YAE part 2 - August 11th 7:45am

August 15, 2007 at 1:37 AM

Yesterday in theatre our coach from Bard on the Beach went around the circle of the 20 some off students that have been here at YAE this year. She instructed us to pick a single word to describe how we were feeling about being at the end of the program. Almost everyone said, "sad". It's hard to say goodbye to the people with whom, over the course of two weeks, you've been challenged, pushed, encouraged, scared, nervous, excited, thrilled etc. etc. It's amazing how quickly you build friendships with people and how easy it is to support each other as we are all forced to explore bits of ourselves that have never been explored. The thing I find all the more fascinating about this is that if I were at any other place, in any other program, I don't think I would be able to take that plunge and let myself go and I think the same could be said for most of the students at YAE. We've bonded somehow through music and this has made us friends and given us the courage that we can try new things because we're surrounded by friends who will be there to catch us if we fall and to encourage and cheer to keep us going. Likewise, the faculty are there doing the same, some of them also stretching their boundaries of experiences by participating in the workshops presented at YAE.

In my previous write up about YAE I talked mainly about the repertoire I've been working on in my chamber groups. The Brahms has really gelled nicely and become a joy to play. We've performed it twice already not including the in house concert and will be performing it again this evening at the big gala. Shostakovich is still an incredible challenge. More now than just the notes, it's an endurance test of your concentration and commitment to the part and the music. On a more cheeky side, it's also an endurance test of my index finger and Evan's (cellist) thumb. We both have massive blisters on our fingers from working on the lengthy pizzicato sections. Evan has actually bled on his cello twice now when working on that section, once in a coaching and once in a masterclass when we performed it for Carl Oscar-Osterlind of the Young Danish String Quartet. Shostakovich has not really been an outreach suitable piece for most of the venues so far but today we get to perform it twice. Once at an afternoon outreach concert and then again this evening at the gala. I won't got into much detail over repertoire right now though except to say that aside from my two chamber works we are doing a hip hop influenced version of Amazing Grace with the orchestra in addition to Tchaik's serenade for strings, Warlock's "Capriol Suite" and the Russian Shostakovich's "Spanish Dance" (played by Chinese people as Bo Peng pointed out at our last rehearsal lol).

From Ruth Kuefler
Posted on August 15, 2007 at 2:50 PM

I know how you feel, Kelsey. There's a summer camp I've been to that seems exactly like that - the students and teachers form really close bonds that help everyone to learn and grow in ways they never would have expected. It's amazing how well you get to know people after just a couple weeks of living, eating, and making music together.

Good luck with all your repertoire - especially that Shostakovich. Ouch!!

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YAE part 2 - August 11th 7:45am

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