I've been pretty terrible about keeping this updated. I promise to try a little harder, though. Here's a quick recap of the last week.
Monday - I saw my first opera at the Wiener Staatoper - Barber of Seville, which was really great. The singers and the musical direction were both fantastic and tickets were only 4 Euros! It is standing room, but you get a great view, it sounds great, and everyone has their own little personal translator (like at the Met).
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| From Figaro, bike tour on the Insel, Bergpark |
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| From Figaro, bike tour on the Insel, Bergpark |
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| From Figaro, bike tour on the Insel, Bergpark |
After the opera, a bunch of my friends and I went to a cafe/bar down the street. It's a really dark, smokey, bohemian sort of establishment where they play the strangest music. I went back again tonight and felt a little out of place wearing my sweater, when half of the people there were either girls with shaved heads or people with multiple piercings.
Tuesday - We took a quick Bike tour of Donauinsel (the island on which the festival last weekend took place). It is enormous and very beautiful, although I think that the time to take advantage of many of the outdoor activities might be passed - it is now about 50 degrees here.
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| From Figaro, bike tour on the Insel, Bergpark |
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| From Figaro, bike tour on the Insel, Bergpark |
After the bike tour, our german class went out to a cafe to learn about all the different kinds of coffee one can order here.
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| From Figaro, bike tour on the Insel, Bergpark |
After class we had a meeting for the Music performance workshop. MPW encompasses lessons, performance classes, coachings etc. and on Tuesday we found out what we were assigned for chamber music. Turns out I got assigned to 5 ensembles!! More than anyone else (except for our 1 violinist). Most people got 2-3 and I really don't think i will have the time to work on 5 pieces in addition to my own rep. Especially considering that I know 2 are very tough and I have no idea how long another one will be. It is kind of an honor that they think I'd be albe to hand that, but the truth is that I can't right now, with all my solo rep, applications, other classes, etc.
I saw this poster and thought it was interesting. This guy is running for president (??) in Austria.
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| From Figaro, bike tour on the Insel, Bergpark |
Can't remember what happened wednesday.
Thursday - We had our Oral Test for the intensive german section of the semester. The test went fine - my friend Billy and I had to talk about the Naschmarkt in a small skit.
Here's my friend Marie with a Wiener Eiskaffee (Viennese Ice-cream Coffee)
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| From Figaro, bike tour on the Insel, Bergpark |
Friday was the written German final which also went fine. Later in the day, I practiced and then went to see Verdi's opera, "La Forza del destino" which was really fantastic. I had conducted the overture for a class a year ago, and it turns out that most of the themes from the opera are in the overture, so I kind of already knew many of the arias. It was a wonderful opera and I'm so glad I went to see it. When i got there, I bumped into two of my friends, Lucy (a clarinetist from Univeristy of Illinois who is traveling every other weekend to Berlin to study with the former principal Clarinetist of the Berlin Phil), and Mike, a cellist who will be in one of my ensembles for the MPW as well as my german class. We went out for Drinks in a bar at the Naschmarkt afterward.
Saturday - Pretty much all I did was practice and made recordings. I really have to get started with these recordings to get most of them out of the way before classes start...
Yesterday I practiced, hung out with most of my roommates, and we watched a bunch of German TV including Family guy and Pimp My ride (Pimpt mein Auto)
Today I made some recordings and had a lesson with Antoinette which went very well. Well I didn't play fantastically, but she had a lot of very insightful things to say about how it could be better. I am really enjoying taking lessons with her (although I did get a name of another teacher, a colleague of Antoinette, for whom I will also try to play for a few times).
Tomorrow is back to the grindstone. I have tons of music to learn, record, and perfect. Bis Später!
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