Yesterday Jieun Kim Newland and I conducted a dry run of our Dueling Bach concert scheduled for Saturday, January 18.

What is a “dry run?”

Here’s one definition I found:

Most believe that dry run was first used in the 1940s, referring to firearm training in the military. Before a gun is fired, the recruits practice handling the gun without firing a shot. In fact, when allowing the recruits to fire ammunition, it is called going wet.

Whoa! Firearms? Guns? Military? The furthest thing away from what we did yesterday— unless you think it refers to the firing of all those sixteenth notes we were playing!

Seriously, though, here is a definition which is more appropriate to our event:

What we did was to perform the program in concert order, in front of an audience of two critical listeners: Jennifer Lane and her husband, Jim Carr, who moved around the room, sitting in various places to check for the balance between the two organs.

Here is the program order:

Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor (Allegro) –BWV 1060
Concerto in D minor for Two Violins (Largo ma non tanto) -BWV 1043
Concerto in C major (Allegro) -BWV 595
Trio Sonata No. 3 in D minor (Adagio e dolce) -BWV 527
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major (Allegro Moderato • Allegro) -BWV 1048

interval

Concerto in A minor after Vivaldi (Allegro • Adagio • Allegro) -BWV 593
Cantata 29, Wir danken dir, Gott (Allegro) -BWV 29
Cantata 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (“Jesu, joy of man’s desiring”) -BWV 147
Concerto in D minor after Vivaldi (Allegro • Grave • Fugue • Largo e spiccato) -BWV 596

(P.S. We also have an encore planned, just in case!)

And how was our dry run? It went extremely well, which is very encouraging two weeks prior to the concert. I hope you have put the date in your calendar!

In case you would like to RSVP, you can indicate that by going to the Facebook event.