Happy Solstice!
I have a confession to make.
I love, love, love making lists. I think I may have to sign up for an account on
Listography.com.
I've been list-making like crazy this season. List of gifts for family and friends. Christmas card list. Wish list. To-do lists for the day, the week, and the month. List of books I want to read on my next vacation. It's a form of self-soothing, I guess, during a hectic period.
"I love to hear a choir. I love the humanity... to see the faces of real people devoting themselves to a piece of music. I like the teamwork. It makes me feel optimistic about the human race when I see them cooperating like that."
I couldn't agree with him more. I've had the privilege of a music-filled holiday season so far - we were transported by The Christmas Revels at Sanders Theater yesterday, and we heard Kyoko play stunningly with the chamber orchestra at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum today. Every time I watch musicians or performers coming together to offer us their different talents and voices with love, energy, and real joy, I come away with a renewed sense of hope for the world beyond the concert hall.
Christmas List of the Day: What the O.R. Team Can Learn from a Choir or an Orchestra
10. Show up on time.
9. Make sure you have all your papers in order.
8. Keep your instruments in tune.
7. Practice together.
6. If you're giving directions, know your notes really well and bring the best out in each of your players.
5. Be prepared for your own part.
4. Know and show that every voice counts / matters / deserves respect.
3. Pay attention and listen vigilantly to those around you.
2. Work together and help each other do your very best.
1. Never cut corners; put reverence and heart into what you do, not for your own sake, but for the work your team is doing and creating, which has the power to make lives better.
Christmas List II: An Anesthesioboist's Favorite Carols
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
O Come, All Ye Faithful (somehow always makes me cry when it starts; not sure why)
In Dulci Jubilo
Ding Dong Merrily on High
Rutter's Star Carol and Shepherd's Pipe Carol
Riu Riu Chiu
Personent Hodie
I Wonder As I Wander
Wild Wood
Wexford Carol
Un flambeau, Jeanette, Isabelle
Pat-a-Pan / Guillaume, Prends ton Tambourin
Do You Hear What I Hear
Most of the Wassail Songs - Somerset Wassail, Here We Come a-Wassailing, the Gloucestershire Wassail, etc.
The Sussex Carol
Most things on most Cambride Singers recordings...
Alfred Burt's stuff as sung by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus with the Boston Pops
Nick Bicat's "God Bless Us Everyone" from the 1984 film version of A Christmas Carol
Christmas List III: Boston Area Christmas Delights We'd Love To Try and Catch Every Year Even Though We Know We'll Only Make One or Two
Music:
-The Christmas Revels
-a production of Amahl and the Night Visitors
-the Messiah sing at Harvard's Dunster House
-Harvard University Choir's lessons and carols service at Mem Church
-the Gardner Museum concert series
-The Reagle Players' show It's Christmas Time
-the Pops
Dance:
-A Dancer's Christmas (sadly, in its final year)
-Boston Ballet's Nutcracker
-we still haven't made it to the Urban Nutcracker but really want to
Theater:
-A Christmas Carol at Arsenal Center for the Arts
Merry Christmas to you T!
ReplyDeleteUn flambeau -- love it too!
ReplyDeleteI like "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" as part of Christmas services because it usually follows something much softer and is so rousing by contrast.
Merry Christmas!
Dear T,
ReplyDeleteI love your list about what an OR team can learn from an orchestra!
especially these numbers:
4. Know and show that every voice counts / matters / deserves respect.
3. Pay attention and listen vigilantly to those around you.
2. Work together and help each other do your very best.
1. Never cut corners; put reverence and heart into what you do, not for your own sake, but for the work your team is doing and creating, which has the power to make lives better.
once an older Anesthesiologist told me, and I agree with her, that we Anesthesiologists have to control every move that happens in the OR, and discretely make sure that everything gets done at the right time, even when it is about things that don't have to do directly with de anesthestic - we have to make sure that everything goes smoothly and that the operation gets done in the best way - for the patients' sake, because we are their guardians while they are under our care (I like this image a lot).
a little bit like a maestro that isn't in front, but in the back - right?
'put reverence and your heart in everything!' - thank you for your words!
I wish you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas!
catarinolas :)
It's amazing how much of what we use in rehearsal and the concert hall lets us perform spendidly also in the boardroom, office, hospital. But we're the lucky ones with the beautiful lick running in our heads, while we're getting on with other things.
ReplyDelete(messiah at dunster house - one of my favorite freshman memories - hope you made that one this year)
Merry Christmas!! I would be happy to sing "Hark the Herald Angels" 12 months a year...
ReplyDeleteFunny Girl's List of Responses:
ReplyDelete1. You should pick up the December issue of Real Simple - it's their first ever List Issue.
2. O Come, O Come Emmanuel is my favorite too. Figures.
3. My very first experience on the stage was as a child in Amahl and the Night Visitors. I need to see it again.
4. I've yet to meet a Rutter piece I didn't LOVE. I'm going to go listen to the interview.
5. You rock.
I just read Catarinolas' comment, and I have to agree that the anesthesiologist is DEFINITELY the maestro.
ReplyDeleteTaking that analogy a bit further, the surgeon is the loud bass soloist that has to be heard (I've worked with a few "soprano" surgeons as well!), the scrub tech is the string section (or any section, for that matter) soldiering through the piece without any glory, and the circulator is the accompanist. Every once in a while she gets her little moment, but for the most part she right underneath whatever's going on, keeping everyone together with the right melody.
And then there's the patient. Our audience. If all goes well they get the concert of a lifetime, without ever hearing a note.
Katy,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you!
:)