(no subject)
7/15/06
Another week over, another Saturday to savor. I am appalled, truly appalled by how exhausted a week of working and commuting makes me. Is this how the rest of my life will be? I really hope when I have a job for real that it won’t take me an hour and a half each way to get there and back. It doesn’t seem too long when I’m actually doing it, but then I suddenly realize when I get back at 7:30 that I’ve been out of the house since 8:00, and now all I want to do is eat and go to sleep RIGHT AWAY.
My halo has been shining brighter than ever this week, though - I have been getting up at 6:00 AM!!! to practice cello before I go to work.. The plan was that I get up at 6:00, shower and eat by 7:00, then practice for an hour and leave at 8:00. It hasn’t been so perfect because (a) my grandparents don’t have showers, only baths, so I have to wash my hair in the bath which is always a pain and takes me a while; (b) well, it’s not like I literally jump out of bed as the clock strikes 6:00; (c) as I go downstairs I have to do things like open the shutters, let the dog out in the garden and so on; and (d) I’ve never been able to practice intensively for an hour without a little wasting-time break… But it’s still worth it I think; I have practiced for about 45 minutes 4 days this week, making the money my parents spent renting a cello for me for the summer worthwhile, and cleansing my conscience very effectively!
At work this week was the week framed by Hilary Hahn. If you don’t know of her, she is a young American violinist, I think 26, who’s been famous since she was a teenager. She’s already made a lot of recordings and according to my sister, she is really amazing at Bach in particular. I’d heard of her mostly through Edith, but never heard any of her CDs or anything. Monday I left work after lunch to get to the Wigmore Hall, a small but venerable concert hall in central London, off Oxford Street. I got buzzed in at the “Artistes’ Entrance” (why Artiste is spelled with an -e is just beyond me), was shown into the Green Room (if you don’t know, there’s one of those in every hall and it’s where the performers hang out before they play) and met the recording engineer. Embarassingly he thought *I* was the interviewer and introduced me to HH as such but I quickly corrected him - oh god what a terrible situation that would have been! - and so she didn’t look at me or take any interest in me for the whole time. The recording engineer and the interviewer were both really nice, though. I just sat in the corner while they talked - he was asking her about her new recording of Paganini’s first violin concerto. She was very nice to the interviewer and talked a lot in a very intense American-college-student way. I would have thought she was younger than 26, actually.
At the concert on Friday I was introduced to a stronger opinion on her, through the fabulous Martin, a very very gay Australian wedding-cake baker and ex-drag queen who works in sales. He is, shall we say, not the biggest fan of Ms. Hahn. Apparently he once had to have lunch with her and she upbraided Universal for not getting her enough press in Britain - when in fact she had been offered the cover of the widest-circulating classical music magazine and turned it down because she would have to do a photo shoot. Sigh. Anyway I thought the concert was very good - all I saw was the bits with her in because we were late and left early. She played Mendelssohn and The Lark Ascending (by Vaughan Williams, a big sappy UK favorite!). She has a great consistent tone, especially in the low range, and such musicality, without excessive showmanship.
[Unrelatedly but before I forget, guess who was sitting RIGHT behind us at the Barbican Centre?? Ethan Green!! (For any Yalies who are reading this, look at what a small world we live in.) He was in my music history class this semester and plays percussion in YSO. He’s doing Bulldogs in London and working at the Royal Festival Hall. Weird.]
After the Vaughan Williams we went backstage to schmooze. What a sudden transition in Martin! From “Oh that little so-and-so Hilary Hahn” he went to “Oh Hilary, you just sounded fantastic, really great tonight. And I just heard your new Paganini CD. Wonderful, really wonderful…” She was a bit of a madam backstage, I thought. Although I’d met her at the beginning of the week, she clearly had no idea who I was. We chatted to her management people when she went to check her messages and they seemed similarly (slightly) irritated. What a life! Buttering people up, making them even more conceited than they’re likely to be already, just because they’re going to make you a lot of money.
