December 6, 2004 at 4:27 PM

Yesterday was a marathon day for a concert and just for the day in general. The concert ran over 3 hours in length (that is WAY too long) and by the end the 200+ people had diminshed to about 30.

In the morning I ran through the Bach/ Kulesha performance setting three times in total just to get comfortable with them both by memory and going from something so heartfelt and beautiful as the Bach into something still beautiful but very angular and abrupt as the Kulesha.

I went into town early to rehearse with a girl who I was playing a duet with, and so I got some practicing done before she arrived and then it didn't take long to put the piece together once she had arrived. I got a ride over from the music school studio where we practiced to where the concert was being held. First up were all the suzuki groups so I was kept busy getting straight the order of the pieces, tuning violins and doing a head count. The kids did quite well, and were all really adorable! I think I might have taken Twinkle a bit slow, because I was even nervous for my first time leading, but it went well and the kids were really great! After "my" Suzuki groups I played piano for two of the other suzuki intermediate group pieces. Those went pretty well. The piano, I felt really bad for, a nice upright Yamaha and it obviously hadn't had any work done on it in a VERY LONG time. It was horrible out of tune, and the touch had gone all askew, so I'm not sure it really enhanced the kids performances in a positive way at all. After sitting around for nearly an hour after that I got to play the duet, which went really great! The girl did wonderful and she had two rows worth of people there to see her with their cameras and video cameras ready to go! She was quite nervous, but she really did a very good job and I thought, remained quite composed despite the butterflies in her stomach. And yet another hour wait or slightly more before my solos came up on the program. I was a bit nervous, well not so much nervous as anxious, I hadn't been able to properly warm up in over 3 hours by then so that was one thing that was weighing on my mind, and just the "Can I get through two, demanding pieces by memory that I haven't been playing for very long?" When I finally got to play, I went out there with the pat of a teacher on my back, gave my introduction and played. The Bach went really well I felt, which I was very pleased and happy about, and the Kulesha went better then the previous performance of it had gone, but still could have been better. But then, every performance can go better. But overall, I was pleased with how it had gone and my ability to play two unaccompanied works by memory like that and now get lost or fumble around. After playing my solos there were still a few numbers left on the program, then there was the string orchestra which I ended up sitting in on, and sight-reading in. It was a lot of fun. I had played the first violin part for one of the pieces before and viola for the other piece, so playing second violin, I got a whole new perspective on both pieces! That was a lot of fun though and I really enjoyed myself. The Kulesha, with the remaining audience, seemed to go over really well and one person asked when I was going to learn the other caprices in the set. Maybe that will be have to be my side project....all three Kulesha caprices.

Well that was my day yesterday. Now I need to head off to school and get some work done.

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December 6, 2004 at 4:27 PM

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