A Grieving Post

I am currently in deep, deep mourning for the fact that summer is over. O-V-E-R. My first day of classes is next Wednesday, my orchestra audition is Thursday, and the first orchestra "meeting" (this will be my fourth at BU) is Friday.

What really amazes me is that this is my fourth year at BU, and by the end of this year, I will have been here just as long as I was at Eastman. However, for whatever reason, it doesn't seem that long yet. Probably because time is going faster with each passing year.

And while I'm on that subject, what the heck happened to summer 2009? I feel like the months of June, July, and August never happened, and I keep waiting to wake up and realize its actually only June 1st.

(sigh)

I spent the past six days in Sidney, ME, coaching violin sectionals and chamber music groups for the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra's season starter camp. It was a lot of fun, I met some great people, great kids, and I now have been given the following photocopies to add to my music shelf (all rep listed is first AND second violin parts):

ALL of Don Giovanni - the ENTIRE opera
ALL of Bartok Concerto for Orchestra
ALL of Beethoven 5 (I now own all Beethoven symphonies except 2 and 8)
Swan Lake Suite
ALL of Peter and the Wolf
the fourth mvt of Mahler 5

I reorganized all my orchestra music about two weeks ago, so when I got all this music in the mail I was REALLY excited - I didn't own any of it except parts of the fifth mvt for the Bartok. I don't know if its normal to be so excited about getting a huge envelope of music that I won't be performing any of anytime soon, but to me it was like a gift.

Here's a fun picture I truly enjoy:

Happy Birthday.......

......to my little sister, Hannah dearie! She is getting through another 12-hour shift in her ER rotation today. Ugh.

Here is a lovely picture of the birthday girl.....

I had all these great plans to go to BU and do this elaborate, long post about my trip home for the wedding and CCE's grand tour, but its been two weeks since I've been back in Boston and I have yet to accomplish that. Sorry - it will happen, it'll just be old news.

As much as I am loving the lazier days, the relaxing, and the massive amounts of sleeping, I'm starting to go a little bit stir crazy. Fortunately, the next week is going to be a bit more active. My parents are arriving today from home (they drove) to see the Boston Braun/Hill people, and will be here till Wednesday morning, so that is lovely. In addition, I'm going with them down to Washington DC on Wednesday - my dad got a grant to do some research at the Library of Congress, and as fortune would have it, Hannah Ruth is meeting us down there as well! What a lovely last minute surprise. Although the rotation that makes this possible for Hannah is her ER rotation - yuck - she works 12-hour shifts three days a week, and has the entire next Thursday - Tuesday free - I am so happy to see her and my parents again this summer. We will be touring some sights, and I also hope to help my dad with some of his research, since I one day hope to be a Dr. Braun as well.

My other plan this summer is to do a total complete re-haul of my room. I haven't moved the boxes underneath my bed since I moved in, so its time. Its way overdue, in fact.

Ah, summer..............

A Brief Summary

Although it has been many weeks now since my last post, many many things have happened, which I will be more than happy to share. However, I would like to include pictures and video (!!) in the full layout post, and my sad sad internet here at home is simply not capable of such things. So I will be making a trip to the BU with my laptop in order to give a full version of the past several weeks. A sister's wedding and a trip with dear dear friends deserves a long post with lots of multimedia inserts, in my opinion.

Many of you have probably already seen some of the pictures from the wedding from Hannah's blog.

As a preview, here is one of my favorite pictures from my camera.

I'm sorry for the lack of posts. I'm in Milwaukee helping Holly and my family with last minute prep for her wedding this Friday to Anthony Schmidt, June 26th.

The next post I put up they will be married and I will have pictures!

Game Night, June 2009

I am not sure many of you know, but Molly and I host a game night once a month. Or, at least we tried to, and did during the fall 2008 semester, but this past spring semester was so crazy for us it was more like twice a semester. In any case, our dear friends Jesse Barrett and Bob Mollicone have graduated and are leaving Boston for good very soon, so we had a final official game night in their honor tonight. I put my camera on a timer and we took this picture. Now that I see it, I wish we had done this after every game night. However, I am grateful for this one. Even though they are leaving, it won't be our last game night - but we will miss them terribly.

As Emily, a fellow BU masters and now DMA violin student says, "People will come, and leave, and come back again, and leave again, and we'll STILL be here." 

