An Old Beauty

Danielle entered the back stage of the concert hall dressed in her long black velvet dress. Her bow kept coming undone and she had to re-tie it over and over again. But she liked the distraction– anything to keep her mind off of her nerves going crazy at that moment. Exploring the back music room she finally finds her old violin case propped up against the mirrored wall. With a small sigh of relief she strolls over to the scraped up black case. She finds an older looking wooden chair and sits down with it loudly creaking underneath her.

Unzipping her violin case she starts to smell a familiar and almost comforting smell. The wood of her violin fills the air around her and immediately puts a smile onto her face. She has been playing the violin for eleven years now, ever since she was a young girl. It was the one thing she could count on getting her mind off of the troublesome years she went through while growing up.

Other members of the orchestra start to fill the small music room, all searching for their own instruments as well. But Danielle does not even notice the moving of the bodies around her. Her focus is on her worn violin. She focuses her attention on the thin stripes of wood carvings on the face of her violin going from the neck to the bass of the instrument. How the color of the wood around the chin rest is now starting to fade due to the constant playing, and how underneath the bridge sitting atop the violin there’s a pile of caked-on rosin from the bow playing on the four strings.

Tuning her violin, Danielle notices on the clock that there’s just three minutes left until her and the rest of the orchestra members have to be settled on stage before the concert starts. With her sheet music in hand her heart begins to beat fast in her chest, making her nerves feel like buzzing bees in her body. The music conductor quietly hurries over to the group and whispers, “We’re on in one minute. Have your sheet music ready to start with Antonín Dvořák’s ‘New World Symphony.’” Racing to her spot on the stage all Danielle can hear is her heart beating loudly. Her music is set out and with a shaky hand she holds her violin and bow sitting on her lap waiting for the concert to begin. Slowly the red velvet curtains begin to pull away from each other, leaking bright lights onto the orchestra, framing them in place.

The conductor raises her white wooden baton and the orchestra members raise their beautiful shinning instruments in playing position. With three swift movements of the baton the music begins to sound. In that very instant Danielle’s nerves have been covered over by excitement and adrenalin. The people in the crowd watch in awe as the concert hall is filled with the beautiful sounds of the wooden stringed instruments. On each side of the stage are pillars with sculpted women with delicate smiles on their soft faces. They smile at the serenity of the music and the beauty of their concert hall that holds such a gathering.

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