Octoberings

The leaves have turned and they are falling. No frost yet but the heat finally had to be turned on. This weekend was full of concerts and joy. Caught the end of Blue Heron after my rehearsal on Friday, went out for dinner on Saturday before seeing Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI at Harvard. Met up with a gamba buddy I haven't seen in ages who drove down from VT for the concert and we drank beer and played gamba together well into the night. I cooked pancakes Sunday morning and had a lazy day before the Cambridge Concentus concert, followed by good food and going to bed early. What I was struck by this weekend is how many wonderful people there are out there whom I really enjoy and how little time I actually devote to seeing them. I've been holed up most of the semester spending a lot of time by myself here at home (and not as productively as I'd like) as well as a lot of time with K. I don't regret this because schlepping around to lots of parties and events is too much excitement for me but I have decided that I'm going to try to get out more. I'm not going to go to extremes but maybe I'll try to do one adventuresome thing a week. One thing I might otherwise not do out of fear, obligation, laziness, anxiety, etc. We'll see how it works out.

In other news, I am scrapping all of my bad left-hand habits and rebuilding my technique from scratch. It's about time and I knew it had to happen but the intonation on the cello recital was just not acceptable and is holding my playing back. I hate the patient and diligent work it takes to change something very fundamental about my playing but there is a masochistic part of me that enjoys how tedious it is, how frustrating. Because it's so obvious when you start to get it right and you can see the results of your work so easily.

But that work will happen tomorrow. Now for an early bedtime before a long (and hopefully productive) day.

Decisions

Decisions, those pesky mental tasks we put off as long as possible, letting them accumulate dust and cat hair like the piles of unread books sitting around my room. But lo, I have made some. I am going to stay in Boston a third year. I am going to apply to the musicology program at BU so I can do the combined major that J has been doing. I'm going to spread the extra courses out over two semesters so that I can also take German. I will come up with a brilliant and interesting thesis/lecture-recital topic, write the best Fulbright application ever, and continue playing with my wonderful musical colleagues. I am relieved to be done with the pondering over this. Whether or not it turns out to have been the right decision (although I think it will), now that I've made it, I can get to work on its implementation, a concrete thing that I find much easier than the endless contemplating.

There is something so invigorating about fall weather, the crispness of the mornings, the lazy warmth of the afternoons. I've been sleeping with the windows open and a big comforter wrapped all around me. I love the juxtaposition of the warmth and the cold air on my face.

My recital is four weeks from tomorrow. I'm not ready, but hopefully I will be when the time comes. There are a lot of notes in my program and a lot of expressive things I need to figure out, get control of, learn to execute well. It's funny feeling like a cellist again after years of identifying more as a gamba player who also plays Baroque cello. I do love the cello, in a different and perhaps not equal way to the way I love the viol but still, there's a deep affection for it. Cello has all the memories of my past from before I began gamba.

There is leftover sweet potato bread and rice and curry from my cooking efforts last night, I think they will make a lovely lunch after I finish my tea.

Reflections on a year in Boston

My roommate requests that I update this now that the recital is over and so I will do it just for her!

The only news of interest is the recital so I'll start there. It went well. Actually, that's an understatement, it went really well. Better than I had hoped. Sure there were mistakes (lots of them, some more serious than others) but they didn't ruin anything and the parts I didn't mess up are really spectacular. Val told me (with tears in her eyes because she had a bad cough!) that I was in a completely different place than I had been a year ago when last she heard me play. Listening to the recording, I hear she's right. I don't know what it is but I sound like a professional who makes a bunch of mistakes instead of a student who plays very well. A strange distinction but accurate. I seem to have developed a poise and confidence in my playing that I've never had before. I don't know how, maybe it was meeting all these people who think I'm a great musician. I think I'm starting to believe them! I know I didn't work as hard as I could have this year. I didn't practice as much as I wanted to. But I played a lot. And I performed a lot. I think I finally got some of the "experience" I was so sorely lacking in Oberlin. I may not like living outside of the Oberlin bubble but it's been good for me musically.

