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Jul 20

Guten Tag! Diese Woche war großartig!

La musique cette semaine était les maîtres français.

A nuestro director le gustaba incluir otros idiomas en nuestros ensayos.

Ho imparato nuove lingue e ne ho praticate altre.

For those who don’t happen to speak Chinese, German, French, Spanish, or Italian, the gist of it all is this week our conductor loved using languages to help us learn. So in addition to the four languages I dabble in, I was introduced to Chinese. One of her philosophies is, if you learn to count in an unknown language, it will make learning difficult things easier. I don’t know how it worked, but it did!

As a musician, I have learned that it is incredibly important to have a general understanding of the main languages used in sheet music and by major composers - German, Italian, and French. It was quite an adventure.

This week was Sinfonia with Mei-Ann Chen, conductor and soloist Tae-Yeon Kim, cello. Our repertoire was:

FRANCIS POULENC Les biches
SAINT-SAËNS Cello Concerto No. 1
WITOLD LUTOSLAWSKI Concerto for Orchestra

During rehearsals, Maestra asked us to sing our parts, dance during rehearsal, “lend [her] a hand” (conduct), and take naps. Haha. But actually. She would work on a section with the winds and brass for a while and literally tell the strings to take a nap while she rehearsed!

She was very adamant about preparing us for the real world. With every rehearsal came many critiques and suggestions for auditions and orchestral playing. Rehearsals were tough and took grit, but I benefited from them. The music for this week was extremely challenging and is often not played by orchestras in the United States. Every rehearsal was extremely detailed and focused, and we covered a lot of ground as far as repertoire.

Our soloist this week was amazing! We got to chat for a second and I learned she plays on a cello made by Omobono Stradivari. As I recently studied and wrote a paper about Stradivari, his instruments, and his legacy, I was able to connect with this soloist on a different level. It was pretty cool.

This week, the Pacifica Quartet was visiting. They are an incredible group of musicians, and I was very grateful that I had the chance to hear them perform live.

Also, this week, composer Caroline Shaw was visiting to perform her piece Is a Rose with the high school orchestra. The faculty orchestra performed her The Observatory as well. It was really cool to meet her and learn about her compositions and her experiences performing.

This week I went to three sessions of the Alexander Technique with our teacher Vivian Torres. It was really cool to learn about how the body is involved in performance and playing instruments. I learned how important it is that our bodies are in good health in order to have a good performance. Some of the takeaways I have from this week are:

A musician is someone who translates movement into sound.
Musicians move for a living.
How you move impacts your sound.
Create a repertoire of movement.
We have a 6th sense - kinesthetic movement.

This week was my birthday! I celebrated by practicing, going to the orchestra, ordering yummy food, and being surprised with a cake!

Friday, there was a college and conservatory fair. We had a ton of schools come visit and tell us about their programs! As I am trying to figure out my next steps after my master’s, this fair was very important. I have a good idea of what type of degree I am looking for next and where I would like to go! I collected a bunch of stickers, and it was super fun!

Saturday, there was a faculty member who presented a lecture about music administration and what types of jobs are available, and what each job entails. It was very interesting to learn more about the inner workings of an orchestra, music library, or festival director. I don’t know if a job of this type is what I want to do in my future, but it was great information about options outside of solo performance.

The week has absolutely flown by and I can’t believe there are only two more orchestra performances left of the festival!

Other things this week: