its been a long time...
hmmm...I guess its been a while. Poor Nora asked about my audition months ago and I just up and disappeared. Truth is, my computer is very old and almost dead and unless I'm on R's computer I do very little as ANYTHING takes forever on it.
Life is good but this fall has been the busiest I've ever had. I just got a new car, a Subaru Impreza and I LOVE it. (AND its AWD and a 5 speed...Yay! AND its blue just like my old one) In October I drove the Volvo to a gig in North Andover and when I came out of the wedding my bumper had just fallen off. That's right, no accident, it just fell off. I pretty much flatlined on the car at that moment...I was done with it and it was time to move on.
Milwaukee went well, it was my first audition like that and I felt I did very well on it. Maybe not well enough to win the gig, but there were about 70 cellists, and I felt I played well, I was asked all the excerpts (which I've heard more than one person say they were not) and I have no regrets. I'm looking forward to the spring and trying to figure out what the perfect balance of gigs/teaching and audition prep is. Ideally I'd quit everything and just prepare, but in the real world there are bills to pay and in order to buy strings, plane tickets etc, I have to work. This spring there are about 3 auditions right at the same time, so I'm figuring out which I'm going to do. I think I may have made my choice...we'll have to see. I'm also retaking the TMC audition in February as it was probably the best experience of my cellistic life and I'd love to go back and do it again. SO much education in that place! Aside from TMC I'm not going to apply to any other festivals (except maybe a few summer gigs that pay). I'd rather spend the time preping for auditions.
Lets see, what else.....R conducted his piece "Transfigured Life' this fall and did a faboo job. I was very proud of him. R is doing fabulously. He's currently writing a solo cello work for me..yay!
I'm in the process of buying a new case because my Accord case broke. Man, cello cases are super expensive...like 1800-2600 for a good one. GOOD GOD!
Any spare time I've had lately has been spent in CT with R's aunt. This fall she became ill and I've been helping with her care/cleaning her house (she needs some fairly severe help with the cleaning thing...years of accumulated "things."
I guess that's it for now. Today I had a gig in RI and tomorrow I do my Friday 7 hour stretch of teaching.