praying for sunny days

i know.  i stink.  i told you i’d update and i never did.  but i don’t technically have to be anywhere until 4 this afternoon, so i have no excuse.  click the pictures to enlarge.  and let me know if that doesn’t work for you (i’ve changed how i update my blog, so if i need to revert back, i will, if nobody can see the full-sized images…i realize that you have to log in to facebook to see the full-sized images.  shoot me an e-mail if you don’t want to sign up for facebook – i have an account i don’t use that people think is an actual person named ginger watson, and can give you log-in details so you can see the pictures.)

i got to banff at the end of june, and immediately noticed the beauty surrounding me.  this is rundle mountain, as seen from the road leading to the music building.

within the first week, we (members of the bassoon studio…who else?!) went into town, went to the grocery store, saw wild sausages (tell me if you agree!), hiked up a few mountains (fell down a few mountains), saw a few rainbows, and bonded (and oh yeah, we played a bunch of bassoon…)

(rundle from town, with a church steeple in front)

(everything is captioned in french)

(tell me i’m not crazy by thinking upon first glance that this said “wild sausage” flavor)

(banff as seen from tunnel mountain)

(my battle scar from the first hike)

(the banff springs hotel in the foreground. this is just as we started the uphill part of the hike)

(we hiked to the hot springs.  this is the view from the walk up to the entrance)

(when we got to the hot springs, it started raining.  when we were in the hot springs, there were 2 rainbows that we had to look down on.  as we were walking back to campus, we saw a few more)

(a few shots of the studio…before the hike, getting cold outside of the water, staying warm in the water)

next post…week 2…

i knew it would be a fairly busy summer, as far as bassooning goes.  i had been accepted to (and accepted the offer for) the texas music festival, which is here at UH.  that lasts for a month (may 30-june 28), and includes 6 concerts (2 of the 4 are played twice), not including chamber music performances.  then mom and i were planning on going to the IDRS (international double reed society) convention in provo, UT, which is in the middle of july, for 5 days.  then we’re both playing in the pit for bach to broadway at church.

this morning, however, i got an e-mail saying i’d been accepted to the banff summer masterclass for bassoon, which is held at the banff centre in canada.  one of the teachers there is someone who i would really like a chance to study with, and have been contemplating pursuing an artists diploma with once i finish with my master’s degree, so to have a chance to work with him now is really awesome.  this program runs june 30-july 18.  i have to be there the 29th, so i am leaving houston the day after TMF ends.  

mom has told her sisters, who have indicated that they’d like to come “visit me” in banff, and auntie ellen has told us to just not deal with IDRS and we’ll have a “reunion” in canada.  ha.  

now i have even more to practice, but it’s good.  the folks who are in charge of the masterclass want me to let them know what rep i want to perform while there, and my teacher and i have decided on 2 standards (mozart concerto and saint-saens sonata) and a fun one (mignone concertino, which the teacher i am wanting to study with has recorded).  and i am taking an audition for a symphony in 2-1/2 weeks.  and for TMF, i am preparing the mignone for their concerto competition, which means i have a month to memorize it.  

so much going on, but i really really love it.  really really.

obviously my “resolution” to update more often hasn’t exactly happened (though 2 times in 1 month is pretty good for me, right?).  since school started back up, i’ve been swamped.  the quintet is playing in one of the 2 january operas this weekend, which had rehearsals starting the day before school started back up on the 14th.  since then, we’ve had 6 rehearsals (2 just orchestra, 2 with the singers sitting behind us, and 2 dress rehearsals), and 1 performance, with 2 more performances this weekend (saturday and sunday).  i’m really really looking forward to sunday night when it’ll be over (not that i haven’t thoroughly enjoyed playing in the “psychological thriller” that is The Turn of the Screw (videos of the TV adaptation, if you so wish to watch it, can be found here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, and part 12.  i didn’t warn you how long it was, did i?).

on top of the opera, the quintet is giving a recital on the 2nd of february, so we’ve added rehearsals almost every single day to work on all of our music.  a total of nearly 30 hours extra.  it’s a lot, but it was (is) needed.   add to all that, the fact that both the school orchestra and clear lake symphony have started back up, it means i’m very short on sleep right now.

