<3 <3 <3 ondes-martenot! <3 <3 <3

Current Music: messiaen - turangalia symphony

Ha. Oops. So, I got my part assignments (and the parts themselves) for my new music course. One of my assignments is the Sciarrino Introduzione... and it's a bass clarinet AND CONTRABASS CLARINET assignment. I've never played one before in my LIFE!

I am SO EXCITED. And a bit nervous. (Anyway I also got assigned the Webern Concerto for 12 instruments (!!!!!) and the Grisey Partiels -- can I take this as a sign that I'm going to be one of the better clarinetists there, since I got all the wicked hard parts?)

Ugh. Stayed up WAY too late chatting with Rowyda last night, so I'm knackered but must must must practise the Donatoni, since I have to play it in Brighton on Friday! Aghghasdf.

And... only FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE WAR REQUIEM!

Current Music: tchaik - eugene onegin

I really am SO lucky to have Joy for my clarinet teacher. Every time I think she's said everything she'll say... WHAM!

And I was on FIRE today with the Bartok Contrasts. I didn't hit a wrong note. And the sound was wicked. And I was just so fired up (although who wouldn't be after a cuppa GSMD coffee). Fantastic, fanstasic! The amazing thing is, even when I'm playing THAT well... she still has TONS to say to me!

Plus, she mentioned that she's had a few students get accepted to PMF (which is what I just auditioned for) so that was encouraging. If I'm not one of them this year, it's damned well going to happen next year. RRR!

I just wish I saw her more than once every two months. Oi.

(Ps. To just extend a conversation craig and I had about Eric Whitacre -- anyone who thinks this guy is the shit just needs to hear the Rachmaninov Vespers to know that the man isn't doing anything that wasn't done 100 years ago. Rachmaninov has it all. Gorgeous. Fuckin' gorgeous.)

Current Music: rachmaninov vespers

Woah. David came in and did a kind of mock audition on me and had some incredibly enlightening things to say abot how I was playing the solo from Tosca.

I love that I live with him. He's such a legend.

I think it's like... I have been working so hard on increasing my musicality that I've gone too far so now I give away too much at once. I come barrelling in on Tosca when really that clarinet solo, the role the clarinet plays at that point... you're like the Angel of Death. It's the beginning of the end for her at Cavaradossi EVEN THOUGH twenty bars later she comes rushing in, supposedly to save the day. But I'm a reluctant Angel of a Death and a passionate one, half-defying my role.

(Um, this translates as quieter in the beginning, slower, but with the same kind of rubato I was doing before and not letting all the stops out until the last statement of the motive.)

Internet Date tonight! I have such high hopes for Ben...

Heather: Rafael! David's scared!

Rafa: Of what, the needles?

David: Yes!

Rafa: Well, they are not like any other needle you have ever had. They are small and thin... Heather, were you scared of them?

Heather: No way. I'm a pro!

Rafa: A pro? Ha. ... perhaps you are a junkie.

Heather: WHAT!

Rafa: Yes. Acupuncture junkie.

...

I can't believe my flatmate just accused me of being an acupuncture junkie.

I can't believe my acupuncturist just accused me of being an acupuncture junkie.

Woo!

The newest recording of David's piece is in (when those photos were taken). Want to hear?

It's online at the bottom of my little website, here.

Please have a listen and let me know what you think!

So. I had two gigs yesterday (which were preceeded with a fantastic night's sleep, thank god).

Gig Number 1:

I played in a memorial service in East Sussex. I did a quick arrangement of the Sarabande and Minuet from the first Bach cello suite (which everyone suddenly thought was clarinet repertoire not recognizing it at all -- course they were all judges and barristers so ...). It went really well and the service was gorgeous. Funny, too. This woman led quite the life.

