Orchestra Review

Well, the trombones didn't get special mention, but it's good to know that we're being appreciated! On the other hand, no news is sometimes good news too!

"A Russian Evening" Orchestra Concert Review

Getting Closer...

I'm pretty excited that my recital is coming up so soon. One week from today. I'm also pretty excited that there are people coming out to see me! There is so much I want to show everyone about this place, from the stellar local brews, to Butchart Gardens, to the cool downtown stores and buildings. I doubt there is going to be enough time to do everything.

I've completed the majority of my transfer of CDs to digital format on my external drive. Sure went a hell of a lot quicker with a computer that actually functions! It is pretty cool to have basically any classical work that a person can think of at my fingertips, without having to go digging around to find the CD. Still lots of stuff missing to complete the collection, however...

I guess I don't have too much to say... I thought I did when I started typing, and then I realized that there was nothing but more trombone stuff going on in my head. I won't bore you all with those details. Hell, sometimes, I don't want to bore myself with those details.

While I'm typing away...

Since I'm typing stuff anyways, why not another post?

I'm excited for my recital coming up! Only 12 days to go! Good music, fun to practice, going to be great to perform! I am very excited for all the people coming out to visit and hear me play!

I am in the process of organizing a live stream of the performance, via the `net. By show of hands, how many of you might be interested in actually watching/listening to me over the `net?

I don't even know how many people read this, so this might not be the best spot to poll interest. I should probably email that question out. In any event, watch around here for a link to the site when I get it set up/hosted.

Something I have to admit...

Well, my laptop finally died. At the ripe old age of 5 years 7 months. I'm not so sure which is more traumatic: the fact that it finally did die, or the fact that I was so attached that I thought I was putting down the family pet.

I'm still in the process of figuring out what went wrong. Somewhere between a Windows update and 4 hours of downtime, the hard drive decided to lose the majority of the files necessary for Windows to function, as well as some files that I was saving on the drive (such as my resume, old papers, etc...). I came back to my laptop and proceeded to have a long battle with the machine in the vain attempt to try and repair and locate things that had gone missing.

Luckily, the week before this all went down, I had purchased an external hard drive, and was in the process of moving all my files over to that drive. I guess my thinking about the laptop dying made it happen, or something like that. So I didn't lose too much... I think.

I've been slowly working my way through the laptop. I've got Windows working again, but I think the hard drive has a few bad sectors on it. I'm hoping I can format the thing and it might work again. Before I do that, however, I've been moving files off of the laptop...

And onto my new computer! Megan and I have been talking about getting a new desktop for a bit, but this failure of functionality brought the situation to a head. Now here comes the part that requires me to admit something. I'm not sure if you're all ready for this, since I've been pretty hardheaded on this topic in the past.

Ready?

We got a Mac.

...

Still with me?

Now, before you all start calling my Judas, and pointing out all the complaints and comments I've made in the past, hear me out. First of all, the new iMacs come with Intel processors. This means, if I get desperate, I can install a copy of Windows, and dual boot the machine. Basically it can be both a Mac and a PC at the same time. So there shouldn't be a problem with getting old software to work if we need it.

Which brings me to my next point. I love to tinker with settings on a PC. I've done it for years. However, the point of learning all that useless crap was for when I played games, or was screwing with a system for some reason or another to make it run faster. However, I don't play games anymore. I play some card games, but basically I do 5 things on a computer:

1. Check Email.
2. Surf the Web.
3. Listen to Music. (this should be number 1, actually)
4. Type papers.
5. Watch movies/media.


Really, why do I need a PC for that, especially since all the things that might come up randomly, I'm sure I can get to work on a Mac.

Funny, but the thing looks gorgeous too. Definitely eye candy. The whole setup is sleek, and the all in one rig for the thing is not as boxy as it used to be years ago, when I made fun of them. Megan's point was that now we don't need to find a place to put the tower and other gear, this thing has it all built it.

