Colloquium

It went really well!

December

Hello! It's been forever, because I've been busy as usual, but now that things are starting to wind down around Eastman I have a chance to write. Things have been going great with all my musical activities as well as with academic classes. I am now involved in FIVE choirs: Rep. Singers, which I've bitched about in earlier posts, ERC (we just had our final concert for the semester and performed Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem and Elgar's The Music Makers),  and the Christ Church Schola Cantorum. Starting at the beginning of November, I became involved in a group called Dr. Walmisley's Folly, which comprises mostly grad students that are enthusiastic about British choral music! Once a month (but twice in December) we sing Choral Evensong, which is literally my favorite thing to do...there is nothing like singing great repertoire with talented people who love it as much as I do. Even though the congregation for these evensongs are only around 20 people at most, the act of singing is satisfying enough...it's less of a performance, and more of a therapeutic activity, I guess. The fifth choir is at Church of the Ascension in Rochester (Episcopal), where I am the Soprano Section Leader. It is nice to have a little more spending money, and I am getting good experience. Even when a choir is not at an extremely high caliber, there is a lot to learn, like rehearsal techniques, and how to articulate what you want as a director.

I am playing the hymn on Monday in Organ colloquium (see my post from Sept. 19), and I am pretty confident about it. For those of you with Episcopal hymnals, I am playing hymn 444 (Blest be the God of Israel, with the tune Thornbury). It should go well, and hopefully they will be merciful with their criticism.

I think I will go to eat a scrumptious brunch at the Dining Center (the best meal of the week!)....hope all of you are enjoying the Holiday season. Happy Hanukkah tonight! For my Evanston peeps, I'll be home Dec. 20-the second week of January. Hope I can see you all.

Ciao!

In the swing of things...

Hi all,

I feel like now that I've explained my daily routine for the most part, not much has changed that is worth writing about...let's see: I have played in studio class three times, and each time has gone pretty well (we're required to play six times a semester--halfway done!). Many people have midterms this week, but due to my somewhat relaxed schedule (only three classes that aren't performance-based), I haven't had any yet. My Modern Novel professor informed us at the start of the year that he does not give midterms or finals. Oh well! And as far as Theory/Aural Skills, I might have an extremely small midterm (realizing figured bass at sight with good voice leading) coming up, but not for another two weeks or so.

I am still disliking the two choral groups the school placed me in; in Rep. Singers (made up of mostly freshman/sophomore piano majors, a handful of organists, and most of the freshman female vocalists) we are preparing for our first concert, which takes place this Friday. It will not be fantastic, by far. It is interesting how hard it is for such talented keyboardists to sing musically. I am lucky that I developed that skill more or less at the same time as when I learned to play piano proficiently. In the other group, ERC (the large choral society with plenty of grandmas and grandpas mixed in), we are still making extremely slow progress on our two pieces. Unfortunately, those two hours of rehearsal are one of the most dreaded parts of my week. It is frustrating to be chastised for not being more engaged and enthusiastic when we're placed in the group not by choice. Also, if I was singled out to sing my part alone, I am confident that I could do so with good accuracy. Once I've learned the notes, the musical expression makes sense and comes quickly, so the two hours of listening to the conductor repeat himself and pound out notes can be a little dull. That is the snobby "Eastman-quality" musician coming out in me, I guess. I can see that it is a good experience to sing in a choir as an organist, because I will likely direct one in the future, but I can't say I see myself directing a group of 150 anytime soon. We'll see!

The third choir I'm in, the Christ Church Schola Cantorum, is awesome. The repertoire is mostly known to me, but I am happy to sing anything with these people- they are all extremely musical (they know how to sing, also, which is a plus!), and the sound we make is pretty sick! We sing Compline every Sunday, and we will tour next month to sing a concert at another university nearby. It should be fun. I look forward to rehearsals, and it is rejuvenating to sing music that I enjoy with people who love it in the same way I do.

Harpsichord is coming along, as is organ. I am dutifully practicing my piano scales everyday, as well. Getting good grades in my English class, too. Golly gee, college isn't so bad. Definitely a lot more enjoyable than last year!!!

