BRATTLEBORO — The Windham Orchestra hoped that its concert on Sunday would be a memorable one.
It was, but not in a way they planned.
The orchestra was to perform on the lawn of the Brattleboro Retreat, but rainy weather forced the concert to relocate to the Latchis Theatre.
The first half of the performance, a premiere of Windham Loops, by Derrik Jordan, went off without a hitch. After an intermission, everyone reassembled for the the second half of the concert, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 .
Four vocal soloists and a special local Festival Chorale of roughly 120 singers were set to perform the rousing “Ode to Joy” portion of the final movement.
But they never got the chance.
While the orchestra was playing, the power went out with a loud pop. Ironically, the outage came at the point of the piece where the first soloist is supposed to make a dramatic entrance with the now seemingly ironic words, “O friends, no more these sounds!”
Neither the soloists, nor the chorus, got to sing a single note.
The generator at the Latchis apparently has only 45 minutes worth of power, so there wasn't much time to wait and see it the power came back. The orchestra and the audience did wait for about 30 minutes before exiting.
Gospel singer Moonlight Davis was in the audience, and he came onstage and led the assembly in a rousing rendition of This Little Light of Mine, followed by an equally enthusiastic version of When the Saints Go Marching In, complete with improvised solos from some of the instrumentalists.
Then orchestra conductor Hugh Keelan led the orchestra in a D chord, after which he prompted the chorus to rise and sing the key, uplifting choral passage from the piece.
Many of the singers were “la-la-la”-ing, enthusiastically, as they could not read the score to be reminded of the German words.
And then everyone exited the building before the generator's power supply ended.
After the show, Keelan said he would do his best to arrange a do-over of the concert.
But it will be tough to top the emotion and unexpected drama of this particular performance.