Yae!

August 12, 2006 at 6:34 PM

It's hard to believe that two weeks ago today I left for Vancouver for a couple weeks of intensive chamber music playing and an assorted array of other workshops. I was not totally sure what to expect having never been to a program that combined multiple facets of the arts, sciences and a whole bunch of concerts. I was a bit anxious about the program the week before as it is a very small program and I didn't want to disappoint people and not meet expectations (my teacher was on faculty). My homestay family was another source of anxiety - would I get along with them? Would my roomates and I get along? Upon my arrival on the 29th all my anxiety and nerves were pretty much dissolved, thankfully.

My homestay family was the sweetest, kindest possible family anyone could have asked for. The daughter, Winnie is my age and she was a pianist in the program (and in my opinion the best pianist in the program - technically secure and extremely musical) and we got along great. Winnie's mom made sure that if we ever had a hope of going hungry that that wasn't a possibility. My first breakfast there was two eggs, two sausages, a bagel, a banana, a bowl of cereal and a huge glass of milk. They were an awesome family though. So incrediably kind and they made me feel like part of their family. I don't think it would be possible for me to ever have such a great family to stay with. They housed one other student, Sarah who was also a pianist in the program. She and I were in the same trio and we also got along splendidly. Sarah and I, from what I could gather, were the only two participants who weren't from Vancouver. Winnie, Sarah and I had an awesome time though and it was really sad to say goodbye to them both.

YAE - Young Artist Experience - began with signing in, recieving your Yae tshirt and meeting the faculty and other students. There were 16 students in total. 6 pianists, 6 violinists, 4 cellists and then faculty and teacher's assistants made up for the lack of violists. After the little bit of milling about and getting aquainted with people it was time to be formally introduced to all the TA's and faculty as well as each other and recieve and introduction to chamber music playing which included a visual presentation. Jasper Wood, Rena Sharon and Eric Wilson all got up on stage to have a "rehearsal" that was supposed to exemplify the worst possible rehearsal situation. All the students got noise makers and we were supposed to make noise when we saw something incorrect and explain why it was incorrect. First off, the violinist was the only person there and then the cellist walked in talking in this bizarre accent that hardly anyone could understand and he was complaining and goofing around. A little later the pianist comes shuffling in talking about her hair and then she's forgotten her music and it just got more hilarious from there. Counting was becoming an issue so Jasper stomped his foot - that was too distracting so he tried blinking his eyes - the pianists phone went off - the cellist got up and left. We were all laughing so hard. It was really hard to make noise with our funky noise makers because it was just too entertaining to watch. Afterwards some of the issues involving being in a chamber group were discussed seriously and we even had a couple of anecdotes from some funny experiences. One was from Rena Sharon about a 1 piano, 6 hands piece she did. Her and the person sitting in the middle somehow got stuck to each other by a thread and started laughing (this was a live to air radio broadcast) and the other pianist didn't know what was going on and thought it was all funny and they were trying to not laugh.

After our interesting (unexpected) intro to chamber music it was time for string orchestra rehearsals. They did seating alphabeticly for the first day which meant I was last in the violins but that was fine with me since it meant I was playing 2nd violin, something I'm more comfortable with than 1st. We read through some of the repertoire we would be playing and then it was off to a chamber music coaching. My trio got Jasper for our first coaching which was nice. I think I was more comfortable having a familiar face for our first rehearsal. It went reasonably well anyways and we got some good work done. The first day ended with choir. Apparently I can sort of sing alright.

The typcial daily schedule was: arts activity - orchestra - lunch - arts activity - break - coaching.
Here's the list of non chamber music things we did.
Choir, tap dance, theatre, clowning, swimming, Cuban music and dance, Public speaking, music and genetics, new music and music therapy.

Out of all those different workshops the music therapy, new music and cuban music and dance were my favorites. It was such a crazy couple of weeks and so much fun! We did 4 concerts. An in house concert for the faculty and students so we could have a "practice" concert, we did a trip out to Harrison Hot Springs 2,5 hours away and did a concert there (and went swimming in the hot springs!), we did outreach concerts at a couple of senior homes and then we had our final 3.5 hour marathon final concert. As part of the final concert I was asked to read a section of a monologue on playing chamber music that I had to write for theatre, we did several of the other theatre and clowning and public speaking exercises as part of the concert as well. I played, in addition to the Arensky D minor trio a Bartok duet, a bunch of the orchestra music including Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence (for which I was on first violin) and Albinoni's Adagio for Strings which Jasper divided up the concertmaster solo amongst the violins so we would all get our four bars of fame. One of the theatre things that I got to do as part of the concert was an exercise in "conflict resolution" which I'm still a tad confused about but anyways, I conducted a "bad" sounding choir and then a "good" one. We had to work together in small groups to create these little skits and that was fun. Our final theatre production, that we did on Saturday last week took nearly 1 hour to get through.

There is so much to write about but you are all probably getting a bit bored so I'll end this here for now and you can just look at my pictures. Maybe I'll write a bit more about it later. :)!

Before I do go though, you should all know that I'm going back to Vancouver next week to perform as part of Peace It Together

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on August 13, 2006 at 5:55 AM

That sounds fantastic, Kelsey! Every single minute! Please post more. (I promise to write to you soon.)

From Jasmine Lewis
Posted on August 14, 2006 at 6:57 PM

Hmmm...you need another comment. yep. It sounds like you had a lot of fun! OK. My work here is done.

From Jasmine Lewis
Posted on August 14, 2006 at 6:57 PM

Hmmm...you need another comment. yep. It sounds like you had a lot of fun! OK. My work here is done.

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Yae!

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