First of all, I would like to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone from SP for helping me with this crazy project. It was on a very short notice and they still helped me more than I could have ask for. Support which I was given cannot be compared with anything – it helped me go on when I was feeling exhausted and hopeless, and wanted to give up. But I did not. Thank you, Rachel, Cynthia, Jess, Nat, Nad, Andy and Thomas. Without you, the concert would never have gone so well.

Also the people I worked with directly made me almost cry of joy and thankfulness. 57 people – my friends from the Academy, students like myself, donated not only their time and skills but also their hearts. Some of them gave up sleep for 4 days to prepare the music parts for each instrumentalist, re-writing them from the score by hand ( Magda Lubocka Agnieszka Siemianskowska and Adam Domurat )! And as we were sitting over the music, all smudged with pen ink, zombie-like, drinking yet another coffee/energizer, I once asked „Guys, it’s not that I don’t appreciate, but why on Earth are you doing this?!“ they made big eyes and answered simply „Cause it’s worth it. The music, the kids…It’s all worth it“. Right there and then I realized how many amazing, caring and kind friends I am surrounded with. I never thought all those people are capable of actually devoting themselves to any kind of charity – the trend is to play a lot for a lot of money. And the quality does not matter. So when I saw over 50 people signing up for a charity project, I was amazed. You might not realize how difficult it is to play film music, even for a professional philharmonic orchestra. The amount of work those students (mostly freshmen) put into practicing their parts is unbelievable, especially when one listens to the final effect of it. And it is even more astounding when one realizes that all the preparations were done in only one week.

We finished re-writing the parts on the 22nd of March and the concert was on 30th. I also bow my head to Adam Domurat – my dear friend, who is the founder and conductor of Co-Operate Orchestra. His passion, humble yet strong spirit, incredible charisma and astonishing musical intuition made the rehearsals (even the late-night ones) fruitful, enjoyable and undeniably pleasant. Every time our eyes crossed, either at the beginning of a piece or a solo cue in the middle of one, I would see a huge grin lightening up his face. It was amazing seeing him so happy and fulfilled. He got us together and he kept us together ‘till the very last chord of the last encore. And there were two.

I never expected neither such a big audience nor such an applause. Standing ovation for an orchestra is not something the Aula Nova Concert Hall sees often. Just before saying my presentation, I realized I was nervous for the first time in a very long time… Actually, even though I had spent a lot of time on stage playing, it was the first time I had a stage fright. Maybe because I knew the speech I was about to give would determine if the people who sat in the audience would support S4K with their money or not. It would be a lot easier if those people were at least a little bit connected to the fandom. However, they were not. Absolute strangers, who had never heard of Sanctuary For Kids before. And yet, they opened their hearts and wallets, and donated 1603.44 PLN which might be only 500 CAD, but it is a lot of money for Polish standards, especially considering that it was the very first charity concert benefiting S4K in Poland. I cannot find words, in any language, to express my gratitude to all the people that helped me organize this concert. Could not have done it without you!

Dziękuję!
Love&Peace

Patrycja Kubiak (@PathQ)

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