So now the summer officially begins for me. As usual I have lots of ambitious plans I will not get around to or end up finishing but I like having them nonetheless. Proof of my greed for life, a testament to a vision of who I try to be. I have accepted that I want too much, I cannot live all the lives I desire, accomplish all the things I wish I could. So wanting them all will have to be enough and I'll do what I can.

What are your goals/hopes for the summer?

I want to learn a lot of new music. I want to cook new and interesting recipes. I want to play lots of frisbee. I want to read a lot of books. I want to figure out what I'm going to do after I graduate from BU (hopefully get a Fulbright to Europe to study with someone amazing). I want to plan interesting concert programs for next year and get some workshop/teaching gigs. And most importantly, I want to have fun with people I love!

Absence makes for bad blogging

I haven't posted in a while and I probable won't again for another while (so many whiles, or was it wiles?). My recital is on May 16th and until then I'll be practicing and trying not to stress out too much. For the meantime, you'll have to amuse yourselves without me.

Marais

I've been unproductive recently. This happens to me with alarming regularity, for a few days I just won't be able to do anything useful that's not scheduled. This used to be less of a problem back when everything in my life was scheduled and had due dates. Now that I'm supposed to be self-motivated and ambitious, losing days to my meandering motivation is keeping me from doing everything I want to.

So instead of letting today slip away, I went out into the world and got something done. Perhaps not the most pressing or important of things, but it was something. I sat in Espresso Royale for two hours nursing a cup of coffee (that doubled as lunch) and finishing cutting and pasting and writing out the parts for my Marais suite. Then ran back to CFA to scan my fragile constructions and then to the library to wait in line forever so that I could print them out for free. Tomorrow I will put them in envelopes and leave them for my collaborators and that task will be finished. Of course, being able to play said pieces would also be useful, but I have a couple weeks left for that!

I love this weather, if only it would stay like this and never get too hot! The smells of all the flowers opening and the variety of birdsong makes me yearn for picnics and jumping in lakes and bike rides and farmer's markets and rhubarb pies! It also makes me lonely. When did we grow up and get too busy for these things? How did we get tied down, stuck in our ways, confined to our own stereotypes of ourselves?

Aftermath

I seem to have survived last week and come crashing into this week, which I plan to conquer as well!

I had a very strange experience on Sunday. I am a veteran procrastinator and under-practicer, I rarely get pieces as polished as I wish they would be. However, I don't think I've ever played a real concert (with audience and everything) feeling vastly unprepared before. And yet, despite messing up tons of things I know I can play and not knowing what was coming next, I played extremely well on Leon's recital. It was bizarre. I missed shifts, I flubbed runs, I played the wrong strings, and yet, I was musical and created the beauty I hoped to create. And the audience heard it too. They congratulated me with real sincerity, they truly enjoyed it. It makes me both chagrined and elated. I never want to be that unprepared again for a concert and yet, maybe this marks a new era in my performing life, actually being able to express my ideas on an instrument effectively. I hope so.

J left for Texas at early-as-hell-o-clock this morning and she'll be gone a whole week! I'm not sure what I'll do with myself and the emptiness of our house. I hope to practice a lot but I'll try not to become a recluse. Come over for dinner! Watch a movie with me!

Another Monday

Well, here we are again, back at the beginning of another busy week. I'm playing in an opera (concert version), a recorder recital and L's harpsichord recital (don't be deceived, I'm playing some really hard solo rep on it!). I've also decided to take an audition for Boston Baroque. I have very little time to prepare and I don't really expect to make their sub-list but I haven't played many auditions in my life (I hate them!) and it will be good practice for me. To pre-reward myself for all this, I've decided to take the afternoon off and go shopping. Silly as it is, having something new to wear to one of these events will motivate me to practice more.

I made rosemary focaccia and lasagne last night for a bunch of friends and L came over too. It was fun to watch people I love who don't know each other enjoy themselves together. I also got to play with construction paper and make posters for L's upcoming recital (for which T miraculously created an origami harpsichord!).

See you at the end of the madness!