the biggest thing (to me, personally) that’s going on right now is auditions for summer music festivals.  it means that i have to immerse myself in orchestral excerpts for hours during my practice time every day.  i had my first audition this past wednesday.  my next one is sunday morning (what do you get when you ask for an afternoon audition time?  11:50 AM).  then i have a nearly 2- week-long break before the next one on february 8, and the final one on the 11th.  i’m submitting one taped audition, which i recorded most of yesterday, and spent time (too much time) last night cleaning it up a bit.   this is all really good for me, though.  i finally really truly feel like a performance major (not that i didn’t last semester, but it wasn’t all going on at one time last semester).  i’m enjoying it (even though it is quite taxing in many ways…sleep, being the main one), and am still kind of in awe of myself…i didn’t think i had any sort of work ethic, as far as progressing on the bassoon goes, and now my tuesday, thursday, and friday mornings are spent in the practice room starting at 7:30 (hey…the need for a parking spot trumps the need for sleep, in my opinion).  i feel like i’m “getting it” now…i’m understanding what it takes and what i need to do, and i’m adjusting accordingly.  it’s frustrating at times (it’s not the most exciting thing to be sitting in an orchestra pit at 11 at night going over the same passages over and over again), but the end result is something to be proud of. 

i’m almost done packing my bags to leave in the morning…the only thing left to do is take out the trash (where to, i don’t know…i might just leave it here) and pack my bed. this past week and a half has been interesting…and very productive.

amanda (the clarinet player) and i went to the strip a few times the first few days we were here (cause we knew that once things got started we’d be too busy/too tired to go/want to go). i rode the manhattan express @ the new york new york hotel & casino, which was really fun (though really pricey), and that’s really the only thing i REALLY wanted to do on the strip while i was here.

on tuesday my foot started killing me (it had been bugging me a bit prior to that day, but it got REALLY bad that night). i was still in a great deal of pain wednesday morning, and so i ended up going to the ER to get it checked out. my teacher, cheryl (who is going to be my teacher at UH this year, as well), let amanda and i take her rental to the hospital. while there, they told me they couldn’t do anything and said i had to go to a specialist (then proceeded to take $100 of my parents’ money for the hassle). i went to a specialist the next day (again, using cheryl’s car) and was told it wasn’t broken, but had all the signs of an over-worked stress fracture, and to stay off of it using the seemingly $100 crutches that i got at the ER.

so from then on (okay…from wednesday afternoon on), cheryl worked her schedule around mine so she could pick me up from the dorms and take me back at night, and let me use it if i needed to go somewhere (dinner, walgreens, etc.), which was totally unnecessary of her. but i (and my foot…and my “sherpas” who helped carry my instrument all week) am very grateful for her kindness.

there was the usual drama, with a guy pretty much getting kicked out of the festival 2 days before the concert. first he was in a septet that ended up getting cancelled, partially because it wasn’t coming together, and partially because nobody wanted to do it in the first place. then he didn’t learn his part in orchestra beforehand and kept messing up stuff repeatedly. and he didn’t really want to be here. so i guess that all worked out for the better for all of us (cause the gal who took over his orchestra part rocked it and learned the whole thing in 2 days).

while the conductor was dealing with the guy, we were supposed to be starting rehearsal on one of the pieces i played on. since he was running late, we decided to just play it by ourselves. he walked in, let us play the whole symphony without him, and said “i’ll take your rehearsal and raise you a concert”. so we ended up playing prokofiev’s “classical” symphony Orpheus-style…a rendition that received a standing ovation from the faculty. the concert was the best we played it (which is saying a LOT, since the last rehearsal we weren’t getting the beginnings PERFECTLY…just close). afterwards, cheryl was very complementary of how “with it” i was, and how reliable i had been during the concert…and she told me that she was really glad i came and how in just a week i got even more prepared for school than i was before. always good to hear when auditions are next week…

i learned a lot while i was here…like how much better i practice knowing my teacher is right next door and can hear every note that comes out of my instrument (talk about nerve-wracking! but i got more done in that hour than i probably would have if she hadn’t been smiling at me through the window in the door before moving next door). and i learned that i have to play the weber concerto at seemingly lightning-fast speed cause one of the freshman is supposed to be a monster player…and i don’t want to get beat out by a freshman (who does?!). and i may or may not have learned more about making reeds…but i did get a few nice ones from our bassoon bonding reed-making times at midnight (since one of the girls who was here was teaching us and using our blanks to demonstrate!).

ok. it’s 3 AM now. and i’m tired. we had a sort-of “final hoop-lah” at the house of one of the clarinet teachers of the festival, and i was falling asleep there, but got a kind of second wind from packing. but other than the bed, it’s done, so i’m going to get only 4 hours of shut-eye…hopefully i’ll be able to sleep on the plane.

yes, i am in sin city right now. got here yesterday; won’t get back to houston until the 13th.

i’m here for the las vegas music festival. i’d link you to there if the website was working, but it’s been down since a few days before applications were due in march. we’re staying on the campus of UNLV, in less-than-stellar dorms (though if you compare them to the kirwan/blanding complex at UK, they’re pretty heavenly…but that doesn’t say much). so far today, 3 fire alarms have gone off (my next-door neighbor’s is going off as i type this), we found out they start construction right outside the dorms at 5 AM every day, and i’ve put in over 3 hours of practice time.

