April 16, 2004 at 2:47 PM

Any of you New Yorkers know a Kristin Lee, studies with Perlman? I'm playing with the Rome Symphony this weekend, and she's soloing the Tchaik concerto with us. Her run-through last night was really good.

I've got stack-o-music to learn for upcoming concerts and orchestra auditions. The worst is the Chattanooga opera, they must've killed _two_ trees to run off copies (of which, I noted, only one excerpt was from an opera. The rest are symphonies). Not that I'm complaining, I'd much rather do Marriage of Figaro again than something wacky like Richard Strauss.

Had my first lesson with my new teacher, Valerie Gardener, yesterday. Wow, she has such a different approach to practice, she's so focused on playing relaxed and with a good sound. I was kinda freaked out, cuz I had arrived with a buncha Bach memorized, and the first thing she asked was, "Play a four-octave scale? Ok, three-octave. Good, now double-stop octaves. Good, now thirds, four to a bow. Good. (this is me cringing at my bad intonation) When I had my first lesson with Brodsky, the first thing he asked of me was fingered octaves. I was 16. He didn't want to work on scales with me, he just wanted to see what I would do. It tells the teacher a lot about the student."

Dang.