The Many Stories of Bill Fitzpatrick: My first orchestra job in France

So I'd recently arrived in Paris and decided to find work by having coffee with American expats. One of them put me in touch with this French conductor, who invited me to come to come play for him at his home. I arrived and we talked a bit, his English was quite good, I played for him and he hired me to be principal second in his orchestra. So it was a few days later at the first rehearsal and I was surprised as everything was in French... one would have thought I would known this but... He would say things like to go to "measure quatre-vingt deux" and of course had no idea where that was. So I looked at the concertmaster, they would play a few notes and I would know where they were to go and start playing. Well it was the 3rd rehearsal and I was muttering in english that I couldn't keep doing this and then my stand partner said in perfect English "No keep it up! You're doing just fine!"

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