yay macbook!

I"m officially on my new macbook and I LOVE IT.  I can't believe how nice it is to be on a brand new computer...everything is faster, easier. Its fabulous! 

Today I woke up at 7 to practice, then went to school to  listen to Jurys, taught a chamber group, a suzuki cello group class,  came home for a quick dinner, and left for BPO rehearsal.  We are playing Brahms 2 for this concert, and the second movement is kind of driving me crazy. Brahms 2 is a huge cello excerpt and I"ve really spent a lot of time working on it...its not an excerpt that comes easily to me.  For this concert the bowings are completely screwy, and they keep changing, and I"m a little worried about how its going to affect my audition.  Tuesday we were playing the first and second measure as a down bow, then RETAKING and playing 2 more measures down bow. Today we played the first note upbow and the rest of the phrase down bow, then another up bow (one note) and all down bow again.  Its making me crazy, because in my opinion it does not support the phrase line.  

Ok, enough of that rant. I need to go to sleep. I have a lesson with Sato tomorrow...and need to rest up!

busy

Well, I haven't really written in a while. Things are going fine, but I"ve been struggling with general fatigue.  These last few weeks are really packed. Last week was holy week of course, so I had to help out/be at church a lot. This week I have BPO rehearsals, teaching, Juries at school, and a lesson (along with Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra to learn before Friday). Next week is a full  BPO week (4 rehearsals and 3 concerts) and then after the sunday concert I drive to Logan and jump on a plane for KC.  PLUS I have to prep for it throughout this schedule.  I"m trying to balance everything but getting enough sleep is sometimes hard. I did order my new mac, and I'm excited that is coming so that I can have a computer that doesn't crash all the time. Also, my baby Brack case FINALLY got here, so I have a waterproof case again. I am very happy with it! 

Ok, time for bed. Tomorrow I'm hopefully going to be able to get at least 5 hours or so of practicing in before I teach in the afternoon!

I"m home!

I"m home! Today I had a lesson with Stepansky and loved it! I was so excited to take a lesson with the "Barber" man.....E and I had lunch afterwards and off I went home. I hit a bunch of traffic and it took me about 4-4.5 hours to get home. I am hoping to apply some of his techniques and go back to NY in 2 weeks.

Tomorrow is sadly the opening day for the Red Sox which means complicated driving for me. I HATE the red sox season...I wish they would move to Maine or something. I have BPO tomorrow night (string sectional....Brahms 2 and Prokofiev Symphonia Concertante) so tomorrow I have to go over those and prep for KC!

NY PHIL

Well, its Saturday and yesterday was my audition. On Thursday I spent much of the day practicing because I felt that I had a lot more to do to prepare (for such a big list/big audition) that I sort of freaked out about everything and E had to take the cello away from me and send me to bed! :-) I just felt like it was such a big audition that it was totally spooking me and I probably would have stayed up all night primping my excerpts. (Or hid under the bed all day....) My check in time at Avery Fischer was 8am so I tried to be in bed and asleep by 930, but unfortunately I struggled to sleep most of the night. I woke up every 1 to 2 hours or so thinking about how much longer I had to sleep.  

     Friday morning I called a cab and was at the stage door at about 7:40am. Ironically another TMCer walked in right after me (and another one was in my round). Its a small world I guess.  There were 6 of us in the 9am round and we pulled numbers to get our order. I pulled a 4 so that gave me a good amount of time to warm up. After we pulled numbers we were each brought to our own dressing room.   Seven minutes before we were to play (on the stage no less!) we were brought to a "holding room" and shown the excerpts we were going to be playing, along with the order. I had planned to play Dvorak for my solo (and had the prelude of the 2nd suite and gigue of the 3rd suite for bach). I found out I could choose my solo, so I decided to go with the Gigue of the 3rd suite first, becuase I knew it was my strongest excerpt. I have had some problems with my 1st finger cracking/splitting/cutting and my shifts have been a little unsure lately (due to playing with or without a wrapped finger...or due to my having to compensate around the cuts). I hadn't really practiced the Gigue much, but I knew it had been strong for my TMC audition, so I went with it.

     I walked out on stage and saw that there was a really long screen (I"d seen them setting it up on the dressing room  monitors ) and I think there were something like 10 or 15 chairs behind the screen (3 banquet tables worth at least).  There was a long rug leading up to the chair which had been placed at the end of the stage facing the side of the stage where the committee was sitting. I started with the Bach and thought it went really well. The committee asked for an additional solo-spacifically my concerto so I played the Dvorak. The Dvorak was OK, but again a little unsure from time to time due to the finger issues. (I believe)

Next I was asked to play Ein Heldenleben. The 2 excerpts they wanted from it are usually very strong for me, but for whatever reason I missed the first shift...a really stupid move as its not one I've ever struggled with. The rest of the excerpt went ok, and they skipped the second excerpt and moved on to Prokofiev's romeo and juliet. I was sort of bummed because I can really nail the bottom of the 2nd page of the Strauss, but I soon realized the comittee really didn't follow the order we had been given.

Prokofiev seemed to be a bit of a disaster for me. This was the one excerpt I didn't prep much in the last week because the bandaid situation made the shifts so hard to do. I had a measure in the middle that was totally out of control and although I recovered, I felt that maybe the damage had been done. Lastly, I played the first 2 pages of Smetana's Bartered Bride, and felt they went pretty well. 

     I didn't progress, (no one did in my round), but after talking to one of the BSO members I"m trying to figure out (beyond the mistakes here and there) what I'm missing to progress in these auditions. He was sort of shocked that I didn't progress, and that sort of shocked me because I had not even thought about it, I guess in my head I didn't think I was going to progress...and I'm wondering if that might be the problem. I'm sort of kicking myself that I didn't go into it thinking I could...UGH. Every once and a while I become totally spooked with my playing and where I am (when I've come from virtually starting at 22) and I never think I"ll actually "get there."  This is the second audition where I've gotten a surprised reaction from someone that really knows what they are doing.  I think my next job is to go home and start practicing for KC with the thought that I really can win it. NY was a great experience for me because it has begun to change my mindset for the future...Here goes!