Performance at the Birth of Country Music Theatre

            Tuesday night, eight of the East Tennessee State University bands traveled up to the Birth of Country Music Theatre/Museum to perform for community members. My group, the mandolin orchestra, was a part of this. I was amazed by the talent I saw by the other bands, as well as the cool venue that we were playing at.

            I will start off with a little information on the mandolin orchestra. We are a unique group, as there aren’t many of them actively preforming. The group includes four mandolin players, a mandoviola (mandolin/viola) player, a mandocello (mandolin/cello) player, a bass player, and a couple guitars if the song needs it. There are seven of us in the group, with ages ranging from 18 to mid 60’s, and I am the only girl in the group. We play all types of music like classical, bluegrass, swing, original music (as one of our band members has written a couple of the songs we played), and songs from other countries. Overall, it is a lot of fun and because we are so unique, we get to perform at a lot of different places.

            The other bands that performed included bluegrass bands, country bands, Celtic bands, acapella bands, and variations of each. The instruments varied as well, with guitars, mandolins, banjos, electric guitars, steel guitars, ukulele bass, drums, and tambourines. All of the groups were really talented, and they, too, played a pretty diverse array of music.

            It was open to the public, so the room we were in was filled with older people who I guess had nothing better to do on Tuesday night, as well as family members of some of the band people. They were all very intimidating to play in front of, especially with the fact they were sitting about five feet in front of us. I am hoping with their age they couldn’t really hear us that well because the mandolin orchestra did not have as clean of a performance as we were hoping for. Despite this, they all seemed pretty overjoyed that we were all there and gave us all lots of applause.

            Overall, it was my first big performance here at ETSU. I had a blast, and it was so much fun to meet new people, play at a neat place, and, of course, to hear two hours of great music. I was exhausted by the time it was over, but it was an accomplished exhaustion. I can’t wait to see what kind of music and performances are in store for us next!