October 2004

October 28, 2004 21:44

I am in Liverpool airport at the moment. I just had a first. I already had many weird requests by security personal, at one airport they actually asked me to play at some point. But today they decided I was not allowed to travel with my strings HELLO I need those to play on. They have been persisitent, so all my strings are now in a envelope on the way back home, I have to go buy 2 new sets (one for on the fiddle and one spare set, awaiting the ones to come). And this all happened at the ungodly our of 5 am. You would expect my mood to be less than good right now, but nothing is less true. Ofcourse I gave them a hard time at the security, even spoke to the manager, but they would not let me through with the strings...
However I played yesterday for Maestro Schwarz. It had been 5 years since he had first heard me in Seattle and after I had heard a recent concert, I decided it was time for me to play for him again. I started out with the Tchaikovksy concerto. It was fun, we worked a little bit from a real orchestral point of view, something completely different from what you hear from violinists. He had recently performed it with Joshua Bell, so I got the scoop on what he does and doesn't do. After I played the Tchaikovksy in its entirety, we went on with the Mozart D Major concerto. Mr. Schwarz went behind the piano and we worked a lot on phrasing from the harmonic view instead if the more horizontal line. After that I played some Bach, untill we got kicked out of the Philharmonic. It was awesome!
earlier this week I had a lesson with Mr. Perlman, but I'll write about that another time, cause my plane is boarding.
Greetings from Liverpool!

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October 21, 2004 04:53

I am not dong so well yet on the 6 hours a day thing. I think I need to make that contract that Laurie has for her students. But I have been practicing every day and more impressive, every day either at 7am in the pool, or working out in the gym...
This past week I had an amazing rehearsel with Ton Hartsuiker, the former director of the Amsterdam and Utrecht Conservatories. He is a pianist and specializes in 20th century music. I am playing at a concert on November 7th in Amsterdam with him the 1st violin sonata of Willem Pijper. For everybody that does not know it: get the music: it is a very beautiful sonata. It reminds quite a bot of Debussy, but still has a lot of identity of his own. Mr. Hartsuiker has played this piece for many years, and it is a lot of fun to work with him.
This weekend I will be travelling to Zurich in Switzerland where Mr. Perlman is playing a concert. I will also have a lesson with him, which has been a while. I am very excited to see him again and to play for him. Also I am meeting up with the owner of the violin and my best friend is also coming to Zurich where we will be spending the weekend in a nice hotel, doing all girls stuff, like whirlpool, sauna... I do have to practice, but who says life as a musician is stressful. As long as you don't get stressed over delayed plains and such, then it is quite ok.

Today I sat down and used excel to come up with a balanced plan for preperation for the competition. I am going to work in units of 45 minutes each. Depending upon the schedule of the day, I will have up to 11 units a day. This should help me get things in my fingers. The only thing that could get in my way is the fact that my neurologist called and said he would like me to go back into the hospital for a while for some tests, and the planning right now would be in the week I would be flying to Korea. So I asked him if it would be possible to change it and he is going to try. I have to say, I find it much more difficult to motivate myself now, knowing that there is a chance I have to go back to the hospital, even if it is only for a week. But till now it has not beaten me down and it won't either. I will keep on fighting and I really hope everything will be ok, so I can return to Juilliard in January without any problems. However, any prayers from you are very welcome!

I got to go practice again... I have 5 more units today! :)

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October 13, 2004 14:44

Ok, I am going to make a covenant with the people that actually read what I write... So, I have a competition in less than a month, I still have to start learning halve of the pieces and start dusting the other ones.
I have been so worried about what will happen if I do not return to Juilliard, how I am going to make a living and the fact that I desperately want to go to the Queen Elisabeth competition (since I was about 7 years old) and need time to prepare. So I have been torturing myself with looking at orchestral auditions and then deciding that it was not what I really wanted or that I was not good enough for it, but in the mean while I lost again days on looking through excerpts, and even more time just on the internet.
So my vow is to actually practice from tomorrow on 6 HOURS A DAY as a minimum. Please keep me accountable for my behavior, if you see too many posts of mine, I am most likely not practising and that is what I want to keep from happening.
Oh, and the other thing is... I want to loose 4 kilos (about 9 pounds) before I go to Korea and work out every day...
And I need to stop worrying about money (if I do well in Korea that problem is solved, and otherwise something will happen too, it always does...)
Yes, I have gone crazy, but since I have not been in school my discipline has completely left me and utter chaos when it comes to violin has entered my life. But I am changing that right now... So PLEASE KEEP ME ACCOUNTABLE... :)

