Monday 28 July 2014

The last day

Our last Neflac day. It has been a wonderful week. The atmosphere, the surroundings and last, but certainly not least: the flute playing. Our day started with breakfast, packing the last stuff in your suitcase and putting your concert clothes on. The bus arrived and we headed off to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. We have never been in the Concertgebouw before and we were really excited about it. When we arrived we had to put all our luggage in a big room, after that we took our flutes and went backstage. The whole Concertgebouw building is very nice and there is carpet almost everywhere so it was very nice for us girls because our tights weren’t ruined. We had a nice warming-up from Wieke on stage at the ‘Kleine Zaal’ and we saw the brilliant Neflac video of the 2014 summer course. The warming-ups have been a great help to us, because it makes flute playing much easier for the muscles and it prevents muscle ache. We will certainly keep doing the warm-ups before playing flute. We rehearsed getting off and on the stage and we rehearsed bowing. We also played some pieces with the orchestra and with Eric Vloeimans. Eric Vloeimans is, by the way, a very nice and kind person, who plays his instrument like no one else does. His sound sounded just like a flute and when he played with the YIP’ers in the Dorpskerk in Rheden I was dreaming away. It was beautiful. At one o’clock we had lunch in the foyer of the Concertgebouw. Then we felt like real artists, the feeling intensified when there was a group tour for tourists and people were asking us if we had a concert. Naturally we replied with a big Roberta-like YES! After the lunch we had to get ready for our concert. We were all very tired so when we didn’t have to play we were watching the rest perform on our little flat screen TV in the dressing room, we also listened to them thanks to an ingenious device that records the sound and plays it in the dressing room. Everyone was sitting on a chair or lying on the ground and some were even doing a nap. We all had to be very quiet because if we talked to loud, the audience could hear us and we would disturb the performance. The concert was great and it was lovely to do it with the Neflac family. It was a real experience and we hope we will never forget it! The whole day was one of mixed feelings. Excitement about playing in Amsterdam, happiness because we really enjoyed it and also a feeling of sadness. We all knew that today was our last day and we didn’t want to say goodbye. In one week we have become a Neflac family and it was hard to say goodbye to them. We really want to thank all the staff of Neflac for teaching us, helping us improve our flute playing, for contributing to a wonderful atmosphere and of course for organising such a beautiful summer course. We also want to thank all the NTK’ers and YIP’ers for being such nice and talented people! Thank you all! Love, Cathinca, Renske and Hagai.

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