End-of-Term Celebratory Scandinavian Dinner!

Hello friends!

Yesterday was, for me at least, the last day of school for the spring semester!

I really didnt have much going on this week, in terms of school related activities, with the exceptiong of a busy Tuesday, my usual Monday Alexander Technique lesson and a piccolo lesson with Kathleen Stevenson yesterday afternoon on my lunch break from the Future Play: Music Systems of the 21st Century symposium.

The week, although not really “busy” was, in the words of JS, super “hectic”. I was a bit stressed about our studio class on Tuesday with Daniel Pailthorpe, as College only gave us postgrads about 5 days notice to learn a whole new piece, memorize about 8 pages of Taffanel & Gaubert EJ 4 scale pattern, and prepare the Moyse 24 Melodic Studies. Bah! Everyone was stressed!

It ended up going supremely well for all involved and Daniel, who I have never met before, is absolutely lovely! I would definitely like to work with him again 🙂

Being involved with the Symposium at the Barbican made things also very hectic. On Wednesday and Friday, we (IF and I) were at the Barbican from 9am until 5 in the afternoon. On Thursday we were there from 9 am to 10pm, because we had the great fortune of seeing the LA Philharmonic with Dudamel conducting, on the main stage in the Barbican Hall. What a thrill!

They played a contemporary program which opened with John Adams conducting the UK premiere of his “Son of Chamber Symphony”. The rest of the program was more UK/European contempo premieres, all very good but not as exciting as it would have been to hear them do Mahler 5 or something!

Either way, the symposium was AMAZINGLY inspiring (more on it in a later, seperate, post) but the schedule made me have to reorganize my other regular daily activities… like practising, which then had to be done at 5 or 6 in the morning, or (at least on Wednesday) from 8-10pm.

I’d rather practice in the early morning than after supper time, but alas. It had to be done, hah!

Yesterday was particularly brutal. In order to be on the tube to the Barbican at 8 am, I got up at 5, and practiced till 7:30. I HAD to do the morning practice because I had a lesson at 12:30 – yes you read right. I left the Barbican in the middle of one of our discussion panels at 11:30, tubed it back to College, played a lesson and then RACED back to the Barbican to hear Dudamel rehearse a London City Youth Orchestra (combined orchestra of many city players age 10-18ish I think). They played Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliette and they played the heck out of it.

I’ll stop myself before I talk more about that – want to save it for the Future Play blog I’ll be writing later today 🙂

Anyway! Made it home at 5pm, totally exhausted, stayed awake for a few more hours – should have had a nap but I did work for Project Grace and other things, instead – before joining my College friends here at Halls for an incredible dinner.

My friend L.P from Sweden, and A.V from Norway, planned a gorgeous Scandinavian meal to celebrate the end of the semester, before everyone goes back home for the holidays!

We had a beautiful supper of homemade Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoe with cream sauce and Lignon Berry Jam, with sides of salmon crackers (I didnt eat those, but you can see them in the pictures), and lamb meat.

For dessert, we all contributed! There was a chocolate mango trifle or flan type thing by A.H (Italian), a Chocolate Tortilla Torte from yours truly, Ice Cream from the Americans 🙂 and Swedish Waffles which I.F specifically ordered a waffle iron in order to be able to make.

Oh man.

Amazing Amazing.

I always say that my time at the University of Ottawa gave me some amazing life long friends, but I think its safe to say that I have made MORE amazing lifelong friends here at the Royal College of Music. I just love these guys so much!

We’re off now to watch Alien 4 (going to finish watching all 4 in the quadrilogy, plus Prometheus before I leave on Wednesday, hah) but I’ll leave you with a photo that R.K (Icelandic!) took from last night’s dinner!

xox

Scandinavian Meal Time!

Call me a Nerd but..

For those of you who don’t know, I run an afterschool music program in my hometown, that is based on the Venezuelan “El Sistema”. Its not quite as big as most sistema programs, but I am just following the advice of a good friend – “start small and grow slow”.The program is called Project Grace and we serve about 30 kids, teaching violin, cello, flute and trumpet at the moment. You can check us out on facebook, twitter, and at www.projectgrace.ca.

I’m very interested in music for social change, and music education in general. I’ll never be a school teacher, its not the kind of music education I’m interested in (although I am very supportive of it and especially of my own sister who is an INCREDIBLE public school music teacher!) but El Sistema is a huge part of my life and something I am incredibly passionate about.

Last week when I went to Oxford with friends (a post about that another time) I picked up a book called Changing Lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema and the Transformative Power of Music. I read it in about 2 or 3 days and have just been SO inspired ever since!

