Brahms was a genius.
So I'm finally updating about NCSA...I'm having such a wonderful time here. I'm so glad I came back for a second summer. The first two weeks were amazing, studying with Sarah Johnson again. I LOVE HER! She's such a wonderful teacher, and I had two great lessons with her on my Paganini, Bruch, and Bach. Wow... I'm in an awesome quartet with Gregory and Grant, and a cellist named Sarah. We're *attempting* to finish the entire Ravel quartet by the end of the five weeks. We finished the first movement and have performed it several times so far. Those performances all went really well, but now we're struggling through the rest of the movements, especially the second. The second is such a cool movement though! Mr. Statsky is our coach, and he is just amazing with all of his stories about his famous teachers. He says, 'oh well, when I was studying with Galamian/Gingold/DeLay...' Or 'well, when William Primrose was coahcing my chamber music group...' Geez, the man is like a walking musical encyclopedia. He's so brilliant!
On another really cool note, I got to play in a faculty concert last night! HA! How awesome is that? Mr. Statsky felt like, with all of his students and coachings, that he couldn't learn his part properly (yeah right, he could probably sightread it perfectly), so they asked Gregory and me if we could fill in. We were shocked and a slight bit terrified, but we did. So Gregory played the first two movements, and I played the last two movements of the first Brahms sextet in b flat major...such a great piece! I was so scared playing with all of these wonderful people, but when it came to the concert, I just had fun, and I really enjoyed being up there and playing. That's a first for me...Man, that was so cool.
So Ms. Johnson is gone to teach at Brevard now. :( I MISS HER SO MUCH! She's so wonderful. She came back to visit Sunday night, though, and it was so good to see her. I like my teacher now, though, Janet Orenstein. She's nice (although no one can be as cool as Ms. Johnson), and I really like working with her (and playing with her in the Brahms). She is an absolutely amazing violinist (went to Juilliard), and playing with her was such a privilege. She's an intonation freak...she's always perfectly in tune. And then she complains about how out of tune she is...yeah right, as if any of us mere mortals would notice. :) I'm also having time to catch up with Dr. Kramer (cello teacher), who is one of the coolest people alive.
Well, this is waaayy too long so I'll stop. I hope everyone is having a great summer, and I can't wait to see all of my FSU friends in the fall. It's not far away!!
Em
On another really cool note, I got to play in a faculty concert last night! HA! How awesome is that? Mr. Statsky felt like, with all of his students and coachings, that he couldn't learn his part properly (yeah right, he could probably sightread it perfectly), so they asked Gregory and me if we could fill in. We were shocked and a slight bit terrified, but we did. So Gregory played the first two movements, and I played the last two movements of the first Brahms sextet in b flat major...such a great piece! I was so scared playing with all of these wonderful people, but when it came to the concert, I just had fun, and I really enjoyed being up there and playing. That's a first for me...Man, that was so cool.
So Ms. Johnson is gone to teach at Brevard now. :( I MISS HER SO MUCH! She's so wonderful. She came back to visit Sunday night, though, and it was so good to see her. I like my teacher now, though, Janet Orenstein. She's nice (although no one can be as cool as Ms. Johnson), and I really like working with her (and playing with her in the Brahms). She is an absolutely amazing violinist (went to Juilliard), and playing with her was such a privilege. She's an intonation freak...she's always perfectly in tune. And then she complains about how out of tune she is...yeah right, as if any of us mere mortals would notice. :) I'm also having time to catch up with Dr. Kramer (cello teacher), who is one of the coolest people alive.
Well, this is waaayy too long so I'll stop. I hope everyone is having a great summer, and I can't wait to see all of my FSU friends in the fall. It's not far away!!
Em