… almost a week since I started writing this! I’ll post it and at least there’s *something* up! I still owe many people emails I know - soon soon! xoxo
Another week over, another Saturday to savor. I am appalled, truly appalled by how exhausted a week of working and commuting makes me. Is this how the rest of my life will be? I really hope when I have a job for real that it won’t take me an hour and a half each way to get there and back. It doesn’t seem too long when I’m actually doing it, but then I suddenly realize when I get back at 7:30 that I’ve been out of the house since 8:00, and now all I want to do is eat and go to sleep RIGHT AWAY.
My halo has been shining brighter than ever this week, though - I have been getting up at 6:00 AM!!! to practice cello before I go to work.. The plan was that I get up at 6:00, shower and eat by 7:00, then practice for an hour and leave at 8:00. It hasn’t been so perfect because (a) my grandparents don’t have showers, only baths, so I have to wash my hair in the bath which is always a pain and takes me a while; (b) well, it’s not like I literally jump out of bed as the clock strikes 6:00; (c) as I go downstairs I have to do things like open the shutters, let the dog out in the garden and so on; and (d) I’ve never been able to practice intensively for an hour without a little wasting-time break… But it’s still worth it I think; I have practiced for about 45 minutes 4 days this week, making the money my parents spent renting a cello for me for the summer worthwhile, and cleansing my conscience very effectively!
At work this week was the week framed by Hilary Hahn. If you don’t know of her, she is a young American violinist, I think 26, who’s been famous since she was a teenager. She’s already made a lot of recordings and according to my sister, she is really amazing at Bach in particular. I’d heard of her mostly through Edith, but never heard any of her CDs or anything. Monday I left work after lunch to get to the Wigmore Hall, a small but venerable concert hall in central London, off Oxford Street. I got buzzed in at the “Artistes’ Entrance” (why Artiste is spelled with an -e is just beyond me), was shown into the Green Room (if you don’t know, there’s one of those in every hall and it’s where the performers hang out before they play) and met the recording engineer. Embarassingly he thought *I* was the interviewer and introduced me to HH as such but I quickly corrected him - oh god what a terrible situation that would have been! - and so she didn’t look at me or take any interest in me for the whole time. The recording engineer and the interviewer were both really nice, though. I just sat in the corner while they talked - he was asking her about her new recording of Paganini’s first violin concerto. She was very nice to the interviewer and talked a lot in a very intense American-college-student way. I would have thought she was younger than 26, actually.
At the concert on Friday I was introduced to a stronger opinion on her, through the fabulous Martin, a very very gay Australian wedding-cake baker and ex-drag queen who works in sales. He is, shall we say, not the biggest fan of Ms. Hahn. Apparently he once had to have lunch with her and she upbraided Universal for not getting her enough press in Britain - when in fact she had been offered the cover of the widest-circulating classical music magazine and turned it down because she would have to do a photo shoot. Sigh. Anyway I thought the concert was very good - all I saw was the bits with her in because we were late and left early. She played Mendelssohn and The Lark Ascending (by Vaughan Williams, a big sappy UK favorite!). She has a great consistent tone, especially in the low range, and such musicality, without excessive showmanship.
[Unrelatedly but before I forget, guess who was sitting RIGHT behind us at the Barbican Centre?? Ethan Green!! (For any Yalies who are reading this, look at what a small world we live in.) He was in my music history class this semester and plays percussion in YSO. He’s doing Bulldogs in London and working at the Royal Festival Hall. Weird.]
After the Vaughan Williams we went backstage to schmooze. What a sudden transition in Martin! From “Oh that little so-and-so Hilary Hahn” he went to “Oh Hilary, you just sounded fantastic, really great tonight. And I just heard your new Paganini CD. Wonderful, really wonderful…” She was a bit of a madam backstage, I thought. Although I’d met her at the beginning of the week, she clearly had no idea who I was. We chatted to her management people when she went to check her messages and they seemed similarly (slightly) irritated. What a life! Buttering people up, making them even more conceited than they’re likely to be already, just because they’re going to make you a lot of money.
… almost a week since I started writing this! I’ll post it and at least there’s *something* up! I still owe many people emails I know - soon soon! xoxo