It was loud and chaotic and hot and sweaty in the downstairs gym/cafeteria. Upstairs the first group was slowly, too slowly, getting set at the front of the church to play. Up there is was cool, and calm, and the sounds of strings and applause. But down below the kids were chasing each other with their bows and violins, jumping over cellos, stealing water bottles and throwing them.
Slowly, too slowly, one group got called to go up, and there were fewer kids; and then another; and then finally the last, the performance wending its way through the smell of wax and stale incense. I found a place in the middle of the cool stone pillars and listened as the whole group played Twinkle Variations together. The sounds echoed and got lost, the beat blurred, but how miraculous these young beings, all together, playing together. Who could remember that space downstairs, where minds and bodies begged for freedom? Here, the sound echoing to heaven in the tall arches, without the baggage mere minutes before.
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