I’m going to tell you about two times, which is the lifetime sum of contests I have won.
Win #1 | candy
When I was maybe 10 years old, I won one of those party games where you guess the number of candies in a container.
This happened to be a jumbo container of JuJu fish, which are not even my favorite candies. But I remember being delighted that my guess was the closest.
(I’d employed the volume method, where you count how many pieces are in the bottom row and then multiply that by the number of rows you see. This method has never worked for me since which means that my win may possibly have been dumb luck.)
Win #2 | a concerto
When I was in high school, I auditioned for a chance to play a piano concerto movement with a local youth symphony.
The contest happened every other year, which meant I had two chances while in high school.
The first time I tried (a Mozart that year), I did not get chosen.
The second time, my senior year, I auditioned for the middle movement of a Shostakovich piano concerto, and that time, I won!
My sister auditioned for the third movement that year, but she did not get chosen. And because I want wins for all (see yesterday’s post!), her loss dimmed my joy a little bit.
I still had a great time, though (playing with an orchestra is a special treat as a pianist) and I was especially happy when my sister tried again her senior year and won the audition.
I’m attaching the movement I played; give it a listen! It’s not amazingly well-known, but it is really beautiful. I especially love the part at 2:15 when the orchestra comes in after the piano stands alone.
And also the minor section at 3:00; I can still see that page of the music in my mind’s eye.
I could pick a lot of other favorite parts too; just listen to the six minutes of it. 😉
How beautiful!
I remember a VERY stressful audition for the university’s top choir when I was in my final year of undergrad. I had no idea that there was an audition; I’d just signed up for the course. I felt so relieved to be accepted–first, because I’d built my entire schedule around it (!), and second because it really stretched me musically and was an awesome experience.
Aww, a musical win, like mine.
How beautiful and so is that picture of you!
This relates that the competitive prompt from the other day. I won a pie baking contest a the county fair. It was pretty exciting because the competition was stiff. Then I got the bug. Since then I’ve won for my rolls and biscuits. It’s fun.
Thank you!
I would never win a pie baking contest because my pies always look extremely ugly. Ha. Yeast bread would be more my category!
I was a bus kid….the church bus picked us up for Sunday school every week. One summer when I was around 9 they gave us ice cream cones on the way home. After everyone had one, there was enough left for one more. So they let us pick a number between one & a hundred. I picked the exact number. They thought I cheated…I did not! So they made us all pick again & I got the number a second time! Fair & square. I don’t know if they ever really believed that I was not cheating.
I went as a kid to a special movie showing at our local theater for the children of employees of the place where my dad worked. I was with my older sister. A girl she knew came and sat next to me, as my sister was on the aisle seat and I was next seat in. She wanted to talk to my sister, so she bugged me and bugged me to change seats, so I finally did, even though my sister said I didn’t have to. It turned out there was a drawing – I won the top prize because the winning number was under my new seat — that girl’s old seat. She tried to convince me to give her the ultracool transistor radio, but I refused. The radio only lasted maybe a year :), but it was mine.
I went to an open house, put my name in the box for a drawing, and won a handmade stuffed rabbit with a handmade sweater on him. A few years later, our dog chewed pieces out of it. I toyed with the idea of fixing it, but never did.
I bought one ticket for a basket of those expensive home party makeups and skin creams, as part of a holiday fundraiser for a charity. I won, somehow. I offered the products first to my grown girls, telling them to pick everything they wanted. They did, and I was left with a tube of hand cream and the basket. I used the hand cream and used the basket to hold a collection of items for a wedding gift later.
And that’s all I’ve won!
That first story is great!
Thank you for sharing the music link. I enjoyed listening to this piano concerto. I play piano as well. I had the coolest piano teacher. She would bake wonderful piano-shaped cakes for her students if we memorized a set amount of measures of music. I earned several of those piano cakes. They were so delicious. Every one was different…a different flavor of cake or frosting. So delicious! Food was a great motivator for me to memorize music.