Thursday, February 08, 2007

Last night, I received a phone call from Prof. Sheila Kibbe, the head of the piano accompanying program here at BU. She had two auditionees today that were not told to provide their own violinist for two of the audition requirements, Beethoven D Major and Brahms A Major violin sonatas. Could I possibly play for them tomorrow?

Woah. I've never done either of them, but I agreed to, and, after skipping class this morning and practicing the first movements of both sonatas, I had rehearsal a bit ago with each pianist. I don't sound that great, but at least I'm playing the right notes, rhythms, and dynamics. The first pianist I rehearsed with is from Korea, and speaks barely a word of English. It took five minutes to get across to her that we only had to do the first movement of each sonata. We played through each, but how do you rehearse with someone in only twenty minutes that doesn't speak English? The second pianist is American and a senior here at BU. With him, we could talk about things here and there, and it was much easier. I feel bad - with him it sounds much better after such little time, but with the girl, it just took too much time to translate. Its unfair. (sigh) Oh well.

Tonight is the orchestra concert. Pavane, American in Paris, Mozart piano concerto, and a new piece by Headrick. Everything should go well except for the Gershwin....its a little shaky, as Kimby could attest to from hearing our rehearsal last Friday.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I did that once...they didn't tell me that I only needed to prepare the first page of this hindemith sonata, and I freaked out completely and tried to do the whole thing. Argh. And I got paid $6.50 for the whole thing.

Who is Headrick?

I should send you the two-channel practice CD and the score for the violin part of ORCHESTER-FINALISTEN...but first I need to order it myself!

Anonymous said...

The violin solo is only about 4 minutes long. The only difficult part is coordinating everything with the tape. I want to perform it this summer in Germany.