Post-Competition

The Houston Tuesday Musical Club competition is now over...well, I'm done...but I was also the 4th person to go. I think it ends at 4pm...I'm not expecting anything though. The Carter went pretty well, no memory slips or anything! Dvorak, on the other hand, was not so hot...it may have bordered on horrendous...especially at the end of the development. Turns out the judges stopped me, but I didn't hear them, and I kept playing, and getting more and more unsuccessful...oh well...it was 10am...

Later today I will be performing the Introduction and Allegro by Ravel (with harp etc...Mary would be proud). My group performed it last week, and will be performing it a few more times after this...so we have been pretty low key about the whole thing. Its at 4pm in Duncan Recital Hall at Rice University if you are interested (we are first).

Tomorrow if the day of Brandt...we are starting his opera: read through in the morning, and then right on the the sitzprobe in the afternoon...yikes...the performance is on Wednesday. For those of you wondering, its a contemporary chamber opera by Anthony Brandt (composition faculty here at Rice)...string quartet, some percussion, and two singers. Should be interesting...I've been on an opera kick lately, so I'm looking forward to this!

Spring Recess

Right now at Rice, we are enjoying spring recess. This is not much of a break, however: only two days off of school. Last year it coincided with Easter. In case you were wondering. I was looking at my calendar yesterday, and I reallied how much stuff I have coming up...a contemporary opera, a very long gig (6 services), a few other gigs, yadda yadda yadda...but its better to be busy I suppose. Right?

The Musiqa Concert last night was a success...all of the pieces went over very well and I didn't end up making a fool of myself or anything. I hope I will be able to play with them again...its always so great to be able to just play a fun concert and actually get paid for it!! I guess thats why we do this...because when it all works it, its really not like working.

I have a mystery gig this morning...I have no idea what I am playing for. The music director of the Woodlands Symphony hired me and just gave me the address and the times...no other info. We'll find out soon enough what it is...I guess.

Beer and Orchestra

This past weekend was our second orchestra concert of the semester. The day of the concert was also BeerBike...an event that I'm not totally sure what it even is. For whatever reason, the music grad students (or MUSI's as we are called here) take absolutely no part in this event, while a handful of grad students from other departments do actually attend. BeerBike consists of a bunch of people (aka most every undergrad student at Rice) getting up at 5 or 6am to get totally drunk. Then there is a water balloon fight. At some point people chug beer and race bikes, then everybody sits around all afternoon and drinks some more. I probably wouldn't really even know about this, except for the fact that our orchestra dress rehearsal was during the water balloon fight (it was originally scheduled during the bike race, but got changed) and all of the undergrads were really sad and complained about it. All of the grad students didn't really care.

Today I discovered that there is an undergrad pub in the basement of the student center. I had no idea it even existed. And I'm also confused ...since most undergrads aren't old enough to drink. Whatever.

More about BeerBike here.

Big Week

Weeks like this don't come around very often in the life of OhMyTrill, but once in a blue moon they do appear. This week is good because it involves several money making opportunities, but those opportunities also make this week a very busy one...yikes. Monday night plus Tuesday and Wednesday mornings will find me in Beaumont, TX playing Peter and the Wolf with the Symphony of Southeast Texas on 4 (count em) children's concerts. Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights will find me in The Woodlands, TX playing Ein Heldenleben and Ride of The Valkyries with the Woodlands Symphony Orchestra (which for those of you keeping track i basically a chamber orchestra...so we'll see how that goes). Friday night is our orchestra concert here at Rice!!! Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra performs Barber Symphony No. 1 in One Movement and Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2...a very long program of lots of cheese. I'm sitting in the hot seat again and I have a one measure solo (in typical OhMyTrill fashion) in the Barber...so you should come and see if you can pick it out!!! Yay!

Preview Passed, No Rochester

In case you were wondering, I did in fact pass my preview. Things seemed a little shaky to me, but I pulled through in the end somehow. And they actually liked the enchanted preludes. Imagine that.

I was going to be in Rochester next weekend to record Jario's piece...but it turns out that he is having visa troubles in Colombia and may not be back in the states for up to two months!!! He called the competition people and they don't really need the recording until May so it looks like we will be postponing it for a while. I was looking forward to going to Rochester and seeing everyone and having a lesson with Kathy Kemp (for the upcoming Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra audition) oh well...

Things are a little depressing around Rice....mainly because of this. Its a really small school so everybody knew her, even if you weren't great friends. She lived in my apartment building too. Sigh...

Reminder

A Reminder to all of those in the Houston Area...and those of you within 8000 miles...I will be playing in the Shepherd School Chamber Orchestra tomorrow night (Thursday) at 8pm...the program is:

Stravinsky: Danses Concertantes Saint-Saens: Oratorio de Noel Vaughn Williams: Fantasia on Christmas Carols

The concert is a little bit Christmas heavy for my taste, but it also happens to have a cello solo in every piece! (random I know) so if you are my friend, you should come and support me. Yes, that means you.

Conference Over

So after three very intense days and weeks of planning, the Shepherd Careers Forum is at last over. It was pretty cool to see all of the people arrive and be really excited about everything and have fun and do work and play/watch concerts and have discussions etc... But three full days (two 7:30am starts) with minimal breaks has its wear on you. Rachael and my big project was getting all of the food picked out and catered, and according to everyone attending, the food was one of the highlights. So I guess we did good! We decided to switch to Starbuck's coffee at the last minute too...which was a huge hit...sidenote for people hosting a conference: get Starbucks coffee because everyone will go crazy over it (and they get to carry around little starbucks cups all day and feel special). Over all I think it was a pretty great success and people seems really happy and excited about it! Things would have been much more enjoyable if I didn't have a pounding headache for three days...which may or may not be sinus related...I'll try and go to the health services tomorrow. Hope I can get rid of it soon!

Hello

Its been some time since I posted...just haven't been feeling the blog lately...hmph...I have a busy couple of days right now...this weekend is the Shepherd Careers Forum: a few students from every major music school are coming to Rice this weekend and will be watching performances by the Chiara Quartet and 8th Blackbird...they will take what they have learned from these alternative performances (and lectures) and present their own performances on Sunday in randomly assigned groups. Rachael and I are the student coordinators and have been picking up some odds and ends. If you are in the Houston area you should definitely attend the events that are open to the public!