.

After all, he is just a principal. All he can do is to review whether the conductor is qualified and occasionally lead the orchestra in training, that's all.

If he was wanted to do more, he would have taken over the command himself long ago, instead of worrying about commanding here.

The band manager wiped the sweat off his face and said to Wu Jianhai.

"Honestly, Old Wu, I think our current conductor is actually okay. If he continues to lead us, we should let the orchestra continue to survive. Maybe there will be a turning point in the future. It's simply a foolish dream to want to find a suitable conductor right away, Old Wu!"

"Of course I know!"

Wu Jianhai interrupted the band manager loudly and said with his eyes wide open.

He stiffened his neck and said stubbornly.

"How could I not know that it's a pipe dream to find a suitable conductor now? But haven't I found one? Chen Qiu is over there? He is the most suitable conductor! But our orchestra is not attractive enough and we can't attract people. This is your problem. What can I do?"

When he said this, he paused, as if he realized that he had said something wrong.

He looked at the manager in front of him who was wiping his sweat with a towel, then slowly shifted his gaze away and spoke as if nothing had happened.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that to be personal."

"Hey, we've been colleagues for a long time. Of course I know you're not targeting me. I actually like Chen Qiu quite a bit, but he has his own orchestra at home, and he definitely won't give up his orchestra. The orchestra has regular jobs, so it's not easy to give this kind of part-time job, and the money that can be paid is not enough, only three or four thousand a month, and it takes a lot of energy. I tried to test him before, but he rejected me without hesitation. There's nothing I can do about it."

The manager wiped his sweat and said helplessly.

"But there is only one Chen Qiu in the whole of China now. There is also a second one who is similar to Chen Qiu, but his style is different from that of the orchestra. When he came here to lead the orchestra, wasn't he chased away by you? You should know that he is a top student at the Central Conservatory of Music! Yu Tu's top disciple!"

"Li Tian?"

Wu Jianhai quickly remembered Li Tian's timid look and couldn't help but pout.

"Although his level is indeed good, his conducting is not powerful at all, it is soft and unpleasant to listen to. Although I heard that his level is gradually improving, if you let him come back, our orchestra will only continue to weaken instead of recovering to its previous state... Forget it, let's go out and go to the rehearsal room."

Wu Jianhai stood up, rubbed his arm, pushed open the door, and nodded to the director behind him.

The director wiped the sweat from his forehead and followed Wu Jianhai out of the door.

It is lunchtime now, but you can still hear many people practicing in the orchestra's rehearsal room.

If you don't feel there is anything wrong, then the one you are practicing should be The Marriage of Figaro.

Wu Jianhai said as he spoke.

"Tell me...if I ask you to find a way to transfer all the people in this band to other bands, do you have a way?"

"Ah?" The manager paused, his mind went blank. Then he realized something, hurriedly caught up with Wu Jianhai, and shook his head cautiously at him.

"No, it might be troublesome to transfer to other orchestras. Many orchestras don't like musicians like us, especially the older ones. We are all around 50 years old, but..."

"but?"

"But if we just transfer to a brother unit..."

The manager looked at Wu Jianhai's expression carefully, and when he found that Wu Jianhai did not express any refusal, he added.

"If we can transfer to a sister company, it will basically be considered a lateral transfer. I'm not sure about the salary and bonus, but it shouldn't be much less. The only problem is that we may not have many opportunities to play music in the future. At most, we can get together at the annual meeting, so..."

"That's it, I understand."

Wu Jianhai nodded.

The manager has given him one last option.

If it really doesn't work, then just disband it. Just do as the manager said and disband the band, and everyone will just forget each other.

After all, they are all old people who have followed him for nearly half their lives.

Right after graduating from college, everyone was transferred directly to the performance department of the TV station to serve as performers.

A long time ago, they even had family compounds where everyone ate and lived together.

In other words, life has improved recently and everyone has moved out.

But the feelings are still there.

He didn't want the band members to continue suffering with him.

Since the TV station is planning to lay them off and merge them into other departments, the manager should go back and do a good job to provide a good place for these brothers who have followed him for half his life.

but……

if it is possible……

He really didn't want the Haicheng Radio Symphony Orchestra to disband like this.

Wu Jianhai sighed slowly, walked into the rehearsal room, and knocked on the door.

Without waiting for a response from the crowd, he walked straight in, picked up the violin that had been placed on his chair, and spoke slowly to everyone.

