I just woke up, greatly relieved to do so.
Otherwise I would still be on a concert stage, sitting on a cellist’s solo podium, in front of an orchestra (in this dream some altered form of the Indianapolis Symphony, the conductor a woman who exists, I presume, only in that dream), sight reading the solo part of Strauss’s Don Quixote. Which somehow had grown to have two intermissions, with the final section music I’d never even heard of, let alone seen, all in thumb position and very awkward.
Or maybe it was just one intermission, because when I went on stage to play the final passages, not only did I have to squeeze by the violist still performing the Sancho Panza part (who gave me a hug, that was nice), but the stage crew had kindly put the music for the concert I’m playing tonight in real life plus a rock stop (endpin holder) on my seat. I put those things on the floor, opened the unfamiliar and impossible-to-sight-read music, felt panic . . .
. . . and woke up.
I do not want to go back to sleep!
Got a musician’s or other performance-anxiety dream to share? Post it in the comments.
Eric Edberg 