Skip to main content

Upcoming Concert- Beethoven!

I am excited to get back to work this weekend with the South Bend Symphony. 

It’s been a long vacation.  We welcomed it, and made good use of it- some traveling and a lot of sleeping, mostly, but every day is fun with Zoe. We made Hide and Seek Muffins and French Toast and Ice Cream out of Snow, and played innumerable games of Uno, and hiked and shoveled when the weather permitted and watched movies when it didn’t.  

Our family needed the break desperately, but after three snow days - right as school was supposed to begin again - extended our vacation another week I am intensely ready to get back to a routine of regular orchestra work.  My private students all came back this week, and the college kids will start up soon - but the playing is really what it’s about, isn’t it? 

So we go back to work tomorrow morning.  This will be the first non-Christmas orchestral playing I’ve done since mid-November!  I hope I remember how to maintain a tempo without the aid of sleigh bells. 

The Chamber Orchestra is playing Beethoven - the Second Symphony.  This seems like a perfect way to come back - it’s not easy playing, not at all, but gratifyingly rich material that feels good to play.  There’s something inevitable about playing Beethoven - the entrances can be unexpected but when you put the notes in the right place they just FIT so perfectly.  Playing Beethoven with a good group feels satisfying - like running with someone, separating to go two opposite directions around an obstacle, and coming back together exactly in step.  It doesn’t always work that way - it’s not always that easy - and that’s why we rehearse and why we can feel challenged even playing the same pieces we’ve played many times before. 

ALSO, we have a guest conductor!  With infinite respect for our Maestro, I will say that I am looking forward to meeting David Glover and experiencing a different energy and a different vibe.  Not like a substitute teacher, exactly, where there’s an air of “What can I get away with here?”   More like “What Fun, to play familiar music on a familiar stage with familiar colleagues - DIFFERENTLY!” 

I think I’m being a little incoherent.  I’ve barely written in the past few months - even privately, much less on this blog - and to do so again feels difficult.  As this year goes on we’ll see whether I pop back into a regular writing schedule or whether this particular creative outlet has run its course for me. 

Meanwhile - come out and see us this Sunday afternoon!  Details HERE.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Idle Thought

I should be practicing right now. Putting in the hours to prepare for my audition on Monday. But this morning before I left home to teach I chose to use my time making a chicken salad that we could eat for the rest of this busy week, and now after my Notre Dame student I am cheerfully enjoying my lunch at the local coffee house, Zoe snoozing beside me in her car seat. Sometimes it's healthier to use your time taking care of yourself instead of your reeds. Or at least I hope so...

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

We took a vacation this summer.   This is not news to anyone in my life - anyone who knows me or especially Steve on Facebook followed along with all of our pictures.   We took our travel trailer out to Arizona - via St Louis, Tulsa, Amarillo, Roswell, Santa Fe - and then stayed a week in Clarksdale and Flagstaff and visited some ancient pueblo ruins, Sedona, Jerome, the Lowell Observatory, the Grand Canyon.   We swam in swimming pools, lakes, and icy mountain streams.   We hiked.   Eventually we came home again, via Albuquerque, Amarillo, Tulsa, and St Louis. (our inventiveness had somewhat worn out).   After a week at home we took another trip, and drove to Vermont via western NY and the Adirondack Park (stayed an extra day to hike a mountain), lived four days in East Franklin VT, and came home via Catskill and eastern Ohio.   This vacation felt different from all of our previous ones.   In the 21 years we’ve been married, I can name only one - maybe two trips we ever took t

How Do You WISH You Could Describe Your Reeds?

In Reed Club last Monday, we took a moment before we started scraping to set some intentions.  We each said one word - an adjective to describe what we WANTED our reeds to be.  An aspirational adjective. Efficient was a word that came up, and Consistent . Dark and Mysterious . Mellow . Predictable .  Trustworthy .  Honest .  BIGGER . Reed affirmations actually felt helpful - both in the moment and in the results we found as we worked.  I don't know why that surprises me - I set intentions at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the month, at the beginning of a run, in the morning before I work.  I love a good affirmation.  I love WORDS.  But I'd sort of forgotten about the possibility of applying one to the mundane work of reed-making.   You don't have to know exactly how to GET to that result.  But having clarity in your mind about what that result is?  Helps you to stop going down unhelpful rabbit holes.  Reminds you to seek something beyond competent, beyond