one of the clarinet players is going to be starting her masters at UH this fall, and in some random way, mom and i met her before we came up here. she and i have been hanging out a lot – going to get meals together, walking to our meetings/masterclasses together, etc. – and we’re going to play a duet on one of the chamber concerts, as well. i’ve also developed some nice blisters on my feet from walking so much (which makes me NOT look forward to the coming week and a half…if i got blisters in 1 day here, how bad are they going to get the longer i’m here?!).

anywho…i have a lesson and a masterclass tomorrow, and then saturday i’m going to rest, and then probably go to the strip with amanda (the aforementioned clarinet player) – i really want to ride the new york, new york roller coaster. my schedule doesn’t start getting busy really until tuesday when orchestra rehearsals start.

should be interesting. i’m just glad that i thought to bring my air bed, since the mattresses they have here are horrible…

apparently, no matter what i do, i’m going to end up getting hurt.

i was shaping reeds (taking a piece of gouged cane, like this:

and cutting off the excess cane so it looks something like this:
)

in order to do this, you have to use an x-acto knife (i tried a cheap-o knock-off version and it didn’t do crap). well, i was almost done with my last piece and i sliced my thumb. i didn’t slice it off, but i got a nice, long, bleeding cut on my thumb that hurts when i move it (not to mention the soreness that my knuckles felt from all the shaping and profiling work…).

then, i was profiling cane (making it look like this (the middle one):
)

i got to rehearsal and my right hand ring finger (where i ALWAYS have my class ring…i don’t take it off) was hurting. i looked at it and saw this HUGE blister on it. it was above my ring, with a large callous (that i’ve had for a while and it doesn’t ever really bother me) below my ring. not comfortable. and because of the muscle that profiling needs, my double-jointedness in my knuckles was accentuated, my entire hands pretty much hurt, my wrists were sore…and i was VERY glad when we got out of rehearsal an hour early.

about 2 weeks ago, i was tying some reeds (to form the tube…this whole reed making thing is a long and drawn-out process) and stabbed myself with a wire and still have a scab on my thumb from doing it.

and at amy’s wedding (well…not at it, but at the bed & breakfast we were staying at), i was taking a shower and trying to open my shower gel. it took a while for me to get it open, and when i finally DID get it open, i did something to my left thumb (the same one that i had previously stabbed with a wire, and that i just cut today) that the only way i can really describe is to say that the skin separated from the nail close to the tip (painful, and it caused some bleeding under the nail, but not life-threatening or anything like that).

so yeah…i seem to get hurt wherever i go and whatever i do. i just can’t seem to avoid it.

when i ask if you’ve played Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with 100 high schoolers?

if you can, you were most likely in the orchestra at tonight’s HSPVA concert.

i mean…really. a high school orchestra. playing Beethoven’s 9th. in it’s entirety. with full chorus. not your every day occurrence. especially when it’s done well.

that was my night tonight. it was pretty much amazing.

so this week is grad school week for me…going from town to town auditioning…kinda. I was supposed to go to Louisville on Thursday for a lesson (I already auditioned there at the beginning of February, and got an A+). I got sick Wednesday night so I skipped the trip to Louisville. I was planning on going to Lexington after my lesson to see all the cousins, and was really sad when I had to cancel those plans. But when, after taking it really easy on Thursday, I was feeling much better, I went up to Lexington on Friday anyway. On Saturday I had to get back for the final women’s basketball game of the season. It was at 7, so I was planning on leaving Kentucky at 4 local time (at the latest). Well, 4:30 rolled around and I was still playing with Bethany and Elijah. And I hadn’t yet packed my stuff, which was over at Susan’s. fun, huh? So I ended up leaving Kentucky at about 5:30 local time (I got moving then…there was a wreck on man o’ war that slowed me down QUITE a bit. And add to that, it was raining the whole way back…so I got to the game about halfway through the first half (or, a quarter of the way through the game). We were losing pretty badly, and were down 14 at the half. Thankfully we pulled out a really good 2nd half to win, keeping us undefeated at home (the ladies’ home winning streak is now 23).

I got back to my apartment from the game and had the task of unpacking from KY, repacking for me week-long excursion to 2 completely different climates (Washington, DC, and Houston). I was also wanting to do a load of laundry so I’d have more clean clothes.