Don't get me wrong, I still am trying to figure out the stupid apple/command button thing, which seems to control just about everything. Using that stupid button is like playing Starcraft: there's a keyboard shortcut for everything! Not only that, but some of the old shortcuts from a PC don't work, so I find myself doing stuff like ctrl-backspace and watching in vain as nothing actually happens. And man, you think installing stuff on a PC is confusing... watching this thing mount programs like drives, and then having to drag stuff around to install it... what the hell is that?

In any event, that's the big story. I've become a traitor to the PC cause. I'm sure it'll survive without me.

Reflections

Well, that's another thing down.

The show went amazingly well on Friday night. By no means was it a perfect performance, but it was well received, and there were some great moments throughout. I finished off with a great feeling; it was a great performance, and I am glad to have done it.

However, now I am stuck in a type of musical limbo. I am both sad and happy to see Shadowcatcher go. Happy because I get 6 hours a week of my life back, but sad because this has been something I've wanted to do for the last 2 years. Now I've done it. So now what...

I know I've got my grad recital coming up, and I will be certainly working towards polishing up those materials. But it isn't the same thing. This was a huge deal; I'm still having professors and students come up and congratulate me on the performance. It's still in people's heads, and it's still in mine. I don't know if I can give it up now... you work towards something for so long, it becomes part of you. At least, in this musical sense, it became part of my musical definition for a long time.

Gene calls me the Ewazen expert. I'm not so sure about that, but I seem to be highly qualified (experienced is probably a better word) in performing his works. I'm doing another of his works for my recital, and I'll do another Canadian Premiere of a different work in April. I guess this is where my musical obsession is headed, but it seems a bit more nebulous. There is less to grab onto. Shadowcatcher was tangible; I knew what it was, and what had to be done with it. Specializing in a certain composer's music doesn't offer as much to hang on to. Not that I'd be limited in any sense, but I really enjoy his stuff.

I don't know, I'm just rambling on. I just didn't realize what frame of mind this performance was going to put me in.

On a side note, not only have I been called a "Fucking Genius" (thanks Joni!), but I'm also now a "Fucking Brilliant Bass 'Bone Player". I'm racking up the f-bomb laden compliments, even if some of them are a bit sarcastic.

One Week to Go...

...Until I get my life back. One week until our "Shadowcatcher" premiere. I'm both excited and excited to get it done. I've been doing double duty rehearsals for the last month and it has been killing me. I want some of my evenings back, and I want my practice time back. But I also want to perform the hell out of this thing, so it's going to be great when we do it. It really is a shame we're only doing it once, it would be great to take it on the road and play it a few times around, but the school has no money for that.

Actually, I had a good discussion with a few people around UVic about the concept of touring with a group. They have not done that in a while here, and it's rare at that. Us U of L grads should consider ourselves very lucky to have had those opportunities to travel, even if it only was to the middle of nowhere sometimes. People were shocked that we went somewhere every year, and pretty far at that. They've gone to Vancouver before... but so did we, and I'm pretty sure that was harder for us. Plus Washington, Manitoba I hear this year, too. So it turned out to be interesting which things get sacrificed in a budget.

In other news, I've been sick for the last few days with a nasty stomach virus that seems to be "going around". Such horse shit, I wanted to kill everyone in that school who was sick, but didn't stay home, and neglected to wash their hands, coughed all over the place, and generally spread their disease around. I ended up getting sick around 11pm on Monday night, and not being able to sleep for a full 24 hours after that due to chronic vomiting. Good times...

Wednesday was disappointing, since I had rehearsals that I had to cancel because I figured the little food I had eaten (green jell-o) was destined to be coming out of my spit valve if I tried to play. I hate taking time off from playing, unless I actually want to take the time off!

Thursday was good though... I ate some toast and that felt good, and I went to play. I refused to miss that orchestra rehearsal, since we were sight-reading some music, and I had heard we were doing "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (of Fantasia fame), and it has a great bass bone excerpt in it that I wanted to play. And we also did the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, but that almost killed me, since I was not physically able to play that much.