We are still here, and can't wait for those dear ones to come back again.

Bridesmaid Dresses: A Post of Gratitude

I have played for two weddings in the past two days. They were both incredibly extravagant, beautiful, wealthy weddings. However, something that was incredibly disappointing in both of them were the bridesmaid dresses.

I'm not skilled enough with words to describe them accurately - yesterday's were light green and short, with the top to the waist kind of billowing out before falling straight to the knee. Today's were of a very shiny, clingy material that no one looks good in, silver, and had an empire waist. None of the girls (three yesterday, seven today) were the proper body type for these types of dresses. However, the dresses were such that I don't know if anyone would really look good in them. And all girls had the same dress.

I'm not sure if many of you know about the bridesmaid dresses that the six bridesmaids of Holly and Tony's wedding are wearing (maid of honor Angie, Heidi, me, Hannah, Veronica, and Tony's sister Heidi). I will tell you now. They are all apple (dark red) colored, and we each were to choose a style that we wanted. We six bridesmaids are all very different body types. So it was with much gratitude to Holly that we were able to choose dresses that looked appropriate and flattering to each of us. I think we all choose well.

I have been very lucky. By this time in two weeks, I will have acted as a bridesmaid three times. (I know I know, always a bridesmaid, never a bride. I've heard it before, trust me.) They are all beautiful, tasteful dresses I will wear again and again (see the ones for Mary and Holly in upcoming recitals for my DMA - for Heidi's I wore my dress so repeatedly in high school - three different dances and a Prism weekend - that it is now retired).

I would like to take the time to personally thank Heidi, Mary, and Holly for excellent taste, judgement and kindness to their bridesmaids. 

Unfortunately, the bridesmaids for the past two weddings I've played for are not so lucky.

Martino

About his Seven Pious Pieces (choral work written in a serial style) he writes :

"A traditional tonal analysis of any of these songs can be made by anyone who is ingenious in the application of secondary-dominant labels and/or who is a fanatic."

Since I'm not ingenious in the application of secondary-dominant labels, I must be a fanatic. 

Good to know.

My Twenty Cents/Happy Anniversary!

One of things that makes me incredibly sad is that across the street from CFA is a Starbucks. This particular Starbucks no doubt does incredibly well, considering all that happens at the CFA building, and the amount of people that simply walk across the street to get their coffee. Its ALWAYS crowded. The reason I am sad is because if it was a small, privately owned coffee shop, it would do very well, but instead its a Starbucks.

There is a reason for all of this, I assure you.

I have been very good on the not-buying-coffee-but-making-it-at-home front lately. Incredibly good, actually - even last week, for my three days of jury duty where I had to get up around 7 (6 on Tuesday), I always made coffee and brought it with me in the cute, non-spill travel mug Molly gave me for my birthday (which I love). Anyway, today, after step class, I was dragging and had a lesson to teach yet, so I decided to get a coffee at the Starbucks across the street. I don't necessarily love their coffee, but its better than some, so I was looking forward to the little treat.

Now, when I DO get coffee from Starbucks, I usually get the smallest size they sell - called a short. I don't need a whole tall (aka small) coffee, and the short size, which is really like a kids size, is much more what I prefer. It is also 20 cents cheaper than a tall. Twenty measly cents is not a lot to some people, especially to Starbucks as a whole, but its enough to me to take a stand. 

So today, I asked for a short coffee. The guy working gave me a short coffee. Then asked for $1.73. I KNOW that a short size costs $1.53. I told him this. He told me that it has never been $1.53. I said that couldn't be possible, that I have certainly paid twenty cents less for a short before. The other guy working said, "Dude, you're wrong. She's right. You messed up." First guy looked at me, and said, "Its only twenty cents." I simply replied, "To me, thats a lot." He gave me a look of disgust, but handed me back the correct change. 

Come on. Like Starbucks NEEDS my twenty extra cents. I need twenty extra cents from them. I was so mad. What a jerk. Wonder who else he's ripped off lately. 

Its really really just too bad its a Starbucks across the street. It would be nice to promise that I will boycott that particular store, but I know I would break that promise by the time school starts again. Its the nearest coffee shop for about three blocks to the building I walk in every single day during the school year. 

Anyway.

