Conductor Discovers Mid-Performance That Score on Stand Is Wrong Piece Entirely

Music Director Ingrid Auftakt discovered twelve bars into a performance of Dvořák's New World Symphony that the score on her conducting stand was Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony — the following week's program — a revelation she processed, managed, and resolved entirely in real time without the audience ever becoming aware. 'I looked down for the cello entrance at bar thirteen and saw what was clearly the opening of the Pathétique,' Maestro Auftakt said. 'The time signature was wrong. The key was wrong. The instrumentation was wrong. Everything was wrong. I experienced approximately two seconds of what I can only describe as professional vertigo, and then I just kept conducting.' Auftakt conducted the entire 40-minute New World Symphony from memory, a feat that required recalling not only every tempo, dynamic, and structural detail but also every cue for every instrument across four movements. 'The New World is one of the most performed symphonies in the repertoire,' she said. 'I've conducted it perhaps sixty times. The muscle memory is there. But there's a significant psychological difference between conducting from memory by choice and conducting from memory because the alternative is stopping a performance in front of two thousand people to ask if anyone has the right score.' Her page turner, volunteer Martin Volti, was less composed. 'She whispered don't turn the page during the exposition,' he said. 'Then she whispered actually turn it whenever you want, it doesn't matter. I spent the rest of the performance turning pages of Tchaikovsky at random intervals while she conducted Dvořák. It was the most surreal forty minutes of my life.' The error was traced to the orchestra librarian, who had placed the wrong score in Auftakt's folder during the pre-concert setup. The librarian has offered his resignation, which Auftakt declined, noting that 'everyone makes mistakes, and mine was not checking the score before walking onstage, so we're even.' A recording of the performance has been praised by critics for its 'extraordinary spontaneity and organic phrasing,' qualities Auftakt attributes entirely to 'the adrenaline of conducting from the void.'