So I started packing, and then I got hungry so I made myself some pasta. Then I remembered that I needed to burn some DVDs for my mom, so I started doing that, only to have my computer reject the clearly blank DVD-Rs so I was unable to do that (sorry, mom). Then I took a shower (who wants to stink on a plane? Not me). I had to leave around 5 since my flight was at 7. So I didn’t go to sleep either. I called carissa to come get me and we went on our merry way to the airport.

I got to the airport and my flights were still on. (a sidenote…I am flying jetblue to DC). I got in the plane to go to JFK and set up my directv (every seat on every jetblue flight has directv. Pretty sweet, as long as there’s something good on). I woke up when the captain announced we were beginning our final descent into NYC. So much for in-flight entertainment…

We got to NYC a bit early and they were telling where connecting flights’ gates were, and there was no mention of a flight to DC. None. So I turned on my phone and lo and behold, there was a message from the jetblue rep from Nashville telling me that my flight to dulles had been cancelled. Woo.hoo.

I got off the plane and went to a ticket desk and was told that there was only one more flight scheduled out to DC tonight and it was likely to get cancelled, as were flights out tomorrow as well. Not fun. so then I heard about the train. Well, and also the greyhound bus. But my smart and loving parents thought about the fact that, if it’s snowing as bad as they say it is, a bus is not likely to get there successfully. So I made a friend with a girl who was on my flight to DC and we decided to go find a way to DC ourselves. We got a taxi and told him to take us to Penn Station (where Amtrak is). A half hour later and a few lives lost (stupid taxi drivers, even those in tahoes, make you feel like you’re going to die!), and he dropped us off at Grand Central Station. Boo. He left before we could even ask questions. So we talked to a lady in GCS and found out that we were at the wrong place, and ended up taking another taxi ride (including tips, the 2 rides cost us a total of $75) to Penn Station. We stood in line, the guy in front of us just stood there and puked on the floor…eww…and got our train tickets ($111 each…the greyhound was only $34 to DC…but again with the whole “it might not make it” thing).

We’re in Maryland right now. We’ve also been through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. So I get to add 3 states to my visited list that I really shouldn’t have been able to add had it not been for the weather and jetblue’s cancellations…

Oh, and plenty of times I’ve looked out the train windows only to see white…blizzard-ish conditions, I suppose. At the last stop it looked as though there was probably about 3 or 4 inches on the ground. It’s really beautiful…but the weather channel was saying all last week that DC would be in the 50s today. Boo. Stupid weather men/women.

We’ve got one more stop between here and DC (the end of the line), so I’ll be there shortly. The 3 hours that I’ve been on this darn thing has gone by fairly quickly. All thanks to animal crossing.

after australia, i came back to nashville.

i managed to sit through only a total of 1/4 of the entire time christmas at belmont was going on (does that make sense?!)

i drove home and on the first day of driving didn’t even make it to memphis before i almost fell asleep at the wheel…

i found out tim has an entire cabinet full of alcohol

i decided on a few more grad schools to apply for: louisville, houston, and george mason, on top of arkansas (and just to make dr. schallert happy i’ve kinda talked with a few people at northern colorado, but i don’t think i’ll pursue it…in fact i pretty much know i won’t pursue it since they’re not really all that good at communication over there)

i had a lesson with the other professor at houston (not jeff, who i took lessons from in HS) and liked her a lot

i saw farah twice. woohoo!

i drove all the way back to nashville in one day

on my way home a rock hit my windshield and now i have 1 big crack and one itty bitty one, both right in my field of vision

i got asked to run a record label

i turned down said opportunity and couldn’t be happier about my choice…now if the “asker” could realize that i said no, i’d be even happier!

i got a wii

i’ve been practicing more

i have an audition at louisville on saturday

i’ve been sick almost every day (or at least feeling sick every day) and it’s not fun. not fun at all.

up until, oh, last month, anyone who knows me can pretty much tell you that i was all against grad school. whenever someone asked, i answered “heck no”. but everything changed when i went home for fall break a few weeks ago. i had a lesson with my teacher from high school, and in that hour of trying out reeds and sightreeding duets, i was challenged more than i have been since i started college (save for the one semester at UK that peter was out on sabbatical).

so i’m leaving today to drive over to fayetteville, arkansas to meet with the bassoon professor there (and other faculty as well) to see if it would be a good place for me to study to get my masters in performance. my how things change. i’ve been getting to school earlier on tuesdays and thursdays to give myself time to practice (i usually get about 45 minutes in before class starts). and in between my 11:00 and 2:00 classes i’ve been sitting in a practice room working through etudes. again, if any of you know me you know this is very uncharacteristic of me…dr. gregg, the orchestra direector at belmont, has told me (and my parents) that i’m the best non-practicer that he’s had. ha!

so yeah, that’s what i’m doing with my weekend…if any of you were wondering…