Also, the leaves are beautiful outside. Here's a pic to leaf you with:

EROI

I haven't posted for awhile because I've been pretty busy...this past weekend (starting Thursday afternoon, and ending today at noon), the organ department at ESM hosted the 2012 EROI (Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative) Festival: Bach and the Organ. It was a joint meeting with the American Bach Society. It involved many hours of interesting paper sessions, a few masterclasses, and many recitals and concerts. It was a weekend jam-packed with Bach! Many 'big names' of the field were there: Christoph Wolff, Peter Williams, etc, as well as around 200 other attendees. Not gonna lie- it was pretty overwhelming for me, as a freshman student and as a player still relatively new to the instrument. But, the talks gave me a lot to think about. The papers (at least, the ones I was able to follow) revealed a lot of the context surrounding Bach's music; there was one in particular that I liked that recreated the life of an average 18th century organist, all from the contents of one primary source: his account book of all his income and fees. It was also very cool to see pictures of original scores, or at least, copies from the time period. It makes me thankful that we learn from mass-produced music scores these days, because some of that 18th century handwriting looked hard to follow!

I'm so excited for this week to be over, because starting Saturday, I will be on Fall break! I'm not going home, because I only have the weekend, Monday and Tuesday off. But, I will get a chance to do nothing but practice (which may not sound that fun, but it is nice nonetheless). Also, some of the organists might make a trip to Niagara Falls, which would be fun.

Tomorrow I have to face the results of missing several classes due to the Bach fest--hopefully there is not too much homework to make up!

I've discovered that the sushi offered by the dorms is edible, as are the mozzarella sticks, but stay away from the grilled chicken caesar wrap! It depends who cooking that day, but there have been some icky meals lately. I'm learning my way around them.

Not much else has happened, and I've been working hard as ever. My main to-dos for a weekday are: Practice, Homework, Practice, Lessons, Homework, Rehearse and maybe a little more Practice, and Eat, if I get the chance! But I'm not complaining, The days themselves seem to last forever, but the weeks are going by very fast! I'm already starting my fifth week of class. Crazy.

Hope everyone at home is enjoying the transition to Fall. Here it is still nice enough to wander around without a jacket (but maybe with a scarf). Happy October!

Week 2

     This week I got to experience the brutal weekly Organ Colloquium. Required by the department, this is a meeting on Monday nights (separate from studio class) where all the organ majors (at every level, undergrad, masters, and DMA) meet. Usually there is a guest lecturer or presentation. This week the topic was a new digital organ that could connect to the internet for the possibility of international masterclasses and the like. I don't know how well the presentation was received, because many of the Eastman Organists are purists, and would be aghast at such a newfangled instrument, when the familiar mechanical-action instruments still work well enough.
     Anyway, after the lecture, Colloquium always ends with an anthem and a hymn. Each week, one student chooses an anthem to teach to the rest of the department (the 'choir') then perform. They have something like 25 minutes to conduct a rehearsal of the piece, include a runthrough (conducting from the console!), and receive criticism. This week, one of the DMA students taught us a Nunc Dimittis he wrote himself. After we finished the final runthrough, I saw how skilled many in the department are at criticizing! The positive comments were far outnumbered by the negative criticism. When it is my turn, I will be scared shitless, because I can't imagine enjoying being devoured by 45 (more experienced) organ students. And THEN, the hymn was played by a DMA student who played exceptionally well (she chose "Come Labor On"). Also, in the photocopies she distributed to us, she marked the breathing she wanted; she would mark a carrythrough of breath whenever a musical phrase ended without punctuation in the text. This is how I've learned to sing hymns. Anyway, after she played at a perfect tempo, she was absolutely torn apart by the faculty as well as some students. Of course it is all constructive, but they don't seem to leave much room for individuality. Two of the three professors argued that breathing should always correspond to the music rather than the text of the hymn.
     I guess this is all pretty specific to organists, but my point is that I am worried that when it is my turn to play and if I do not play the way that the majority agrees with, I will be torn down! I can handle it, but I feel it could be potentially scarring, rather than a learning experience.

So, Mondays are pretty hard days. In addition to Colloquium, I have Theory and The Modern Novel (James Joyce isn't as easy to read as my professor says!) class in the morning, then organ studio class, then a Repertory Singers rehearsal. In other words, I don't eat from 12:30 til 7:15, unless I'm lucky enough to stuff my face with a small snack around 3:30.

Tuesdays are a little better. I still have class and an organ lesson, but at least on Tuesday evenings I'm not compelled to cry from the crazy stress and tension in colloquium!! It's not that bad, though.

