Photo Shoot x2

I have spent the majority of the last few days sitting under the burning hot sun getting 365 photos taken of me by the fabulous Sharrell Holcomb. Beth (who lives in my building) hooked me up with here, and the three of us met on Friday afternoon at the Clinton Library...and ended up taking about 200 pics around the grounds there...and then when were weren't satisfied...met the next morning and went over to the North Little Rock side of the River Trail and took a whole bunch of pics on a cement formation in front of the quarry...and then drove up to Fort Roots and snapped a few more!

Needless to say, it was a pretty tiring two days of sitting in the sun.

But I did get a whole lot of pretty cool pics. Sharrell has a great eye for catching some really interesting shots. Unfortunately I have been kind of sluggish in the eating and exercise department so I came out looking a little more porky than I wanted to. There are a whole slew of super artistic shots though, and some where I do look quite handsome...if I do say so myself.

The main reason (for me) was to get a head shot with my instrument that I could send to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette for the article they may or may not be writing about the upcoming Cape Cod Ensemble Concerts in July and I definitely got a few that I could use for that. I think I'm going to go with the one posted at the top of this blog. What do you think?

Busy Busy...Busy

The past few weeks have been super busy...much more so than I could have anticipate. I guess I was just super scared of having three months with nothing to do (since the ASO is off season right now) so I went ahead and over-scheduled myself.

I have been working hard on finding a venue for the Cape Cod Ensemble to perform...after many phone calls and visits, I finally was able to schedule Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall at University of Arkansas @ Little Rock. This concert will benefit the Arkansas AIDS Foundation...so tell everybody to come!! (Monday July 6th at 7:30pm) Special guests Kimberly, Heather, and Jonathan will be in town for the concert!!

This past weekend was the Arkansas AIDS Walk...I basically signed my life away for two straight days volunteering for this event. Friday night we had a wine and cheese kick-off event at the Boswell-Mourot Art Gallery in the Heights. I drove around with Michael all day picking up stuff for the event, and then getting the gallery ready. And then I had to play for an hour and a half! Then the next morning was an early morning and more running around picking up last minute items for the walk...set up and talk down...and many many hours standing out in the sun (it was a beautiful day)...needless to say, I passed out soon after I got home.

All in all, both events went very well and everything was a great success! Now its on to getting all the details in line for the concert...its only three weeks away!!

In other news...I was supposed to be going to Denver on Thursday to pick up my brand new Chris Dungey cello...but I got a call last week saying that he had fallen ill (possibly with the swine flu?!?!?) and he wasn't going to be able to get the varnish on there in time to bring it to Denver (and in fact, he canceled his whole Denver Trip)...so I'm not going to Denver anymore (sorry Mary...) and I'm waiting to hear what the new delivery plans will be! Should be any day now.

LOST...

I'm a little bit confused as to why they never show LOST at the correct time here in Arkansas. I guess the show is just not remotely popular here and Arkansans prefer to watch college basketball. Which is always what they seem to show instead. Rather than just pushing LOST back an hour or so, they continue with regularly scheduled programming, including all the news and the late shows...and then LOST comes on at 12:30am or 1:30am or even sometimes 2:30am. This makes no sense to me. I have made some attempts to watch LOST at its late night airtime here...I usually fall asleep before it comes on, but once I actually made it to 1:30am, fell asleep right before it started, and woke up in the final moments. I was very annoyed and I have just given up trying to watch it since then and just visit abc.com the next day and watch in on my computer. Lame I know. In case you haven't seen lost before...here is a little summary of the first three seasons...you'll have to watch 4 if you want to get caught up all the way.

Mardi Brawl

Yesterday I attended my first roller derby bout. I had never seen anybody play roller derby before, or even heard anything about it...but Charlie's friend Megan was playing her first real match, so we went to support her. For those of you who don't know, roller derby consists of a bunch of girls skating around in circles in a pack...with two girls skating much faster (called the jammers). They go round and round and round and beat each other up and push each other on the floor and shove each other off the track and kneel down and let others trip over them. Its quite brutal.

I couldn't tell you how the scoring works...something about the first jammer to get in front of "the pack" is able to score each time they get around the track...but every time I tried to count how many points they scored, I was waaaay off. There are also penalties for violence, but for some reason or other, nobody ever gets called out on them, no matter what kind of awful things they do. Imagine that.

Each girl also has a very cute little nickname...such as Coco Booty, or Slaymaker, or Covalent Bondage. Those were all girls from the Little Rock team...and yes, we got totally killed. I think the ending score was something like 115 to 40 (we were playing Fort Smith). But what do you expect when the team prides themselves on not playing "too dirty"...it seems to me that its a pretty dirty game...hmmmm.

The whole thing seemed pretty Arkansas white trash to me. I didn't know they even made roller skates anymore.

