{"id":365,"date":"2009-10-28T22:42:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-28T22:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/rehearsal-day-2-meeting-the-stars\/"},"modified":"2014-07-06T14:59:07","modified_gmt":"2014-07-06T14:59:07","slug":"rehearsal-day-2-meeting-the-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/rehearsal-day-2-meeting-the-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"REHEARSAL DAY 2 – meeting the stars!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I slept late Wednesday morning, just as a precaution, given my impending cold. I felt much better, and decided to take a trip to Steinway Hall<\/a>, home to some beautiful concert grand pianos. Every time I visit New York, I make sure to stop by Steinway Hall. My friend Amy, also a pianist, joined me and we headed over to West 57th street. I had the chance to meet Betsy Hirsch,<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>a salesperson at Steinway Hall with an amazing story connecting her to Stevie Wonder. We all had a great time playing these fantastic pianos together. After leaving Steinway Hall, Amy, her brother and I had lunch at The Great American Health Bar<\/a>, where I had the most delicious salad! I was expecting a typical, eat it in one session garden salad, but instead received a monstrously huge, and delicious, dish that I had to finish later in the day.<\/p>\n
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Salad for lunch…and later snack<\/div>\n
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At 3pm, we arrived at the rehearsal studio for a day of rehearsal with the celebrity guest musicians. First up: Jeff Beck<\/a>! Jeff walked in, cool and confident, after his crew guys set up his rig, and Stevie immediately wanted to play the song \u201cLooking For Another Pure Love<\/a>\u201d, on which Jeff had recorded the killer guitar solo. This was the first of many surreal moments to come: it was as if the recording had come to life before my eyes. After jamming on \u201cPure Love\u201d, we then played \u201cSuperstition<\/a>\u201d. Apparently, \u201cSuperstition\u201d was originally composed for Jeff, but Stevie\u2019s management insisted that he record the song instead, and the rest is history. Eventually, Jeff recorded the song as well, but in a rock style.<\/p>\n

Next on the agenda: Sting<\/a>! Full disclosure: I\u2019ve been a HUGE fan of Sting since I was a little kid. The Police<\/a> was one of the first bands that made an impact on my budding musicianship. I bought all of the their records, knew all of the lyrics, made up choreography to their songs, etc. So, meeting and performing with Sting had been a dream of mine for many years. I had to work REALLY hard not to revert into a 12-year-old SuperFan in anticipation of his arrival. And then\u2026he walked in! Outer self: calmly smiling at seeing this musical hero of mine, professional in my demeanor and performance. Inner self: OH MY GOD!!! THAT\u2019S STING!! WOW!! I HAVE TO PINCH MYSELF!! SCREEEEEAAAAAMMMMM!!!<\/p>\n

Sting took his position next to his bass rig directly in front of the horn players and myself. We rehearsed \u201cHigher Ground\u201d<\/a> and \u201cRoxanne<\/a>\u201d as a medley over the next 2 hours. At one point, during a short break, I began stretching. Usually during a tour, I exercise and do yoga everyday (for real), but sometimes it\u2019s just not possible, so I stretch when I can. I was standing behind Sting, so his back was to me. However, seconds after I started stretching, Sting turned around, saw me and joined in! It\u2019s well known that Sting is an avid practitioner of yoga, so I was doubly thrilled that he was doing yoga stretches with me, albeit across the room! Half Moon pose<\/a>, anyone?<\/p>\n

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We rehearsed a while longer, and then, when satisfied that the medley was in shape, Sting prepared to leave, but first stopped to talk to Keith John<\/a>, Stevie\u2019s background singer of many years. The new singer, Lanesha Baca<\/a>, and I looked at each other and tacitly acknowledged that this was our chance to meet this musical icon, so we dashed across the room and waited our turn to meet him. I reached out my hand to shake his, but instead, Sting took my hand, pulled me in for a big hug and kissed my face on both cheeks in the lovely way Europeans do. I was stunned, smiled, and immediately reverted to being that 12-year-old SuperFan: all giggles and verbal ineptitude. Sigh\u2026<\/p>\n

We then took a dinner break, and came back to rehearse with John Legend<\/a>. We\u2019ve performed with John before, and he remembered me, greeting me with a hug and kiss on the cheek. John had just returned from a tour in Brazil, so of course, I had to play the one song I know in Portugese \u201c\u00c1guas de Mar\u00e7o<\/a>\u201d. My geek side couldn\u2019t resist! John sang the Marvin Gaye<\/a> classic \u201cMercy Me<\/a>\u201d, and as the rehearsal went well, he left after only a few times through the song.<\/p>\n

Finally, B. B. King<\/a> entered the room, accompanied by his manager and assistants. What a gracious man! B. B. King exudes a warm-hearted kindness, similar to that which Stevie exudes, and kindly complimented the band, took photos with us, gave me a big hug, made jokes, allowed all of us to be at ease in his presence. We rehearsed \u201cThe Thrill is Gone<\/a>\u201d with him. Wow. What a day\u2026<\/div>\n

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B. B. King and me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I slept late Wednesday morning, just as a precaution, given my impending cold. I felt much better, and decided to take a trip to Steinway Hall, home to some beautiful concert grand pianos. Every time I visit New York, I make sure to stop by Steinway Hall. My friend Amy, also a pianist, joined me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}