March 2008

Wanted: One or more very wealthy patrons to fund poor musician through college.

March 25, 2008 06:55

Apparently all of those auditions were useless.

Not only have I failed to get into any of my top choices, I can't afford to go to the others. I just got the estimates in the mail and even with a hefty merit scholarship, I can't afford it. 50 grand a year. With my merit scholarship and a butt-load of subsidized loans, I would still have to pay some 30 grand a year.
Even if I worked for three years I couldn't make that much money. And my parents certainly can't afford that.

So I don't know what I'm going to do.
I've worked so hard, but it's obviously not enough.
*sigh*

What a depressing week. I'm so upset I'm actually considering writing letters to companies and asking for donations. That's how desperate I am.
Anyone have an extra $200,000 that I could use?

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20 Highlights of My First Tour

March 21, 2008 18:05

Hello all!

I've been absent from my blog for months now. But I'd like to share all the exciting things from my 8-school tour with you all, as I am now completed and can look back on these things and laugh, rather than currently experiencing them and pass into hysteria. Here are the 20 most interesting experiences in my travels:

1. Illicitly staying in hotel rooms, as a sixteen-year-old travelling unaccompanied.

2. Taking the Austin bus alone at 9:00 at night, a few rows away from a crazy homeless musician (I kept thinking "That is me in twenty years...)

3. Giving directions to the taxi drivers to go to places I had never been.

4. Having the transformer blow at the hotel in the middle of a blizzard the night before my audition.

5. Chinese food in Texas, Indian food in Tennessee, Taiwanese food in Indiana, Italian food in Ohio, French food in Illinois, American food in Pennsylvania. Starbucks at every airport.

6. Hearing the Cleveland Orchestra, playing in Orchestra Hall in Chicago, playing for the concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

7. Dragging a 53 pound suitcase with all the wheels broken, 20 pound rolling piece of luggage, 15 pound backpack, and violin case...2 miles...in Pittsburgh...in February...

8. Running through hail and rain so thick I couldn't see my hand in front of my face through downtown Cleveland.

9. Going to the gorgeous Cathedrals for Mass in Austin and Pittsburgh.

10. Seeing my boyfriend in Cleveland and my family in Chicago.

11. Meeting new people at the auditions. And running into them at different auditions the next week.

12. Going to a student-run musical, a student opera, living in the dormitories, and staying with a student in her apartment.

13. Practicing on the fifth floor of a Chicago townhouse, looking out at Lake Michigan.

14. Seeing Wicked at the Oriental Theater for fun.

15. Getting six different takes on my pieces from six different teachers.

16. Splitting a seam two days after my very last audition.

17. Becoming an airport connoisseur.

18. Keeping up with homework by means of emailed assignments, phone calls, and lots of studying in airplanes. And planning gigs away from home.

19. Getting carpal tunnel and popping my shoulder partially out of its socket.