Hello Again

Ok ok...its been over a month, but I think I'm finally ready to get back into this whole blogging thing. Famous last words, right??? Well, here goes, all sorts of crazy stuff has been going on.

I spent last week playing with the New Worlds Symphony in Miami Beach. I thought it would be nice to spend a week in Miami and see a ton of friends I hadn't seen in a while...but I ended up totally loving the orchestra. It was concerto week (we played seven concertos on two concerts...5 of them violin concertos) and it was great to play with Martin and KCB (yay Rice/Tanglewood!!)...all of the soloists sounded great. It was nice to have a dinner invitation every night I was there and to catch up with so many old (and new) friends. And yes....I'm doing the audition in a few weeks.

In other news...the Arkansas Symphony is having some trouble...we heard a rumor that the Sturgis Quartet (the one I play in) was going to be disbanded at the end of the season...and then the rumor became fact, and then the players committee freaked, and then the administration took it back...and then the executive director resigned and they kind of forgot about Sturgis. So now it looks like we will still have our jobs for next season...but nobody is really sure about anything. I don't think the orchestra is in the best situation: no music director, no executive director and financial problems...oops. But all seems to be running smoothly now. According to people who have been in the orchestra for a while, this happens all the time and they never end up getting rid of Sturgis...but keep threatening too. I'm sure it will happen eventually. Maybe not.

We are playing a Mancini concert this week...its kind of fun...kind of boring at the same time. A few weeks ago we played Shostakovich 5th Symphony...which was probably the best I've ever heard the Arkansas Symphony sound before. Still not as good as Tanglewood or Rice...but fun to play with. For a change.

I was actually starting to get used to Little Rock...the trip to Miami came at the perfect time, because I realized how many things I really don't like about LR. Its so easy to just get used to your surroundings and be happy with them...even if they totally suck.

Ice!

Last night and today were my official first days of winter weather in years!! There was one time in Houston when everyone thought there was going to be winter weather and they canceled school...but then there actually wasn't any. All last night we were treated to freezing rain, so this morning everything is covered in a thing layer of ice...I had to use the ice thingy on my car and everything. I don't think I've ever done that before (since I didn't really have a car when I lived in winter places). Everybody is totally freaking out about it here...my demos this morning as well as my gig this evening got canceled...so I have an unexpected day off. So what do I do? Clean my apartment. Duh. And do laundry. Exciting, right???

Above is my balcony with ice...and my foot to prove its actually Arkansas.

Drive Complete

Well...I made it all the way back to Chicago in one piece...thanks in no small part to all of you who called me to keep me from falling asleep...and of course, conservative talk radio...nothing like Rush Limbaugh to get me pissed off and to keep me from falling asleep. The drive ended up taking over 12 hours...I was making great time, until I hit Chicago, which of course had terrible traffic and took over two hours to get through. I was really stiff after that. I trust that the return trip will be a little smoother...but you never really know I guess.

Succesful Weekend

My parents were in Little Rock this weekend with the single purpose of helping me finally get settled in my new apartment. As you probably assumed, it has been a complete mess for the month I have lived here so far...but over the course of two days it has been transformed into a space that actually resembles an apartment that people do in fact live in. I still have a few odds and ends to finish up...but its much much much better and is actually a nice place to be in now!

Pictured above is my bedroom complete with panel curtains from IKEA...we didn't hang them the way they were intended because I didn't buy all of the correct accessories...but I think they look pretty cool the way we ended up doing it! You should all come and visit! (more pics up on facebook)

Franck Quartet

Today the Sturgis Quartet (of which I am a member) will present Franck's String Quartet in D at the Clinton Presidential Center at 7pm...I think we are all pretty excited (and nervous) about it. This is the first time we will be appearing as a quartet and we have worked pretty hard to put this piece together. For those of you who don't know...its nearly an hour long...and its pretty crazy...and really difficult to learn as the first piece you've ever played together as a quartet...the pic is of the only solution I could come up with for my page turns in the last movement...its seven pages with basically less than one measure of rest...I have to use to stand extenders...its kind of ridiculous.

Jay was here last week subbing with the orchestra. We hit up all the regular Little Rock places: Big Dam Bridge, Pinnacle Mountain, River Market (those are basically the only three places to go in Little Rock...exciting, I know)...it was my first time doing Pinnacle Mountain, and everybody kept telling me how ridiculously easy it was...so Jay and I went over one afternoon, expecting a nice easy hike...we were very surprised to hit a ton of huge boulders that seemed to go straight up...it was super hard work, but we made it up to the top. We later found out that we went up the difficult side which was rated "strenuous," the other side is a simple stroll up the mountain...

I guess I'll know better next time.