In my Theory class, we've been talking a lot about the philosophy of music and how to correctly interpret something. It is very interesting and deep, and I love that type of discussion. I would much rather think about music in an abstract way then do theory exercises from a textbook everyday. We also have had to sing in class and play piano in class. The class is so small that everyone is very friendly and supportive. Again, I am so grateful to have been placed in the honors track.

On Tuesday night I went to my first Eastman-Rochester Chorus (ERC) rehearsal. ERC is a choral society full of around 130 old ladies and men and maybe 20 Eastman students. The repertoire is great: we're doing Vaughan Williams "Dona Nobis Pacem" and Elgar's "The Music Makers." But the group is not made up of the strongest singers. The rehearsal is once a week for 2 hrs, ending at 9:45pm! Seems like there is a lot more I could get done in that time slot. Oh well.

Okay, time for bed. Yay for weekends!

Busy!

Hello all,

Since school started officially (was it only two days ago?!), I have been extremely busy and a little stressed too! There is SO much on my plate right now: I have registered for all my academic classes (see the revised schedule below), I have been admitted to two choral groups, I have gotten started with my lessons, and I have homework to do!

Let's see if I can focus enough to elaborate more (sometimes I feel like my brain is a little too clogged up with things I need to remember to do):

Here is my most recent schedule:

I was coerced into registering for Improvisation by my organ professor, which is a good thing, but it means I have another weekly class, and I also need to practice for it! Also notice the addition of Repertory Singers, the group is basically the MM and DMA conducting students' go-to ensemble, and ERC (Eastman-Rochester Chorale). Both of these groups aren't necessarily where I would have liked to have been placed (I didn't make the top choir, Chorale), but at least I am not in the Women's Chorus, which takes place first semester at the other campus (a long shuttle ride away). 

I had my first organ lesson on Tuesday. It was very interesting, and I wish it could have lasted longer than an hour. It is always refreshing to get someone else's perspective about pieces. My professor is very wise, and everything he says should be taken seriously. Also, we record every lesson, so I can listen to his advice over and over. 

I also started harpsichord lessons yesterday. It is very different and new for me, and it will take some getting used to. There is a load to think about. It is almost a relief to attend my English class (The Modern Novel), because I can escape the intense music stuff for an hour or so. However, my Theory class is fabulous. Initially I felt overwhelmed, because everyone there seems to have had extensive theory training (I've had half a year of actual training, plus ten years of ear training from singing in choirs). But as the days have gone on, I've been understanding more and more. The teacher is a great guy-and he's British. Thank Gawd.

I have an audition next week for a Catholic church Soprano Section Leader position. I'm not sure if my voice is a perfect fit for the liturgy/music program, but I am hopeful nonetheless! 

I've probably forgotten a lot of news. But I must get some sleep. Tomorrow is Friday!!!!!!!!!!

Schedule so far...

Current Course Schedule
KÄTHE  -- Fall Term 2012

CRN #	Subject	Course	Title	Instructor	Credit Hrs	Days	Time	Bldg	Room	Campus
36977	EIC	101	EASTMAN COLLOQUIUM	BUSH	1.0	T	10:35AM - 11:25AM	EEW	HATCH	ESM
40580	FWS	121	THE MODERN NOVEL	BALDO	3.0	MWF	9:35AM - 10:25AM	ESM	209	ESM
55979	ORG	160	PRIMARY ORGAN: PORTER	PORTER	4.0	TBA	-	ESM	424	ESM
66899	TH	101H	MODEL COMP-TONAL ANA I: HON	BROWN	2.0	MWF	8:35AM - 9:25AM	ANNEX	710	ESM
66976	TH	161H	AURAL MUSICIANSHIP I:HONORS	BROWN	2.0	TR	8:35AM - 9:25AM	ANNEX	710	ESM
				Total Credits	12.0

I'll also be in a vocal ensemble, and I think I will be taking secondary harpsichord lessons! Yay.

End of Orientation Week

This week has been full of lectures, meetings, and other orientation activities, but it is drawing to a close after tomorrow (Friday). I have gotten the chance to practice multiple times everyday, which is a new experience for me (at home, I usually got in maybe an hour or two of practice 4 or 5 days a week)! The practice organs all have their own character, some are Italian screechers, there is at least one Appleton, a few broken down Skinners, and some other mechanical organs (Holtkamps? Someday I will learn what they are all called!). Any organ can be made useful for practice, however, so I am grateful I have access to them!