She was American and when she was 23 (like me!) her husband died in the war. So she picked up her son and moved to the country that his father came from not knowing anyone. So to hear about her struggles and the life she led left me very, very moved and by the time I was finished playing I was good and ready to have a cry. To think, I'd never meet this woman! But they also told some very, very funny stories. Like her grandsom, now in his 30s:

"We loved granny because she was interesting and never did what we thought she'd do. For example, when I was 9 and shot a French tourist with a bow and arrow (and no, there was no plunger at the end) my friend gave me, she didn't scold me. She laughed.

... And then she explained why it's important to shoot them."

Heeee...

So I had a great time. And made a lot of money.

Gig Number 2:

I made it to All Saints' Church in Dulwich about 10 minutes before the concert started. This is a pretty amazing feat if I do say so myself. So. Popped my clarinets together and got ready to sight read the Egmont overture.

... yep, that's right. I managed to miss all the rehearsals for this piece. So that was a bit scary. Plus this horrible moment of, "Shit! Is it in Bb? Or C?"

Anyway, it was fine. As was the symphony. In fact, the symphony was amazing. Our soloists were fantastic and the choir sounded great (had I been at the rehearsals that day I might have known that). Plus, I really get on with John, the clarinetist that fixed me. We chatted about our favourite players and pieces all through the interval.

Except! For the 10 minutes I was introduced to Lucy, a 9-year-old who has just started to learn the clarinet. She was adorable. So was her dad.

Anyway, David and I decided take away chinese and beer was the only way to end the evening. So we did that and then off to bed.

I've just started reading Ian McDonald's The New Shostakovich.

Mostly it's a reaction to not being able to get into Philip Roth's American Pastoral. It's odd, since I've loved his novels so far... I think Iain Banks has basically ruined me for everything else. I love him too much.

But anyway, so I'm just going to really immerse myself in Shostakovich this week.

I had some kind of insight to share with you, but it escapes me now. Um, I was surprised to read that Testimony wasn't actually written by Shostakovich. I sortof read it as the gospel on Shosti when I was at UVic. In my hard core autobiography days...

I had coffee with Ieva near the river today. I still find it hard to believe I live in the south now. When we're on the embankment crossing to waterloo to catch our respective busses, I look over at St. Paul's and can't really believe that that direction isn't home.

I think that's part of the reason I'm not sleeping well. I don't yet feel totally at home here in Vauxhall. Once my visa comes through, hopefully then I'll relax into my Allan House life.

Ooh, my bass is making these weird growly unhappy noises at me from the other side of the room. Probably better do some practise.

Mah. Spent all day at home yesterday practising.

Plus a few hours reading this huge article about the Nielsen concerto. As a result I feel I'm finally able to understand the piece a bit better. Nielsen is such a legend.

This concerto has always been a bit of a mystery to me, I couldn't see it for anything but a load of mad crazy technique. But I'm getting closer. And can actually get through the first five pages without too many troubles. So will take it to Joy next week.

(If you care, the deal with Nielsen is he's all about specific intervals and enjoying them. And a typical Nielsen melody will sortof look like a jumble of notes. A labyrinth, if you will, which the performer has to escape. Something like... a series of minor or major thirds - stable intervals - running all over the place until one hits something like a major seventh - unstable interval - and that's where the emphasis lies. The clarinet concerto is all about these peasant dance melodies as well, in which the perfect fifth is so important so that's the other focus. There is your Nielsen lesson for the day!)

Anyway, I need to sort out some pieces to take to this course in February. Better start thinking about it soon since it'll have to all be crazy hard modern stuff. Will relearn Berio and Denisov probably, then take David's bass piece as well as something else for bass, probably the solo piece written by David's teacher, Richard Baker.

Feeling the love for the clarinet at the moment though. Getting this scholarship means the world to me. And then my pal Nielsen has me all fired up!

Plus, I have a lesson with Laurent on MONDAY. I'm going to take tons of Shostakovich excerpts for him, then tuesday david and I have tickets for LADY MACBETH. A Shostakovich week it will be!

books have never turned me on so much.

you have been warned. but take a look.

random. but hot, all the same.