The experience of a lifetime
So I'm back from spending four days at Conference All-State in Rochester, New York, with 900 of the state's best musicians.
It was one of the most intense, pleasurable four days of my life.
We left for Rochester at 10:00 in the morning. When we got to the hotel, we had to wade through a crowd of a thousand kids to wait in line to get our room keys and junk. Once we got all of our documents and information, we all went our own ways to our rooms. We were all on different floors, and all had different roommates.
As soon as I dropped my stuff at my room, I went downstairs and signed up for an audition time. I was the last person to audition in the whole first violin section, so I wasn't very happy about that. I went up to my room, and practiced in the hallway outside my room for an hour and a half, and Anish, sneeshy, came up and practiced for a bit until he had his audition. After auditions, we had about an hour until we had our first rehearsal that night. We rehearsed in a ballroom of the Hyatt hotel that is connected to our hotel through a series of sky walks and stuff. I wasn't overly disappointed with seating--I was just glad I had the chance to be there. I was in the middle of the first violin section, which was just fine with me. My stand partner was from Buffalo, and she was really cool.
I was amazed with how many kids there were from Long Island. Almost every kid I talked to from the orchestra seemed to be from downstate. In any event, the orchestra blew me away. Every single person in our section, from first chair to last chair, was INCREDIBLE. When we played, the bows moved in the same directions, and the intonation was spot on in 98% of our music. I was watching last chair warm up before the concert, and he was playing Lalo's Symphonie Espagnol flawlessly. It was very cool. Also, the second violins were so amazing. It was totally shocking to hear beautiful, strong sounds coming from the back of the section. The sound was also tremendous, around 100 strings, and 50 band instruments. O_O
Every time I play in orchestras like this, I feel so inspired. It's hard to play anything back at Vestal and feel any sort of emotion when there's a conductor nagging people about rhythms, and intonation. At All-State, all of us were past the level of having to worry about notes and rhythms, so the conductor could worry about the aspects of playing music, that actually make it musical.
Apart from the two times when I was dozing off during his 30 minute talking bouts, I really valued what our conductor had to tell us. He knew what he was talking about, and found ways to teach us how to put our hearts into our music. Once we started playing, most of us had no trouble reflecting our personal emotions in the music. There's always more we can do with music, and the conductor truly brought out the best in all of us. This is something I cannot say about any other conductor I've worked with, only because a good conductor with a bad orchestra is limited in a certain way.
Mussorgsky's Pictures At an Exhibition is such a deep, meaningful piece, that you almost have to play to really understand. The first time I heard the recording, I didn't like a lot of it. Playing a song for 8 hours a day really forces you to focus and pay attention to every note, crescendo, accent, and articulation.
I was a bit nervous about rooming with random people, but luckily it turned out well. One roomie was from long island, and the other was from queens. Woot, go me for representing upstate! ;-) They were both really cool kids. It's amazing, although we lead so different lives, we have so many things in common. As they say, music is a universal language.
8 hours a day were spent in this room:
The violin section:
When we weren't rehearsing for 8 hours a day, we were either eating or sleeping. Haha, the food was alright sometimes, and it was pretty terrible other times.
This is an example of what a vegetarian ate at All-State when the food wasn't so good...;-)
Meals were a nice time to meet other people. Although us Vestal kids mostly ate with one another, we did eat with a girl from Buffalo and a girl from NYC at various meals. The girl from buffalo was born in Binghamton and lived there until she was two...and all she remembers is snow, and brown...apparently. Trees? I don't know. lol.
Playing Libby Larsen's commissioned piece was a drag, because no one really liked it. She came in to talk to us about it, and her excuses for writing the song were pretty lame. Apparently she composed the song because "life is so percussive."
