May 2005

May 26, 2005 15:20

So, I have found the major downfall of highschool orchestras. At school today, we got the class list for next year (between now and August, some people will drop the class and some will join, but this is a pretty good idea...)

18 violins (this year- 10)
3 violas (5)
4 cellos (2)
5 basses (2)

that seems a little weird... all the sections willl be twice the size (really great!) except the violas which will be half the size (not so great...)

I don't know.. that just seems weird, and I'm just thinking aloud... next year will be interesting...

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May 20, 2005 11:21

Tuesday night, the high school orchestra had our last concert for this year. At my school, the advanced winds join us to create a full orchestra rather then just strings.

We started with a modern piece called Overture (I don't remember the composed...) It went ok, the winds wern't completly warmed up, so they sounded a little off at times.

We then played Farendole. It was great. We were rushing a little bit, but everyone was rushing at the same tempo, so it all worked out...

After Farendole came When You Wish Upon A Star. Considering the fact that no one in the orchestra liked this piece, it sounded surprisingly good. And, its one of those pieces that the audience loves, so all was good.

Next, we somehow managed to survive ET... We started together, we ended together, and everything in the middle went ok...

Our closing piece was great!!!!!!!!!!! We were playing Haydn's Farewell Symphony. In this piece, everyone leaves the stage throughout the piece. It was so muchg fun! Once the audience caught on to what was going on, they would laugh whenever someone else stood up to leave. Also, for this piece, the stage lights had been completly turned off, and we were just using stand lights - which were turned off one by one as people left. So the stage was getting darker and darker until we reached a complete blackout. By the time I left, there were five violins a viola, and our conductor. Then, I left, along with two other violinists. The last group to leave was the violist and our conductor. The piece ends with a really nice violin duet. It was so much fun!

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May 14, 2005 22:25

Anyone who hasn't heard Mozart's Musical Joke really should listten to it, it is quite amusing...

The Prescott Strings did a concert tonight. It was really good!!!! They had a slightly rough start, but the second half was great (and I'll get to that in a moment, so just wait...)

Ok... the first piece was Conceto Grosso in F major (GF Handel). The piece sounded nice, during the first movement, the conductor's stand fell and even from the audience, there was a brief moment of terror... but they managed to continue without a problem.

The second piece, Adagio for Strings (Samuel Barber), was really, really sad. But it was really pretty.

I really didn't know what to expect from the third piece. It was Overture on Hebrew Themes (Sergei Prokofief). However, it featured a clarinet solo........ (clarinet solo in string orchestra concert wasn't quite working for me...) Anyway, for the most part, it was actually a fun bouncy little piece...

Then it was intermission... I said hi to a bunch of people that I know from the college, and then intermission was over...

The last piece was REALLY good - except it wasn't... it was really horrid....... They played The Village Musicians (WA Mozart) also known as Mozart's musical joke............ This piece featured two horn players... The first movement sounded pretty good... Then came the second movement, and the horns were so badly out of tune. It was really funny! In the third movement, the concertmaster played a neat cadenza, aside from the fact that at the end it sounded like she missed a shift by about half a position... (during the cadenza, it was fun to see the other performers smiling...). The fourth movement started off fairly nice, but then, it ends with these big, horrid chords... And, at one part in the fourth movement, there was a "conversation" going on between the two halves of the stage - it was really funny, especially the way it was conducted...

Over all the concert was great, and lots of fun.

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May 5, 2005 14:40

Well, today can be counted as a highess day..... My violin (yet again) has a horrid unknown buzz. So that in itself is annoying enough. But then, add to that the fact that I have a concert on Sunday and a concert-type thing on Monday.... And as if that wasn't enough, our concertmaster won't be at the concert on Monday. So, guess who gets to learn the solo parts this weekend.... oh sigh...

Sorry for ranting...

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May 2, 2005 18:26

DisneyLand was really FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We got to CA at about 1 am (Thursday morning), after being on a bus (with no AC) for 8 hours. Then, we spent all day Thursday hanging out at DisneyLand. That evening we went to Medieval Times. It was a fun show (with lots and lots of food...)

Friday morning, we went bact to DisneyLand. The orchestra played that morning on the Hollywood Back Lot Stage - which was quite a horrid location,, because no one could hear anyone besides the person they were sitting next to... Over all, I guess we sounded ok, but it wasn't one of our better concerts. Then, we had the rest of the day to hang out in the parks (again). That afternoon, the marching band played, and they sounded really good. After the band played, we had still more time to hang out... then we went back to the hotel and came home Saturday morning.

Overall, it was a really great trip, that I will gladly go on again in two years...

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