Happy 3 year anniversary to Mary and Daniel! I was reminiscing often today. Can't believe its been 3 years......

Little dearies.

In honor of my darling baby nephew's nine-month birthday today, here is a picture of him and me from about three weeks ago when I was watching him for an afternoon. I haven't posted a picture of him since Christmas, although Hannah did post one from her spring break visit. Isn't he adorable? Such a happy little boy!

And this one is from a couple days later, when I had them both together. Adelaide is a wonderful big sister, and Finnis adores her - no one can make him laugh like she can.

I should be doing millions of other things than posting cute pictures of the wonderful children in my life, but whatever. They're much more interesting and important. Click on them to make them bigger - they seem a little small but I'm not sure how to solve that issue.

A List

1. School is done.

Yes, thats right, another year is over, and my twenty-first will begin in September 2009. Surviving this year was quite a test, but I did it. Hopefully years twenty-one and twenty-two will be better. 

2. Summer has begun.

I have two words for that:

Thank God.

3. I did my civic duty this week.

I was called for Tuesday morning and was put on a jury that afternoon for a lawsuit against the Administrative Courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A woman slipped on a courthouse stairway in downtown Boston in January of 2005, and was suing for negligence to clean the steps properly, claiming they were covered with snow and salt. We found them not negligent (if anyone wants to know why give me a call - its too much to put here). It took Wednesday and Thursday to come to a decision, and I must say, I enjoyed it and it was very educational and actually interesting. I will also say that after watching lots of Boston Legal over the past couple years, Boston's actual courthouses are not nearly as beautiful and majestic like they are portrayed on television, Boston lawyers are not nearly as sexy as Brad or Denise, and the Boston judge was not nearly as funny as Clark Brown. In addition, no one was a hoot with a capital H, thats not what they were. However, I still did not mind it and was even a little bit proud to do my civic duty. And also am quite happy that I will not be called upon again to do it for the next three years.

4. Holly and Tony's wedding is in three weeks.

I'll be leaving with Heidi and Finnis on June 19th for Milwaukee. I cannot wait!

5. Hannah's had some bat trouble.

Go to her blog to read about it, posted on June 3rd.

 

6. My first DMA recital happened.

Only four more to go! It went well, despite the fact that I had an incredibly bad cold and Klaudia had the flu. Thanks to Heidi's advice on drugs to fight coughing fits during performances, I didn't cough even once. The rest of the week was really bad on the sleeping front - for whatever reason I couldn't get more than three hours for a few nights in a row - but fortunately that ended.

7. Summer plans are taking shape.

The CCE Tour 2009 is up and running - got music in the mail from Fimby today - and both she and Gave have been busy making plans and we have concerts planned in Arkansas and Oregon - including the stint where Fim and I sub with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Heidi was a member before she came to Boston for college, and I have vivid memories of the ASO's concerts as a child, so this will be quite a nostalgic trip for me. I haven't been to Little Rock in 17 years.

I'm done with the list for now. I'll start trying to update better.

Stay tuned - now that the trial in which I was a jury member is over, I have the free time to let the rest of the world and dear friends know that I haven't died or disappeared forever. Post to be written later today. For now, I have so much laundry that I must walk to the corner laundromat and do that. Molly left this morning for Indy to see her sister Aubrey graduate from high school, so its just me, the MK, and fishies Couperin and Quantz for a few days!

I am a terrible friend. In the process of having a terrible cold and playing my recital on Sunday night, I completely and utterly forgot David Gerstein's birthday on May 24th. Thanks to Mary's blog, I have now been sufficiently reminded.

Happy Birthday, David! 

ps - nobody but me remembered your 22nd bday, remember? i hope that saves me this time. I'm so sorry!

Everyone should go see the new Star Trek movie. Right now.

I promise more posts are coming.....I'm not feeling very inspired lately.

Hannah

Congrats to Baby H (as David calls her), new owner of a Bachelors Degree!

I'm so proud of you!

Another year is over.

It was long. It was hard. Many things good, a couple bad, but overall, I'm ok.

I feel stuck, though.

I need a new chapter in life. I've been stuck in the same one since college started.

Its good that there are only a couple more years of school even POSSIBLE for me, or I'd be stuck this way till I was forty. Oh, lord.

