Jr. SYMS Concert & Other Stuff

First of all, to all my readers (ha!) sorry I haven’t been posting as frequently as before, It’s summer, so I’ve been in Maine, where there are no computers.

So, we went to my brother’s SYMS concert (he made the Johnson concert and jazz band. I’m so proud… *sniff*). They played Mazama, Clouds that Sail in Heaven, and A Galop to end all Galops. They were all great, especially for musicians that young. I’d have to say that like Mazama the most, the percussionists really pulled it together on that one, as it required everyone to play a single staccato note at the same time, but no one was late or early! It surprised me! I was like “sweet!” Oh yeah, there was also a tornado warning, which required everyone to go into the cellar. My dad, brother, and I just stayed above ground and watched the lightning. :-)

Other Stuff ~ Unattended, my origami shelf has kind of died, it’s now populated with car keys, hearing aid batteries, science museum passes, and nail clippers. So I’ve started and Origami Stairwell, where I’m hanging origami around our stairs. I’ll upload a photo when I don’t feel lazy.

I’m struggling with the Marathon problem that I have to do for my AP Chemistry summer work. I think I set up the equation properly but I’m still getting a g/mol ratio below one, which obviously isn’t right…

This summer I’ve been listening to way more music than I usually do. Here’s the list of what I listen to, and when I listen to it:

Down in the Deep Cellar

Here is my final recital for the Northeast Tuba Euphonium Workshop.

http://www.vimeo.com/1337713

I’m very happy with it!

NETEW!

EDIT: NETEW has been renamed CTEW, the Cosmopolitan Tuba Euphonium Workshop.

NETEW was amazing! For those of you who do not know what NETEW is, it stands for Northeast Tuba Euphonium Workshop, you can find more info at netew.com.

Where to start… Well, when I got to Endicott College I discovered that all the dorms had their own kitchen and living space, sweet! I made friends (some crazy, some cool, some geeky), took the faculty tour (amazing campus), ate dinner (ok food, great ice cream), had my placement audition (thought I did pretty well), and went to bed (at midnight).

Here is my typical day: My alarm wakes me up at 7:30, I take a shower, and wake my roommates up. Around 8:30 we head to breakfast, which usually consists of pancakes, bagels, french toast, or coco puffs. Then at 9:00 we go to warm up and do our Daily Routine. The euphoniums go with Roland Froscher, and the tubas go with Mike Milnarik.

After the Daily Routine (By the way, the daily routine itself will make you improve so fast!) Mike does a masterclass, in which he will help a student on their solo piece, and the rest of us get to watch that student improve in front of our very eyes! It’s really quite amazing.

After that there is a clinic in which the guest/performing/emerging artist will talk about anything they think we should know. For example, Adam Frey talked about the business side of music, Jamie Lipton told us seven things she wish she knew when she was studying music, and Roland Forescher talked about the differences between music performance Switzerland and here in the United States (Even though I was staying up until one every night and was very tired I did not fall asleep during any of them! They were all very interesting).

At 12:00 we have lunch, which usually included salad and a pizza of some sort (they would take yesterday’s leftovers and put it on pizza. We even had corn pizza at one point, it wasn’t bad!).

After lunch we either rehearse with the pianist, have lessons with Mike or Roland, or practice individually (I did not get to have a lesson with Mike because I am a private student of his, but I did rehearse my solo, Down in the Deep Cellar, with the pianist Bonnie Anderson, a very good accompanist).

Then there is chamber music practice, my group played The Tubameisters and Virga Jesse. The Tubameisters was a very fun piece to play, but Virga Jesse was hard! Even though the notes were easy, making it sound musical was so hard. For our performance we played The Tubameisters, then Virga Jesse, then The Tubameisters again in double time! Everything was going great until the crowd started clapping, and we all know what happens when a crowd of musically challenged parents start to clap, they accelerando! But we stayed together with only a couple minor mistakes, like the on beats (me!) overlapped with the off beats. It was great!

At 5:00 there’s dinner, which usually includes a burger and fries, with ice cream for dessert.

Then comes my favorite part of the day, the faculty recital! We listened to Innovata Brass, Cosmopolitan Tuba Quartet, Dr. Fidgety Dixieland Band, and Brass Planet. They are all amazing and inspirational. To learn more go here: Guest Artists

Then we party (played pool) in the Lodge, head to our dorms at midnight, and go to bed at one. That is my typical day at NETEW, and boy was it great!

Mike Milnarik - Director of NETEW