September 1, 2004 at 1:09 PM

So we're back from VT. I had such a GREAT time at Kinhaven as usual. It felt so good to see all the familiar faces and smell the familiar smells. :-) I felt so at home there. It is definitely up there on my list of favorite places in the world. Anyway, in the first week I played in an (awesome!!) Prokoffiev (sp?) quartet. Second violin. It sounded so neat, I fell in love with it immediately. I had a spectacular first vln, cello and viola, and my coach was very energetic and involved with the group. I felt very lucky. Yay! But after all, it is my third year there....So the second week, I got Dvorak's Dumky trio, and the director of the camp as a coach. (!) Everyone was saying how lucky I was, and how much they loved that piece. I had never heard of it before. My pianist was a 14 year old with an ability to play pretty much every single one of the instruments in an orchestra, and really well too. I was lucky to be playing with him (even if he could act a bit pompous at times.) And my cellist was a very sweet 13 year old from Maine (she fit the cello character very well, I thought.) This was the first time I had Nancy Bidlack as a coach, and I was really excited. I really like her as a person and it was fun to work with her. She had tons of really good ideas about the piece and really cared about the group! So, I feel like I got a lot of chamber music experience. (For the full orchestra pieces, we played Schubert's unfinished symphony and Beethoven's Egmont overture. The string orchestra pieces were a bit easier, but they were so much fun and I loved them!)
It feels weird to be back at home. Everything seems too clean. I miss Kinhaven badly, but I think I was ready to go home.
I start school on September ninth. My quartet is going to have their first rehearsal soon (yay!). On the 20th, I'm going to Boston because From the Top is having a special concert to raise extra money where they ask veterans of the show that people liked ( :-D ) to come back and play. So that should be pretty exciting.
I noticed during the second week at Kinhaven that my violin was starting to sound...weird. I couldn't exactly describe it (the pianist in my trio thought it sounded tinny, and suggested I changed the strings) but my bridge is slightly tilted and I think the soundpost may need to be adjusted or something. I'm kind of annoyed and a little scared...but hopefully it'll work out OK. Also, we are now officially starting to look for a bigger instrument! OK, all for now.
--alicelizard

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September 1, 2004 at 1:09 PM

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