A strange case of synchronicity

It is curious how some events seem to happen at node points, when a variety of similar events are going on? Whether this is because of a strange synchronicity in the atmosphere or simple co-incidence, I don’t know. My recent concert at the Chelsea Festival is a prime example. The Festival itself always seems to coincide with Ascot, which means that a number of Chelsea people are unavailable to come to the concerts; additionally the Saturday of Ascot week is a day when friends and acquaintances often go.

When attempting to put on a choral concert I make a basic check to see if I can get enough singers. This was the case for Saturday 24th June. 3 singers said that they were involved with their main choir on that day and subsequently 2 other singers, who did sing in the concert, told me they had been asked to sing with yet another choir on the same day. This meant of course that these other choir’s personnel were not available for temporary loan, in case of shortage in our concert. Subsequently another soprano had to drop out as she was working out of town for 3 months. The during the concert week, we ran into problems with the soloists, both the soprano and the tenor had to drop out and were replaced at the last minute.

Of course, I had a moan about this to friends last week but I was set to thinking when so many people approached me after the concert and apologised for not coming as they had intended to but…. Luckily, of course, concerts at the Chelsea Festival are not just dependent on my friends.

But it did set me thinking about synchronicity, node points etc. Perhaps, when putting on future concerts I should not only circulate potential choir members, but also circulate audience members and find out how likely they are to be free on that date. I remember, some years ago, organising a recital which coincided with a concert at the Barbican of music by Harry Partch complete with the instruments that he had invented; a large number of my potential audience were at that concert with obvious results.

So, I think that next time I put on a concert I’m going to canvas people before hand about the date, you never know what it might coincide with.