Friday was better, and I played for some good amount of time. We did a run through with the band for Shadowcatcher, and it seemed to go well. The group is sounding good, and we figure all should be ready to go. Got some great posters, and they are doing special programs for this concert (they use the same format for everything at this school - no money for originality either).

This weekend, I'm going to take it easy. I've got nothing to do, so I figure I'll relax, practice a bit, and generally lounge around. Listen to music.

That's what's been going down out here, hope all are well!

Ewazen - Update

Alright, so I converted the files to mp3, so there shouldn't be any problems with playback now... I realized that I have more bandwidth, so you don't have to "Save as", but you can play it back in your browser.

This is the work that I did for the concerto competition last April. Certainly one of my favourite works thus far, and I'm happy to have gotten it on record. It certainly isn't a perfect performance, but I'm happy with the way it turned out, and the sound quality is pretty good.

Ewazen Rhapsody Mvt. 1

Ewazen Rhapsody Mvt. 2

Ewazen Rhapsody Mvt. 3

Long Time...

I realized it's been quite a while since I posted anything, so here's an attempt to relay the events of the last month and a bit.

Made it back to Lethbridge early in December. Started working at CT the next day. That was exciting. Well, at least I got most of my Christmas presents paid for. I realized why I hate going back to work, however. It was one of those epiphany moments, and I'm not sure if it'll have any effect on my return to CT in the future or not. Anyways, I realized that I had two career choices in my life: 1 - to stay at work at CT and move up the management ladder and earn a salary, becoming a retail whore for the rest of my days, or 2 - to take the slow path to a job by exploring the orchestral world. I know I can sell just about anything that isn't nailed down (and so does CT, apparently), but I made my choice to be a career musician. However, whenever I return to CT, I get upset, and the epiphany that I came to was that I'm upset because I am faced with the same choice again. Every time I come back, and work there, I am forced to make the same decision. It doesn't help when a good friend of mine has made the other choice and moved up the ladder of management in the store, and I can see where I might have been. In any event, it's not a great epiphany, but it is one anyways.

So aside from working every day up until Christmas, I was also trying to finish recording myself for auditions. Thank god for not giving keys back... So my weekends were me stuck in a room for 3 or 4 hours playing stuff over and over so that I could get a good take on many different orchestral excerpts. I guess I could just have easily edited them on my computer, but I wanted to both work on them and also to see if I could do it. I can now, but man, that was intense. Right up until we left, I was still recording. I've still got recording to do tomorrow, but it's a concerto, and I think that is going to be more fun than anything else. I'll probably post it up so you can hear it. I've become the Ewazen specialist at UVic, and this will be my first recording of one of his works. Speaking of Ewazen, since I'm on a first name basis with Eric, he sent me an unpublished work for bass trombone that has only been performed a few times. I get to be the first to perform it in Canada!

My quintet had our first rehearsal with the UVic Wind Symphony for Ewazen's brass quintet concerto we're premiering in February. We just sat in, but didn't play. It was great to hear, since I've obsessed over the CD recording for the last couple of months. That, and I didn't believe it was actually happening until I saw them playing the music. The whole quintet is pumped up to do this, and I think it is going to blow everyone away when we do it.
Just a bit scary too...

Megan and I went to stay with her parents for Christmas this year. The first time I've been away from home for Christmas. I had a great break up there, as I was done my recording, done working, and I basically just practiced and read. I figure that's the way to spend holidays. I spent so much time running around while I was in Lethbridge that I didn't get nearly enough relaxing done there, and I didn't get to do all the things I set out to do anyways. I still didn't get to see everyone I wanted to, and when I did, sometimes it was for a 10 minute "hey how's it going" conversation. You spend all you time during school being busy and running around, and then you do the same damn thing during the holidays. *Sigh*

Well, that's about all I can think of right now, and I've got to get to the school and practice some more. I hope everyone is well, and rested up for their returns to normal life. I think I am, I hope I am. Happy New Year!