Yvonne Caruthers is a cellist in the NSO

I don't take photos during concerts because I'm onstage with the orchestra. I don't take photos during the events I present because I'm too busy presenting. Practicing is so private that we rarely allow anyone to see (or hear) what we're doing. Today I got to the concert hall early to practice and heard an interesting rehearsal taking place somewhere close by. I grabbed my camera and found Paula Akbar and Joe Connell in an empty dressing room rehearsing for their performance tomorrow. She's playing a fiddle tune, and he's playing dumbek (a type of drum). I felt privileged to hear them.

This afternoon we played Stars and Stripes for our encore, and our tuba player, Steve Dumaine surprised us. He played the part that's usually played by the piccolos, but on tuba, in the right octave for him. And we had another surprise: our Associate Conductor, Emil de Cou, starred as Assistant Bass Drum during the Sousa, adding extra "oomph" to the performance.

Tonight (Sunday night when this was written) 15 of us are taking the bus to Fayetteville, 3 hours from Little Rock, so that we can be there for our morning outreach events. We've heard it's a scenic drive, but it will be getting dark around the time we leave so we won't see much.

Our librarian, Marcia Farabee, collects pencil sharpeners. Today she became the proud owner of a triceratops pencil sharpener. You put the pencil in its stomach, turn the pencil to sharpen it and "wind up" the dinosaur at the same time. Then when you put it down, it starts to walk.