Back in Little Rock

As the title says...I am back in Little Rock now. The week in Houston went well...I think its safe to say the concert was a success. Everyone who came seemed to enjoy it and thought the poetry and silence was effective. And we managed to get through both of the pieces after a very crazy week of rehearsals.

Now I have roughly 80 billion things to take care of. I filled my entire dry erase board with a list of things to get done, and I'm sure when i finish that I will fill it up again with more things to get done. Sigh...on today's list is going to the gym, moving my living room shelf to my bedroom, building my new living room shelves, going through a million papers...and much much more!!

Little Rock Update

As of yesterday I have achieved the two major things I need to get done on this trip to Little Rock...I opened a bank account here, and I found an apartment. The first was fairly easy to do...I just walked into Bank of America and opened a checking account...finding an apartment was somewhat more difficult. Drew drove me all over the city and we looked at every place that had for rent sign in front...I ended up taking a place downtown...its kind of a loft style apartment (barely) but its a good size (not too big not too small)...hardwood floor in the living room, nice sized kitchen with dishwasher...washer+dryer in the bedroom...and its only $500...welcome to Little Rock!

I'll be moving in this afternoon...after I'm done with this quartet seminar thing. We had our first rehearsal last night, working on preparing our outreach program (Papa Haydn)...we will be talking about theme and variation and different moods and emotions that can be expressed in Haydn quartets...exciting huh?

Pic above is a quick snap of my apartment (with no furniture yet...of course)

More From Little Rock

Hello from Little Rock...again!! A lot has been going on in my life recently...thus the lack in blogging...but if you read the entry directly below this you know that last weekend I won a job with the Arkansas Symphony (section cello + string quartet)...naturally I kind of freaked out a little bit and didn't know if I should take the job or not (a decision that seemed very obvious to everybody else that didn't have to make it)...but in the end I decided to take it and just see what happens...

So I'm back in Little Rock again...I'm here for a week this time...trying to find an apartment this weekend (which is proving not so easy after one day of searching)...later this week I have a few seminars with my quartet...we need to prepare our outreach demos. Our topic is Papa Haydn...something that CCE would totally have a ball with...three of the people in my quartet are brand new (me and one of the violinists just got the job last weekend, the other violinist, also the assistant conductor, has been here over the summer...the violist has been here for a while already) so we'll see how it goes...no telling whats gonna happen.

All of our concerts are happening at the beginning of the season...we are doing the Franck D Major string quartet (who knew?), the 3rd Schumann Quartet, and the Enescu Octet...should be interesting, never played any of those pieces. Have you??

Anyways...there are some really cute places to live here in Little Rock...I looked at one apartment today, one bedroom with a big big kitchen (with breakfast nook) big big bedroom (tons of closets) another small room, hardwood floors...and it was only $725...and my friend that has been taking me around (the concertmaster of the orchestra) says I can find something cheaper than that. I'm gonna try and look at a loft downtown tomorrow...could be nice.

As of right now I'm trying to keep my concerts in Houston, but as the schedule becomes clearer to me, I'm thinking that I'm not going to be able to keep doing that...there is a lot of time off from orchestra, but the quartet stuff can come up any time...and we will need to be rehearsing...we've got a lot of music to learn fairly quickly.

There was a huge football game here today that totally shut down everything...it was pretty crazy.

Arkansas Audition

Hello from Little Rock, AR! I drove up here yesterday from Houston...up that terrible stretch on 59...the speed limit changes at every little town you enter...and there are stop lights along the whole thing...ugh...at least I had conservative talk shows to keep me angry and paying attention.

The audition was this morning, and I realized I was reading the schedule wrong and there were a total of six cellists there...a lot less than I was expecting. First round was behind a screen...Beethoven 5, Mozart 41, and Don Juan...we each had our own rooms, and there was no 'community room' so I just sat in my room by myself waiting to hear back...and then to my surprise I was advanced to the next round!! That was the first time that had ever happened.

Then I only had about 15 minutes before I went in again...this time the screen was down...there were supposed to be two more rounds, but due to the low turnout, the final two got compressed into one...I played Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Overture (random, right?) and Verdi Offertorio...then went back and read with the quartet, Beethoven 59 No.1 and Prokofiev 2nd String Quartet...and then I had to give a mini outreach presentation, as if the panel was a bunch of third graders.

I never really thought I would get that far, so I didn't really plan anything out...I just jotted a few notes down and figured that if I had to, I would just wing that part when it came to it...and then it came to it, and I winged it. I guess it was all that great training with Music for All at Eastman...

And then I found out that I won the audition. Totally crazy...so now I have to decide if I'm gonna take it or not...decided to stick around for another night so I could check out the town...and juts have a chance to look over all the stuff they gave me in the quiet of the hotel...what do you guys think??