"Okay, everyone, let's do it again according to Chen Qiu's previous request. If possible, everyone should play as well as possible. Otherwise, every rehearsal we have will be our last rehearsal."

Everyone was stunned, as if they realized something. They looked at Wu Jianhai in disbelief, with confusion and puzzlement in their eyes, and even a desire for confirmation.

Wu Jianhai simply glanced at the people around him without saying anything. He nodded calmly, took the instrument in his hand and placed it on his shoulder. He played the bow a few times on it and then spoke slowly.

"Okay, stop thinking about it and start rehearsing."

"..."

Everyone was silent and looked at each other speechlessly.

Then, they slowly began their rehearsal.

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Rehearsals of Haicheng Harmony Symphony Orchestra, Haicheng Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra and Haicheng Opera House are still continuing.

After the first formal rehearsal between the Haicheng Harmony Symphony Orchestra and the Haicheng Opera House was completed, Chen Qiu quickly rushed to the Haicheng Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra to lead them in rehearsal.

I don’t know why, but the atmosphere in the Haicheng Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra was a little strange, as if they weren’t looking forward to the performance.

But since everyone's performance exceeded his expectations, Chen Qiu did not ask too many questions. He simply told Wu Jianhai some key points from everyone's previous rehearsal and arranged for everyone to rehearse some details for the second time.

The level of performance by everyone was very high. After Chen Qiu confirmed the details of the performance, he agreed with everyone on a collaborative rehearsal for the three orchestras.

Wu Jianhai agreed to Chen Qiu's request without any hesitation.

Anyway, they don’t have any performance tasks recently, so everything is subject to Chen Qiu.

Soon, the rehearsal times for the three orchestras were fixed.

The details of the movements on the stage also became clearer under the guidance of Chen Qiu and Qi Min.

Because of the melody of the music, many people no longer just walk normally, but instead walk with a little spin, like dancing.

Chen Qiu, Qi Min and Wu Jianhai discussed this idea for a long time, but ultimately they did not give up.

If they were able to move completely before rehearsal, the spin would not look so good, and it would be like neither dancing nor walking, and it would look disgusting.

But the problem is that they have problems with the positioning, and they can only use music to deepen the performers' impression of the positioning, so it is not easy for them to let that group of people give up such positioning.

After all, time is of the essence.

Haicheng Opera House has already obtained the specific time of the performance from the opera house's management department and announced the performance time.

Along with the Haicheng Opera House, the announcement was also released by Haicheng Radio Station, Haicheng TV Station, Haicheng Conservatory of Music and some small channels of the Haicheng Harmony Symphony Orchestra.

Although not everyone in Haicheng knows about this, but among music lovers in Haicheng, the overall spread is still very good.

Because of the participation of the Harmony Symphony Orchestra, Chen Qiu was even promoted on some posters as a means of publicity.

As a result, these tickets sold much better than the three symphony orchestras had imagined.

Basically all the tickets were sold out a week before the show.

There are seats for 1200 people, and the lowest price for a performance is 180 yuan per person. Even if there are preferential prices to subsidize the fee a little, it is still not a small amount of money.

As the performance got closer, the rehearsals became more and more intense.

The closer they got to the show, the more problems they found with their performance.

The more problems there are in the performance, the more we want to make changes, but there is no time to make major changes. We can only make small changes to compensate for the accidents in the performance as much as possible.

All these things made the orchestra members extremely anxious and they wanted to postpone the performance date.

Learn from the game companies, first postpone the release, then postpone it again, and finally postpone it again, directly to next year.

Of course, these are all musicians' fantasies.

Under the control of Chen Qiu, Wu Jianhai and Qi Min, all the members of the orchestra could do their best to correct their mistakes and prepare for the performance.

Time passed quickly and it was the day of the performance.

Even before the performance officially started, the entrance of Haicheng Opera House was already full of people.

Not only people from Haicheng gathered here to watch the concert, but also many came from surrounding cities.

For example, a group of people led by Zhou Gangsheng came from Hangzhou.

There are also the group of people from Jiangzhou Aile who came from Sucheng.

This time the collaboration among the three groups attracted many people in the circle to come and watch.

"The Marriage of Figaro", one of Mozart's most classic operas, is also popular among the public.

The performance time is getting closer.

Even the exit was filled with people, all talking and arguing about something.

Zhao Zitong walked out of the subway station alone. Before she could take out her phone to find the location, someone grabbed her arm and spoke mysteriously.

"Do you want tickets for the show?"

(End of this chapter)