Academically, I attended my advising session today, and I will register for classes tomorrow morning. Somehow, my theory placement examination results were damn good; I was extremely happy to learn that I have been accepted to Honors Theory. This means that I will be on a theory track that is accelerated (only 4 semesters, while everyone else takes 5!), small (only 12 students out of the entire freshman body are accepted), and challenging. There is no textbook to buy, and it is a little less structured, but it will be an amazing experience, I'm sure. Very excited for that class! After the initial theory test, a group of 25 or so students were called back for personal interviews and evaluations, and apparently I sightread well enough to join the program. Again, I'm psyched!

Maybe I will post my full class schedule somehow on here tomorrow...the classes mostly all sound great, save the mandatory Freshman Colloquium, which is a 'class' in which one must sit through long lectures each week. I also have a mandatory writing class--I'm hoping to get into the one where we read Woolf, Joyce, and Faulkner. Every other class is musical. 

Tonight our orientation committee will perform a recital for us freshies, and that should be fun. Sometimes I forget that everyone I am see and interact with around here is a musician of the highest caliber. I'm feeling very lucky to be here. Hopefully my spirits will be as high in a week, after classes have started! 

Here!

Eastman is wonderful, especially since the snow has yet to hit. This morning I took two theory/musicianship exams for placement purposes (for a total of three hours of testing). I didn't know everything, but I felt confident about a majority of the topics! Hopefully I can pass out of 101 and maybe get in to 102. Hope I'm not put in the remedial theory section!

My roommate is very easy to live with so far, the showers have great water pressure, and the food is good! I am still trying to gauge how busy I will be once classes start up. Since I'm in the beginning of orientation week, we only have a few meetings here and there and then lots of time to "get to know each other," or rather, spit out your name, instrument, and where you're from, then move on to the next person (and promptly forget the name of the previous one). Even though this is probably one of the tinier freshman classes (only around 150 people), it still seems hard to learn everybody's names. In time, in time.

Mail is much appreciated! My address is on my Facebook page (published only to my friends!), so feel free to shoot me a postcard, and I'll do my best to reply.

Now I'm off to my next orientation meeting: staying safe in Rochester (which is a little more ghetto than I was expecting!). Then a (mandatory) barn dance tonight. Grumble. I'd rather practice! Oh well.


Love to all!

A sort of afterthought to the post below:

(http://www.bostonconservatory.edu/music/karl-paulnack-welcome-address)

"One of my parents' deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn't be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school—she said, "you're wasting your SAT scores!" On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the "arts and entertainment" section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp. 

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would anyone bother with music? And yet—even from the concentration camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, "I am alive, and my life has meaning."

In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn't this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day. 

At least in my neighborhood, we didn't shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn't play cards to pass the time, we didn't watch TV, we didn't shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang "We Shall Overcome". Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of "arts and entertainment" as the newspaper section would have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can't with our minds. 

Some of you may know Samuel Barber's heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don't know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does. 

Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings—people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there's some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn't good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can't talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn't happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I'll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Midwestern town a few years ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland's, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation. 

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier—even in his 70's, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn't the first time I've heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: "During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team's planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute cords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn't understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?" 

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year's freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:

'If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft. 

You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well. 

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.'"

-Karl Paulnack's welcome address to incoming freshman at Boston Conservatory (a few years old, i think?)

Eastman

My move-in day is less than two weeks away. Everyone is asking, "Are you nervous?"
What do you think?! Here's what's on my plate: meeting new people, making friends, i.e. the usual college woes; but then there are the music major's worries: will I be good enough for a school of this reputation? Will my teacher be patient enough to deal with my blunders and slow pace? Yes, there's maybe a little exaggeration here, but jeeze, there is a lot to worry about. "Oh you'll be fine, you were good enough to get accepted, etc" sounds nice, but doesn't truly reassure.

One of my relatives had a serious talk with me about my confidence levels and how I shouldn't be hard on myself. I know she's right. It's hard to convince myself. I shouldn't be afraid of failure; it's a vital part of learning. This sort of introspection is a battle between what sounds right to me and what is honest. I'll have to work on merging the two sides...

On the other hand, I am totally thrilled to go to college. Most people cite it as some of the best years of their lives, and I am ready for a change from the routine. I will miss so many people. I'm trying not be a goddamn wuss choking up, but of course my parents and close friends and family will always be tugging at my heart. My parents will be empty-nesters, and I'll be worried that they won't take care of themselves (in reality, i'm sure they'll be living it up!). I hope my closest friends and I don't grow apart! I hope I don't become too much of a socially inadequate music nerd!!