I guess the new chapter will be here soon enough. Well, not soon enough, since its not now. 

May 1st

Happy Birthday Mary Keener!

Too much to do. Am tired. And stressed. And sad. Just want to sleep for the next few weeks, if thats ok.

Lucia di Lammermoor

This week is opera week at BU, and I'm actually having a blast. Its always hard for the orchestra, because while there are two casts that switch off every other night, there is only ONE orchestra, and we're playing EVERY night (dress reh last night/tonight and then performances for the next four nights). I am already starting to get some left arm pain, especially today. However, as much as I should be really annoyed (and worried about my arm), I'm just having too much fun. Great music, good friends are playing too, and for the Fri/Sun cast, my very own freshman RA from the dear ol' ESL, Jim Barbato, is the lead tenor (Edgardo). He sounds wonderful!  I was hoping Tanya would be coming to see him this weekend, and I would get to see her too, but it sounds like she has big recitals up in Rochester this same time, and won't be able to come down. Too bad.

To see an example of what fun this opera is, go here.

And, as luck would have it, the MET production of Lucia is on PBS right now. Awesome.

(Happy birthday Heidi!)

(I'm going to start being better at blogging, I really am......)

April is in full swing, and with it comes that time of year when school becomes suddenly thrust into the number one priority. Unfortunately, I do so many things BESIDES school that as much as I try to practice for lessons and keep up with theory homework, a lot of other things get in the way (although I'd much rather do those other things). 

Here are things I must do in the next three weeks:

1) I have to finish a whole theory portfolio by May 1st. This includes: five analysis papers, 8 chorale tunes that must be harmonized in four voices and analyzed (all in the style of JS Bach, of course), my presentation work, and the handouts and bibliographies given for all the OTHER presentations. Dr. Cornell's idea is that this portfolio gives each student the adequate study materials for the Theory Exam for DMA's. A great plan, but of course, this means I have to DO it. Oh lord. 

2) Taxes. I have started them online, and am building two hours into my schedule for the next few days until they are done. This is the first time I am doing them on my own (although I'm sure a phone call or two to my dad will be happening). Having one job would make taxes for me very easy, but unfortunately, I have 1099s from every gig I did over the past year that paid enough to be taxed. Its great to be a freelance musician in this city, but it takes a lot of organizing once tax time comes, since I file as as self-employed owner of my own business. HB Inc. 

3) My DMA Chamber Music Recital is May 24th (in honor of Gavid Derstein's 25th bday, of course). We have started rehearsing as much as we can fit in, since we're playing Beethoven 131 and Bartok 6. Even though the recital date is over a month away yet, we must play a recital permission before May 1st. Yikes. Fortunately, this also counts as a solo jury - thank God. 

4) St. John and St. Matthew Passions were the past two weeks. St. John (at Marsh Chapel) went well, and I'm glad to have finally played it, but St. Matthew (at Emmanuel) was absolutely incredible and I've missed rehearsing it this week. It just never gets old or boring. Never. What fantastic music.

Some other activities I am doing lately:

1) A violist friend of mine is putting on a "just for fun" recital, and the piece I am involved in is Caplet's Conte Fantastique for harp and string quartet. Its based off of the Edgar Allen Poe story "The Masque of Red Death." Its a very picturesque piece - very French. Its been fun to play with a harpist again - the harp used today in rehearsal is exactly like Mary's. I haven't had a chance in these rehearsals yet to see if my harp rendition of Long Long Ago is still in shape. Maybe Saturday I'll give it a try.

2) Opera. Lots and lots of opera. Next week, I will be playing BU's production of Lucia di Lammermoor on Monday afternoon, dress rehearsals Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and performances (two different casts) Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

3) Not getting enough sleep. 

4) Eating a random times.

5) Waiting for spring to come. Today was beautiful weather. Tomorrow evening it will rain. Saturday will be 45 degrees. (sigh) I can't wait for summer.

Also, Molly and I (and MK) signed another renewal lease last week, even though the rent went up slightly. Sept 1st starts my fourth year in this apartment. We talked about it for awhile, and decided we are still happy with our location, still enjoy being roommates, and love the fact that heat is still included in rent so we can crank it up as much as we want to in the winter. Its strange to think that a year from now, May 2010, I will have been here exactly as long as I was at Eastman. Huh.