So all in all, it was a very emotional experience for me. I never expected that All-State would affect me like it did, but the people I met, and the music I played were incredible. The concert went pretty well, and when the whole orchestra stood up when the audience was giving us a standing ovation, things got pretty sad for me...what a bittersweet ending. Being a senior, it was amazing to play in an orchestra of such caliber, but it's also the last time that I'll ever do such a thing in high school. I still remember in 5th grade, playing in an all-county orchestra for the first time, and getting co-concertmaster. I had no idea that they ranked chairs, nonetheless called first chair a concertmaster. 11 years of violin, seven years of orchestra, and countless rehearsals later, I am where I am now. It's been a fun ride, and is something I will definitely miss in college. Who knows if my schedule will allow me to continue the violin? I sure hope so.
The night before the concert, I walked into the rehearsal room to get a part of my folding stand, and the conductor called me over and shook my hand, telling me that I had done some great playing, and that I had "great eyes." That was rather exciting since I was sitting in the middle of the section, and did not expect him to say such a thing.
Good times.
On a much, much sadder note, I found out news of the death of Mrs. Infantolino almost two hours after returning from All-State. Talk about going from a high to a low. I worked with her so closely since freshman year, for Chemistry Magic Show. I did the music for the show for two years, and then was president of the show last year. I talked to her all the time, and met with her over the summer sometimes to make sure everything was in order for the show. All I remember was her laughing, and bonding with all the children that came to the shows. Why can't she just come back to school with her chemistry goggles and fire blanket? I saw her the day before I left for Rochester, and she was so happy and smiling, and we talked for a little bit about how we hadn't seen much of each other this year. I come back, and then I hear this. Ever since the beginning of the year, I had been meaning on going and visiting her, just to see how she was doing, and how chem magic was going this year (since I'm not in it since I'm at the hospital in the morning). Every time I remembered, I put it off. I guess I shouldn't have done that. Who would've known? I don't know what Chem Magic will be like, and if I even want to go back, now that she's gone. It won't be the same. Well, I have the good times to remember---I'll never forget her distinctive voice. They say the good die young, and the longer I'm around, the more I see that the statement's definitely true.
Well, I think this entry is long enough. I'd better work on my homework. I'll post pictures from all-state in a protected entry in the future, so random ppl won't be able to see them.
Have a good day.
It was one of the most intense, pleasurable four days of my life.
We left for Rochester at 10:00 in the morning. When we got to the hotel, we had to wade through a crowd of a thousand kids to wait in line to get our room keys and junk. Once we got all of our documents and information, we all went our own ways to our rooms. We were all on different floors, and all had different roommates.
As soon as I dropped my stuff at my room, I went downstairs and signed up for an audition time. I was the last person to audition in the whole first violin section, so I wasn't very happy about that. I went up to my room, and practiced in the hallway outside my room for an hour and a half, and Anish, sneeshy, came up and practiced for a bit until he had his audition. After auditions, we had about an hour until we had our first rehearsal that night. We rehearsed in a ballroom of the Hyatt hotel that is connected to our hotel through a series of sky walks and stuff. I wasn't overly disappointed with seating--I was just glad I had the chance to be there. I was in the middle of the first violin section, which was just fine with me. My stand partner was from Buffalo, and she was really cool.
I was amazed with how many kids there were from Long Island. Almost every kid I talked to from the orchestra seemed to be from downstate. In any event, the orchestra blew me away. Every single person in our section, from first chair to last chair, was INCREDIBLE. When we played, the bows moved in the same directions, and the intonation was spot on in 98% of our music. I was watching last chair warm up before the concert, and he was playing Lalo's Symphonie Espagnol flawlessly. It was very cool. Also, the second violins were so amazing. It was totally shocking to hear beautiful, strong sounds coming from the back of the section. The sound was also tremendous, around 100 strings, and 50 band instruments. O_O
Every time I play in orchestras like this, I feel so inspired. It's hard to play anything back at Vestal and feel any sort of emotion when there's a conductor nagging people about rhythms, and intonation. At All-State, all of us were past the level of having to worry about notes and rhythms, so the conductor could worry about the aspects of playing music, that actually make it musical.