And I don't want to worry about my freaking laundry! I'm too spoiled for this. Pathetic!

Anyway, here's the beautiful campus i'm moving to very soon!

St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue

For the last four summers, I've had the chance to go to NYC for a week and a day to the Saint Thomas Choir School for the Girls Chorister Course. During the year, the school houses the trebles of the superb Choir of Men and Boys, but during the summer girls are offered the experience. It's pretty satisfying! Like any summer camp, "fun" is a main objective, but at this course, there are other goals that we work towards as well (some, way cooler than others, though; the weird 50s square dance last year was odd). The most important of these goals are the three services we sing: two Evensongs (a favorite service of mine and many others), and a Sunday morning Eucharist. This year, these services fall on July 31, August 2, and Aug 5, and I urge you, PLEASE to listen! Each service will be webcast live as well as remain online for at least a month afterwards (I linked to the Tuesday Evensong above). The repertoire this year is pretty good: some of those obligatory pretty pieces by Schubert and Brahms as well as a funky Mag & Nunc by Wayne Marshall, and more. And Sunday is full of Howells!

Another reason to listen is the possibility that, as organ scholar, I might get to play a voluntary or two before or after an Evensong. St. T's is definitely one of the cooler spaces to play in, because of its reputation as an religious institution featuring of serious music, and also as a magnificent looking building. Yeah, yeah the politics of the church are a little behind the times (i.e., God is always assumed to be a "He," and a female priest is very rarely--if ever?--seen behind the altar), but the music is oh so awesome.

This year the course is directed by the amazing Sarah Baldock, who I count as one of my idols. She not only blazed her way into church music as a woman quite successfully (she's at Chichester Cathedral now), she also is hilarious and very supportive. She trades off every year as director of the course with the other Sarah (MacDonald), who is equally fiery and great to work with.

Since the camp is NY, there are many trips around the city, including a Broadway show, and several refreshing bike rides around Central Park. The choir school is located only two blocks from the park!!! I'm looking forward to seeing my fellow choristers again. For many (most) of us, these eight days are our yearly fix for "high church." Once you've sung with the rigor and discipline found (and demanded) at St. T's, your local parish back home can seem a little dull. And, the Gentleman of the Choir at Fifth Ave. are fantastic. They're all professional, extremely talented musicians that provide a stunning (very manly!) foundation for our girly soprano sound to float on.

OH but it kinda sucks that the leaders of the Girls Course confiscate our cell phones for the entire week, save half an hour on Tuesday. Reeeally sucks. Oh well. The food is very tasty (Heidi is the chef...divine meals!), and we get tons of exercise walking around the city as well as up and down the 7+ flights of stairs. And bedtime is at 10pm every night, if not earlier. That's pretty annoying, seeing that i've been up rather late these summer nights (check out the time stamp below).

So make sure to tune in to the services if you get the chance! Hopefully by the time we're done rehearsing, the girls that neglected to bother learning the music over the summer will have learned to fake it well enough in the service!

Here's a pic of St. Thomas. Sigh.

Intro

I am very excited to begin at Eastman in the fall. From talking to other students there, I am a little apprehensive, after being warned of the frequency of tears and frustration. But I suppose this is to be expected at such an intense institution. Hopefully there will be students that enjoy relaxing every now and then. I tend to be competitive as well as shy, but I'm hoping the conservatory will not be as cutthroat as its reputation might paint. It'll be a nice change of pace to be away from home (no offense to my brilliant parents), and hopefully I will thrive in such a musical community. So far I've done pretty well at networking among the small world of organists (name dropping is a fabulous skill!), and due to my experience at the famous (infamous?) St. Luke's Church in Evanston, I feel I've gotten a good foundation in church music. Yes, what a fabulous career to aspire to, but hey, I work with what I got. If I had to, I'm sure I could work towards some sort of academic degree instead, but music is my passion. Can't help it. Who needs money anyway? 


This blog will be full of lame ramblings, but hopefully it will allow my friends and family to keep an eye on my shenanigans if they so desire. Feel free to post comments of encouragement when the inevitable teary-eyed whining posts arrive (I'm forecasting mid-October?), or just let me know when the posts cease to be as riveting as this one, and I'll try to spice it up. Also, be warned, I might use some foul language. Another passion of mine. 

To close, here is my hero (the organist from the fabulous cult classic, Carnival of Souls)... 


I'm joking. She's a wimp.