Music To His Ears

His granddaughter’s music concert turned out to be full of surprises for Eric.

- Christine Sutton

ERIC craned his neck, trying to spot Khanyi onstage. With Thami and Pam facing the eternal p arental dilem ma of how to be in two places at once, they had opted to go to their youn gest daughter’s swimming gala, leaving him and Mpumi to attend the school concert.

“I hope she doesn’t let her nerves get the better of her,” Eric fretted. “You know how she hates crowds.”

“Being in them, yes,” Mpumi agreed. “This is different – just like it was with you.”

She had a point. Back in his days of playing with the band he’d always been a bundle of nerves before going onstage. But once seated behind the scallop-shaped board that informed the audience they were listening to Hugh Hill’s Hot 12, he’d played his banjo and thought himself in heaven.

A smattering of applause alerted him to activity onstage. The orchestra was filing on. Suddenly there she was: Khanyi, looking all grown up in a crisp white blouse and long black skirt.

A tap on the lectern signalled the conductor’s inten tion to start. After a dramatic pause the man raised his baton and swept it over the woodwind and string sections.

The players came in, mostly together, and Eric glanced at his programme to see what they were playing. Schoenberg’s Summer Morning By a Lake, a tricky composition requiring slow, considered playing.