Apart from the two times when I was dozing off during his 30 minute talking bouts, I really valued what our conductor had to tell us. He knew what he was talking about, and found ways to teach us how to put our hearts into our music. Once we started playing, most of us had no trouble reflecting our personal emotions in the music. There's always more we can do with music, and the conductor truly brought out the best in all of us. This is something I cannot say about any other conductor I've worked with, only because a good conductor with a bad orchestra is limited in a certain way.
Mussorgsky's Pictures At an Exhibition is such a deep, meaningful piece, that you almost have to play to really understand. The first time I heard the recording, I didn't like a lot of it. Playing a song for 8 hours a day really forces you to focus and pay attention to every note, crescendo, accent, and articulation.
I was a bit nervous about rooming with random people, but luckily it turned out well. One roomie was from long island, and the other was from queens. Woot, go me for representing upstate! ;-) They were both really cool kids. It's amazing, although we lead so different lives, we have so many things in common. As they say, music is a universal language.
8 hours a day were spent in this room:
The violin section:
When we weren't rehearsing for 8 hours a day, we were either eating or sleeping. Haha, the food was alright sometimes, and it was pretty terrible other times.
This is an example of what a vegetarian ate at All-State when the food wasn't so good...;-)
Meals were a nice time to meet other people. Although us Vestal kids mostly ate with one another, we did eat with a girl from Buffalo and a girl from NYC at various meals. The girl from buffalo was born in Binghamton and lived there until she was two...and all she remembers is snow, and brown...apparently. Trees? I don't know. lol.
Playing Libby Larsen's commissioned piece was a drag, because no one really liked it. She came in to talk to us about it, and her excuses for writing the song were pretty lame. Apparently she composed the song because "life is so percussive."
So all in all, it was a very emotional experience for me. I never expected that All-State would affect me like it did, but the people I met, and the music I played were incredible. The concert went pretty well, and when the whole orchestra stood up when the audience was giving us a standing ovation, things got pretty sad for me...what a bittersweet ending. Being a senior, it was amazing to play in an orchestra of such caliber, but it's also the last time that I'll ever do such a thing in high school. I still remember in 5th grade, playing in an all-county orchestra for the first time, and getting co-concertmaster. I had no idea that they ranked chairs, nonetheless called first chair a concertmaster. 11 years of violin, seven years of orchestra, and countless rehearsals later, I am where I am now. It's been a fun ride, and is something I will definitely miss in college. Who knows if my schedule will allow me to continue the violin? I sure hope so.
The night before the concert, I walked into the rehearsal room to get a part of my folding stand, and the conductor called me over and shook my hand, telling me that I had done some great playing, and that I had "great eyes." That was rather exciting since I was sitting in the middle of the section, and did not expect him to say such a thing.
Good times.
On a much, much sadder note, I found out news of the death of Mrs. Infantolino almost two hours after returning from All-State. Talk about going from a high to a low. I worked with her so closely since freshman year, for Chemistry Magic Show. I did the music for the show for two years, and then was president of the show last year. I talked to her all the time, and met with her over the summer sometimes to make sure everything was in order for the show. All I remember was her laughing, and bonding with all the children that came to the shows. Why can't she just come back to school with her chemistry goggles and fire blanket? I saw her the day before I left for Rochester, and she was so happy and smiling, and we talked for a little bit about how we hadn't seen much of each other this year. I come back, and then I hear this. Ever since the beginning of the year, I had been meaning on going and visiting her, just to see how she was doing, and how chem magic was going this year (since I'm not in it since I'm at the hospital in the morning). Every time I remembered, I put it off. I guess I shouldn't have done that. Who would've known? I don't know what Chem Magic will be like, and if I even want to go back, now that she's gone. It won't be the same. Well, I have the good times to remember---I'll never forget her distinctive voice. They say the good die young, and the longer I'm around, the more I see that the statement's definitely true.
Well, I think this entry is long enough. I'd better work on my homework. I'll post pictures from all-state in a protected entry in the future, so random ppl won't be able to see them.
Have a good day.