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October 13, 2004 14:42

Ok, I am going to make a covenant with the people that actually read what I write... So, I have a competition in less than a month, I still have to start learning halve of the pieces and start dusting the other ones.
I have been so worried about what will happen if I do not return to Juilliard, how I am going to make a living and the fact that I desperately want to go to the Queen Elisabeth competition (since I was about 7 years old) and need time to prepare. So I have been torturing myself with looking at orchestral auditions and then deciding that it was not what I really wanted or that I was not good enough for it, but in the mean while I lost again days on looking through excerpts, and even more time just on the internet.
So my vow is to actually practice from tomorrow on 6 HOURS A DAY as a minimum. Please keep me accountable for my behavior, if you see too many posts of mine, I am most likely not practising and that is what I want to keep from happening.
Oh, and the other thing is... I want to loose 4 kilos (about 9 pounds) before I go to Korea and work out every day...
Yes, I have gone crazy, but since I have not been in school my discipline has completely left me. So PLEASE KEEP ME ACCOUNTABLE...

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October 10, 2004 15:49

I just returned from London. I did all the touristy stuff: saw Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and London Bridge. One of the most impressive things was St.Pauls. The last time I had been there was the morning after Princess Diana died. Today I walked in while they were having a service. The choir was singing and the big organ playing. The sound was amazing. Boys singing like what I really imagine angels to sound like, the organ and the men together made the air almost visible tremble. A new dimension of sound has definetly made it into my colorrange of what I would like to have my violin sound like.

Exactly one month from today I will go to a competition in Korea. It is the first time they are holding it for violin. I am excited, but also very nervous. I am starting the repertoire tomorrow, which is quite late (new pieces for me are: 2 pieces by Yun and Ysaye 5, the others are: Bach, 2x Paganini, Franck, and Tchaik concerto)
However the audition has given me a complete new impulse to work very hard. Mainly because 24 hours later, the thing that stands out from the audition, was that I again noticed how much I love performing and interacting with people, even if it is the entire 1st violin section of an orchestra. The thing that I expected to stand out (the fact that I completely screwed my Strauss) isn't that important feelingwise. But I did learn a lot from it, to start with I need to practice more!

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October 9, 2004 15:32

It has been a while. I told my friends I would keep this blog up, but once again I have not had a chance. I am right now in London, drinking my sorrows away. I had my first ever orchestra audition. Tchaik and Mozart concerto went ok, nothing spectacular, but also nothing really out there. Then Bach, somehow I got in the zone, I started making nice colors and all. So full confidence I started the orchestral excerpts. Brahms 1 went ok, I started to get nervouw and noticed that my rests were shacky. But then just a couple bars before the end I start playing twice the tempo. What is going on??? Then into Straus: bourgois gentilhomme. It was awful, like somebody had just dumped a bucket of cold water over me.
So I finally experienced what everybody has been talking about. I always thought, how hard can it be to play orchestral excerpts, when you are able to play most big violin concertos. Well, I know now!
But it was all in all a good experience. I have learned excerpts and it helped me to really figure out what I want. Because I realized that I really think I would like to play in an orchestra. I listened to a recording of Schubert 2nd and it was so fine!
On top of that, I have also developed a good taste for the UK. I was here 2 weeks ago on a short break. And now again for the audition. It has been nice.
And tomorrow I still have the whole day, so after the audition stress I am going to have a nice shopping day in London.
Talk to you all soon!

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More entries: November 2004 • May 2004