June 27, 2006 at 10:14 PM

The highlight of yesterday for me was the masterclass with Robert Spano. Each of the four quartets played a Bach Chorale. My quartet sight-read "Christ lag in Todesbanden." The other three quartets sight-read "Es ist genug: Herr, wenn es dir gefallt," "Mach's mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Gut," and "Herzlich thut mich verlangen."

I learned a lot about how to play Bach from Mr. Spano. I also learned how to read soprano and tenor clefs. Believe it or not, the masterclass really showed me how we must compromise to make the music sound as good as possible. There is also a lot of dissonance between the first and second violins in "Christ lag in Todesbanden," so I had to work with the second violinist to try to bring out the tension.

Franklin Pond is going to be a good experience for me. Although, playing violin all day could be a bit stressful. Yesterday morning, I started off sight-reading Ravel and a few quartets from Beethoven Op. 18. That was a lot of fun. Then, Mr. Hancock worked on the Schubert with us a little, but we mainly focused on The Bartok piece. The bartok piece is actually an arrangement by Tibor Sedley of one of the Mikrokosmos etudes. It is the 142nd study of 153 and is entitled "From the Diary of a Fly." It was a lot of weird things. There are double stop glissandos that go up an octave, not to mention that there is almost always someone playing sustained ponticello notes and two of us in dialogue with sautille whole tone scales. But, I really love the Agitato section. It is a wonderful clash.

In the afternoon after the masterclass, we went upstairs and worked with our coach, Daniel Laufer, who is the second chair cellist in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (http://www.atlantasymphony.org/meetthemusicians/orchestra.aspx)

Then, around 5:00, I met my mom and we went home. What was really cool is that Ronda Respess made binders for all sixteen of us that contains all of the scores to the music that every quartet plays as well as all four of the Bach Chorales plus some articles from Arnold Steinhardt called "Zone of Magic" and one from a magazine with an article on preventing injuries.

I am glad that this camp only meets every Monday. Otherwise, I would be so tired.

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June 27, 2006 at 10:14 PM

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