Showcase 2011

The Showcase is, well, pretty much what the title says: The Flint Institute of Music showcases all their students and they really do it in style. They rent The Whiting, a HUGE concert hall in Flint and the student ensemble groups put on their best performances. Fortunately, after months of practicing, it is the LAST performance--after all the drama, we parents need many weeks off.

Although the concert started at 3:00, I had to drop Thomas off at 1:00. He was cool on the outside but I could tell he was nervous because he hadn't eaten anything yet that day (claiming he was "just not hungry") and went flying out my car before I had completely stopped moving. We don't go in the front, like mere mortals, but in the back, like rock stars and Jerry Seinfeld (who was here a few weeks ago):

What a hideous entrance. Is this really how the rich and famous live?
On stage the crew busily sets up stands, the dance floor and instruments for hundreds of kids. The house is still empty.
That's Thomas in the black jacket way at the back behind the bass drum, Omid and Keegan are his fellow percussionists setting up the other percussion instruments. Thomas just about needs all of the two hours to help set up all the percussion instruments, his bassoon, and get completely set up for the show.
And here's the concert itself. (Or, at least, the parts of it that featured Thomas. We cut out the ballet and whatnot.)

[NOTE: See if you can find the very subtle gesture of Thomas's when he indicates to Omid during the piece with the orchestra and chorus that Omid came in one measure too soon with the cymbol crash. Fortunately Thomas and Omid have a LONG and stable friendship...]

It was a stressful and exhausting concert but Thomas was (if we say so ourselves) a star of the show. People I have never met before in my life have been coming up to me since at work and elsewhere and telling me that they thought he was astonishing. One woman remembers him from when he was in Alpha Montessori pre-school. She claims she thought he was "something special" then (those are always ominous words) but seemed genuinely thrilled to see him playing bassoon. I could not give her a name to save my life; and how anyone can remember him from preschool, let alone recognize him underneath all that hair is beyond me BUT there you go--Thomas was a hit.

It took a toll, though. He was struck down with a Rousseauian-like fever and had to spend the next three days at home in bed. He was only today able to get back to school. The world craves Thomas, but can he live up to its demands?