Changing Lives

Also while in Oxford, we discovered the Oxford University Press book store! Whilst there, I came across a few other books I’d like to own, this one in particular:

The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible: Becoming a Virtuoso Educator

and now I’m even MORE excited because I just bought a copy from Amazon.co.uk (just over 2 quid cheaper than the OUP store!) and it should be here in a few days!

Aside from College based activities- the performance side of things: practising, gigging, etc – I spend a lot of time thinking about and working on El Sistema related stuff, including my program. A few weeks ago, I.F. and I discovered that the Barbican is playing host to the LA Phil this coming week… not just for a concert but for a whole 3 days symposium called “Future Play: Music Education Systems of the 21st Century”.

I’m sure you can imagine how excited I was/am.

We signed up immediately (there are some great discussion panels and performances scheduled, and I MIGHT even get to meet Gustavo himself! Mom is sending up my Project Grace tee shirt and my sister’s LA Phil w/ Dudamel recording of Mahler 5, in case an autograph opportunity comes up!) and I have been counting down the days until we get to finally go.

I am terribly excited in anticipation of the panel on El Sistema. It will be amazing and so inspiring to hear Dudamel speak about the program he came from, and hopefully to nick some ideas to help improve my own program. Cannot. Wait!

SO yes.

I’m a huge nerd but I am obsessed with this whole El Sistema thing. I FULLY believe that music has the power to change the lives of children and give them more skills and opportunities for their future.

Speaking of … if you’re in my hometown and you want to see Project Grace in action, please do come along to our Winter Semester Showcase on Sunday, March 24th, at 3:30 pm – in the St. James United Church sanctuary 🙂 Can’t wait to see everyone there!

xox

m i n i m a l i s m – a t – i t s – f i n e s t

Just wanted to leave a short journal about an RCM concert that I had the privelege to be a part of last week.

This is the second semester now that I have been a flutist with the Variable Geometry Ensemble, under the direction of the wonderful Jean-Phillippe Calvin (http://www.jpcalvin.org/ – beware old photos; so handsome.) playing a selection of minimalist music.

The program for this concert was:
John Adams – Chamber Symphony
Raquel Garcia-Tomas* – Not Wanting to Say Anything About John
interval
Louis Andriessen – Workers Union
Steve Reich – Tehillim

*RCM Doctoral Composition Student

I’m not generally one for minimalism, but this concert, aside from its 42 hours of rehearsal (which thankfully I wasnt involved in – I only played the Reich and Garcia-Tomas), was pretty much incredible. For quite obvious reasons, John Adams’ Chamber Symphony and Andriessen’s Workers Union, are incredible standard pieces of the minimalist repertoire. I didnt play in either of them, but the Geo ensemble did a pretty incredible job on both works.

If you’re interested in hearing some of these works, check out the following youtube links:

John Adams Chamber Symphony, III. Road Runner

Louis Andriessen, Workers Union

My dear friend S.C. (not one of the friends I live with, just a studio mate from College) got to play both of these and she did a fantastic job. Her piccolo playing in the Adams – which was most of the piece – was absolutely spectacular! I loved every minute of it.

Workers Union is a bit of a different bird. Listen to it and you’ll see what I mean. I think its an amazing piece of music but it can be a bit overwhelming, due to be scored for an ensemble made up of “any loud instruments”. Piccolo should have been involved, haha.

My favorite piece of the whole concert was Steve Reich’s “Tehillim” (pronounced “te-hil-leem” apparently, although we always say “te-heel-lim”).

Lasting nearly 40 minutes long, spread out over 4 movements (with a break only between the 2nd anad 3rd movements) the piece is based on Hebrew texts from the Book of Psalms. If you want to read a detailed explanation about the piece, you can check it out on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehillim_(Reich)) but let me just tell you that its a mixed meter, fairly quick moving piece that features four female vocalists singing in a fugal arrangement.

The string instruments play basically continuously (literally – S.C. and I had to page turn for them in movement two… we were super duper ninja page turners, ducking under bows and scrolls to turn the page at just the right time) but the winds are in and out of the texture throughout the four movements.

Lucky me – not – I only play for about the last 20 or 30 measures.

Yeah you read that right.

I sit for about 36 minutes, then I blow some hot air into my piccolo hoping to get it SOMEWHAT in tune with the rest of the band and then I play a very cool tune for the exciting ending of the piece.

You dont have to listen to it all… but have a scroll through and check out some of Steve Reich’s MAMMOTH of a piece…

TEHILLIM.

NEWS FLASH!

My sweet Prince Harry has found another woman.

According to the tabloids, Henry Wales is dating Cressida Bonas – a 24 year old dance student / model who graduated from Leeds University.

My poor broken heart!

He even bought her mukluks to go skiing in Verbier! Doesn’t he know Canadians are MEANT to wear Mukluks? Ugh.

The Gift Mukluks

Cue: Devastation.

See news (aka: tabloid) articles here: