March 29, 2006 at 11:25 PM

Greetings from the Austin Airport! It is rather humid and muggy, and it was raining when we got here, which then escalated to thunderstorms. But later on in the day, and during the show, the weather was perfectly nice. Everyone has told us that Austin is the best part of Texas, however I wouldn't know since it is my first time here! Not including the stop we made in the "George Bush" airport in Houston...haha. Anyway, the show was sponsored by the MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) during their convention which happens every year in a different part of the country. So what it is, is basically a lot of music teachers (mostly piano, I gathered, but all kinds) come together and go meetings and recitals and exhibits and things like that, and they had a From The Top Show as one of the performances. I pre-recorded a piece with a 16 year-old-pianist who had come to the MTNA before, and one of his favorite parts were the exhibits. They're in a huge room the size of a gym or bigger, and every music school/sheet music publisher/piano manufacturer/anything else you can think of has a booth. It ranged from some really nice booths where you could get really beautiful Henle urtext manuscripts, to a booth filled with hideous things such as Tiffany lamps with keyboards on them. So, From The Top bought the young pianist the complete Beethoven sonatas in urtext, and a Got Music? mouse pad as souvenirs. (Unfortunately we were unable to buy him a Beckstein piano, which was on display and he was trying out.) Also I got to try an electric violin for the first time! It had a regular violin's bridge, fingerboard and strings, but was bright red and cut-away on the sides. It had a pretty awful sound, though.

The show went well. I didn't have as much stuff as I usually have to do, but that's fine. They have done a lot of shows in a very short amount of time, so the staff is pretty stressed and a little disoriented. Actually, they just did a show in Dallas a few days before the one here in Austin, which I didn’t go to (at the beginning of the year they gave me a list, and I got to pick the 10 places I wanted to go) but they got confused, and thought I was coming to Dallas. So at the pizza party the night before, where everyone meets everyone else and gets information about the show, etc, Tim, the producer/writer, said, "Alice, who will be here in a minute—" and then everyone looked at him and said, "No, she's not coming on this trip." And they had already written the whole script, which supposedly I had a big part in! Yikes! They even considered flying me in for the show, which I would have done gladly if I weren't at that moment in a concert back in Philadelphia. So I have a feeling that the script written for Austin was kind of last-minute, since they didn't think I was coming!

Because the audience was all music teachers, they were more responsive and appreciative, I think, than the usual hodge-podge audience. And everyone performed wonderfully, of course. One of my favorite things about doing the show is getting to meet all the kids and make connections with everyone. So hopefully sometime in the future when I'm at a camp, or at some music festival somewhere, I'll see someone and say, Hey, I met you at From the Top! And of course it's always wonderful just to meet people who are your age and share your interests.

This weekend I have two concerto competitions (to solo with local orchestras, like I did a month ago.) These two in particular I have been doing for four years! Maybe this time I'll get lucky. I'm playing the third movement of Bruch.

I just realized that I never posted to say how the Bach Double concert went! Well, it was excellent. The only thing was that, during the beginning of the third movement, my shoulder rest slipped off! It didn't fall off entirely, but I was clutching it between my neck and the violin. I was really scared it would fall on the floor, and that would be awful if it did because I can't play without a shoulder rest. I have tried before but I can never seem to make it work with my neck in any way that is remotely comfortable. Thank goodness I kept it there till the end. If it had happened in the first movement that would have been fine because there are 3 measure rests where I could have easily put it back on. But people in the audience told me they didn't notice anything. The performance went well otherwise. And the church was a much better performance space than the church the first concert was in; it was beautiful, first-off, but less reverberant so you didn't need to over-articulate in order to be heard. When I get home I'll try to put up the audio of the concert.

Okay, we've boarded and the plane is about to take off!

--alice

From Linda Lerskier
Posted on March 29, 2006 at 11:54 PM

One of the reasons I ditched my shoulder rest. ;)

From Colleen Russo
Posted on March 30, 2006 at 12:49 AM

So I actually was kind of right when I thought you were going to Dallas!! haha...
Well your diva skit sounded pretty awesome ;) haha...
WHY WHY WHY WOULD YOU PICK TO GO TO TEXAS!?!? hellooo gwb? hehe ... its okay i forgive you!
And congrats again on the bach, can't wait to hear it!

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on March 30, 2006 at 2:53 AM

Congratulations on the Bach concerto and good luck on your next audition.

One of my students, who is 8 y.o., got as far as the stage with her school orchestra and noticed that her shoulder rest had come off of her violin, and she didn't know where it was. She thought she wouldn't be able to play in the concert and she cried. Her mother mother went looking for it. A little boy had found it and was bringing it to the concert room. The school orchestra conductor waited to start the concert until my student, the youngest, smallest girl in the orchestra, got her shoulder rest back. The story ended happily. I will tell her and her Mom about your experience.

From Sydney Menees
Posted on March 30, 2006 at 12:10 PM

I agree with Colleen, haha. The last time I was in Texas, I had terrible asthma and wheezing troubles because of all the pollution. That's saying something because I never get asthma!

From Sydney Menees
Posted on March 30, 2006 at 12:11 PM

Oh yeah, congratulations on the Bach and good luck on your upcoming competitions!

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March 29, 2006 at 11:25 PM

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