LA Update #2

I'm sitting on the floor of a recital hall at USC (where we have been rehearsing all week for our concert) listening to Kimberly and Plylar play Phantom Vignettes (by Plylar himself)...we are gearing up for our concert tomorrow at the Brand Library in Glendale (I think its an art and music library)...hopefully we will have some kind of audience! It also happens to be my birthday tomorrow...in case you were wondering. (the pic is of me sitting on the floor...right now)

It has still been mostly rehearsing all the time...with some sleeping thrown in. Today was the first day where we didn't rehearse at 8am...we started at 11...which meant I got to sleep until 9am!!! I naturally woke up at 6, probably because I have gotten up at that time for almost a week now...guess it doesn't take that long to get used to early rising...I should file that one away for future reference.

Haven't had too much time for fun antics...but Ply and Alison took me to 21 Choices in Pasadena last night, which is a great frozen yogurt place with millions of toppings to mix in...kind of like cold stone except with frozen yogurt...it was yummy...I will probably get out to see some sites this weekend when we have more free time...so far I've spent most of my time in the Eagle Rock and Highland park areas...a brief trip to Los Feliz to eat at Fred 62 and Hollywood to get Mr. Fischer's cello looked at...it was buzzing...but they fixed it, and then it kind of came back, but goes away sometimes...no idea whats going on down there...

Ply's cello piece has come together surprisingly fast...it turns out the most of the piece is fairly easy to put together but the first to pages (which Patti and I worked on) are VERY difficult...we have spent most of our time on those...I think it will go very well at the concert tomorrow and I'm excited to play the premiere!!

LA Update #1

I've been here in Los Angeles since Sunday morning and most of my time has been spent rehearsing and sleeping...We have to get a bunch of pieces together in a short amount of time, so we start rehearsing everyday at 8am and continue on and off until 10pm...so, its a pretty long day...starting tomorrow we have evenings off...which will be nice. Maybe I'll get to see something besides the rehearsal room?

Hello!!

Ok, I'm seriously going to start writing more often in here...mainly because I have a lot of exciting stuff coming up to write about...and a lot of semi-exciting stuff that has happened recently...well, maybe not that exciting at all really...As you read in the previous post, I am now officially done with school...I walked at graduation and everything, so its really official...for real. And I got my first A+ ever in a class (well it was in lessons with Mr. Fischer...so...um...yeah) I've never gone to a school where an A+ was a real grade (A was always the highest)...so my last semester of school ever I got an A+...go me? I guess its not really that big a deal.

After that I went into a very anti-social phase...I had to move out of my apartment on May 15th...which also happened to be the day that I auditioned for the sublist of the Houston Grand Opera. So, for about two days beforehand Mira and Steph lived at my apartment and helped me pack and move everything...and we watched the first two seasons of Weeds when we were taking breaks. I got everything all packed and moved into a newly rented storage space...and I successfully auditioned for the HGO sublist...not the greatest audition ever played in the history of time...but there were some very good things going on (most notably my Dvorak...which was MUCH better than it normally is)...and I love playing the solo from Tosca, so that went pretty well...although I did miss a pretty easy shift...but I guess things like that happen.

Mr. Volvo is at the hospital for a few weeks getting some things checked up and tuned up and fixed up and all that good stuff...so I am now in Houston without a car and without an apartment. Which is very strange.

But its all ok because I'm leaving tomorrow (Sunday) morning for Los Angeles where I will be rehearsing 27 hours a day on a bunch of cool/badass contemporary music with friends such as Kimberly, Alison, and Ply (and two people who I have yet to meet, but most likely will tomorrow since I will be rehearsing with them). We will be playing a concert in LA on my birthday (May 24th) and then driving up to Oregon to do a masterclass and a concert in Ashland. Of course this is a concert trip/vacation for me...so there will be a side trip to San Francisco (to see Meta, buy a cheap bow and look at cellos) and another side trip to Portland to drink wine and hang out with Kimberly...

Then its back to Houston for two days to do nothing...and then I'm driving to Tanglewood...but thats later and I'm not gonna think about it now.

Recently I...

• graduated from college.
• saw my parents for a few days.
• ate at two good restaurants: Mark's and Americas.
• saw my mom on Mother's Day!
• prepared for the Houston Grand Opera Sub-List Audition (and still am)
• started packing.

Tanglewood...Yay!

I finally got my assignments!! And they are good! I'm playing:

• Haydn Op. 33 No. 1 in B Minor
• Dvorak Op. 105 in A-Flat
• Rossini Duo for Cello and Bass
• Assistant Principal for Dvorak 8 (with James Levine!) and Don Juan
• Principal for Carter: Soundfields (World Premiere) and Variations for Orchestra
• Carter Enchanted Preludes (I just played it on my recital!)
• Carter Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello, and Harpsichord
• Brahms Clarinet Quintet

Should be a fun summer! Yay!

In The Past Five Days I Have:

1. Recorded Jairo's Piece (in about 2.5 hours!!!). I played OK (wish I could have done some things over again, but we didn't have much time) and there was a lot of traffic noise...hope it turns out ok!!
2. Went to Java's several times...and ate at Dim-Sum (see Heather???)
3. Had an uneventful flight back to TX (although it did leave very early) and I got to see the NYC skyline when we flew out of Newark (haven't been to NYC in a while now...)
4. Played the final performances of the six service gig (Tim Powell's Wedding Mass) out in Baytown. I have officially spent waaaay to much of my life in Baytown now.
5. Got lost driving to said gig and we were 20 minutes late and the choir applauded us when we entered. How embarrassing.
6. Taught at TH Rogers...always a joy.
7. Played my final orchestral repertoire final...and it wasn't too bad (well some excerpts were but surprisingly Brahms-Haydn Variation #5 was good!!)
8. Dropped by some favorite Houston spots: Mai's, Hans', RA.
9. Saw Mira play in the Houston Symphony Mahler 2 Concert!! Its an amazing piece...and thats all I'll say about that.
10. Waited for my Tanglewood assignments and still haven't gotten them.