Vancouver, concerts and my new love.

March 20, 2006 at 5:08 AM

Ah, home again...my own bed....a good cup of tea...practicing when i please.... Vancouver was overall very great though!

I won't go on for too long here tonight though because I want to get to bed and get some more sleep tonight so I can be refreshed for teaching tomorrow and for practicing!

The first highlight of my Vancouver trip was probably the noon hour concert on the UBC campus. Jasper Wood, violin and David Riley, piano = an amazingly enjoyable concert. They did a Schubert Sonatina which off the top of my head I believe was the D minor. Very effective and hard to pull off but I enjoyed it very much. The next and final piece (since it was a noon hour concert with no intermission) was the one I was the most excited about hearing, Prokofieff's F minor sonata. Everything from the haunting first movement to the bombastic second movement to the ghostlike, hair raising 3rd movement with a firery finale that nicely ties in themes from all 4 mvts, makes this sonata a real treasure and a workout for the violinist! It captivating me from beginning to end. I really should only do 4 hours of technique a day for a month after seeing that sonata performed in person! It was intense and the contrasts and moods evoked truly held my attention from start to end! The only interruption during the whole thing to my attentiveness was the two people who fell asleep on the row behind me and started snoring in the 3rd movement of the Prokofieff. That kind of disturbed me but someone quickly smacked them and they woke up.

Next day...I got addicted to trying out nice violins and had some Japanese food!

The next day (Friday) my sister's choir was performing so of course I had to attend that! they performed a bunch of modern works by graduate students at the university. I made a quick trip down to the Canadian Music Centre to pick up a score I needed and ordered in another. I tried the above mentioned violins again and officially have a crush on one of them in particular. In the evening there was a free concert to attend with the UBC Chamber Strings. The highlight being Rena Sharon as a guest soloist playing the Bach D minor keyboard concerto. Jasper Wood's concert and hers were on the same par....completely spellbinding and I couldn't hardly keep my eyes off them and help being drawn in to their performances.

Saturday...more Japanese food and a walk on Jericho Beach.

Aside from that we did lots of apartment hunting for my sister(and with me in mind!) who's building is being demolished in May. So there you have it, short and sweet!

If you are inclined to watch a short slideshow of some pictures I took while in Vancouver you can view that here

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Vancouver, concerts and my new love.

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