I remember my very first high school concert as a nervous director. I went to raise the stand a little after I already started a choir piece. The TOP of the stand came off in my hand, and the choir started snickering. I tried holding stand with left hand and directing with right for a moment, and realized that was not going to work. I stopped, spun around on one foot and held up the top of the music stand and said, “I told Mr Ding (Barbara Vieth Ding) that I felt like I was falling apart today, but didn’t mean this literally!” People laughed, I turned around, we regrouped and started the song again. Holy Man, that was in the fall of 1993….. Long time ago……