yesterday
November 2 2006
okay. so this is where the travel journal gets boring. today was our first day of rehearsal, working on the programme for the european half of the tour: beethoven leonore overture no. 3, dvorak violin concerto, mahler symphony no. 1. i started the day with deciding to go to the gym since i felt like a bump on a log after sitting in the plane for 50000000 hours yesterday. however, since i hadn't eaten since about 4:30pm the day before, it wasn't such a good idea, and afterward sort of spent a while flopping around my room with low blood pressure/sugar before making it down to breakfast and returning to quasi-normal. that was the exciting part of the day.
rehearsal in the morning, mahler 1, afternoon, mahler 1 and beethoven. we played this programme in the summer so it's not terribly exciting to work on -- but on the other hand, at least it's mostly already together so we don't need to stress out about anything. i also got my hands on the mandolin i'll be playing on the asia/australia half of the tour. it's actually a nice little thing, it's not one that's a rock acoustic one, it's actually a real old school instrument; i guess it was made in 1926, pretty crazy. anyway, it's much much much easier to play than the one i was using in toronto, the strings are lower tension so it takes a lot less effort to push them down and also to pluck them. spent a while after rehearsal practicing, i may manage to do this yet!! i also had several people say that when they found out about there being a mandolin solo, that they thought that i would probably be playing it... i think maybe i have a weird reputation? hmm.
we also had a meeting, orchestra and management, to discuss the good and bad points about the summer. some good points were brought up -- more protein at breakfast, better chairs, more days off. looks like next summer's lineup of conductors should be pretty cool as well. it also looks like there may be some drama re. the funding of the orchestra in a couple years, who knows what will happen.
then tonight they had a welcome dinner for us at a thai restaurant across the street from the hotel. considering that in switzerland it seems that restaurant entrees start at about $20 no matter how crappy the restaurant, it was pretty nice! had some good curry, rolls, the usual, as well as some crazy roll things with taro root in them, which i don't think i've ever had before. quite tasty all in all.
went walking with assia and kate, which was nice but kind of chilly. i think i'm going to have to invest in a new sweater sometime soon. hopefully not in $witzerland though. nice country here, but soooo expensive... at least the town is gorgeous. there are a couple castle type buildings that we're going to try to check out in our spare time pre-concert on saturday, and the town is right on lake geneva, so the view is incredible.
also. note to self: start taking camera places. today was a gorgeous day for photos, clear sky and the lake was beautiful, but of course i forgot my camera in the hotel. grrr.
time in transit today: 0h
time flying today: 0h
okay. so this is where the travel journal gets boring. today was our first day of rehearsal, working on the programme for the european half of the tour: beethoven leonore overture no. 3, dvorak violin concerto, mahler symphony no. 1. i started the day with deciding to go to the gym since i felt like a bump on a log after sitting in the plane for 50000000 hours yesterday. however, since i hadn't eaten since about 4:30pm the day before, it wasn't such a good idea, and afterward sort of spent a while flopping around my room with low blood pressure/sugar before making it down to breakfast and returning to quasi-normal. that was the exciting part of the day.
rehearsal in the morning, mahler 1, afternoon, mahler 1 and beethoven. we played this programme in the summer so it's not terribly exciting to work on -- but on the other hand, at least it's mostly already together so we don't need to stress out about anything. i also got my hands on the mandolin i'll be playing on the asia/australia half of the tour. it's actually a nice little thing, it's not one that's a rock acoustic one, it's actually a real old school instrument; i guess it was made in 1926, pretty crazy. anyway, it's much much much easier to play than the one i was using in toronto, the strings are lower tension so it takes a lot less effort to push them down and also to pluck them. spent a while after rehearsal practicing, i may manage to do this yet!! i also had several people say that when they found out about there being a mandolin solo, that they thought that i would probably be playing it... i think maybe i have a weird reputation? hmm.
we also had a meeting, orchestra and management, to discuss the good and bad points about the summer. some good points were brought up -- more protein at breakfast, better chairs, more days off. looks like next summer's lineup of conductors should be pretty cool as well. it also looks like there may be some drama re. the funding of the orchestra in a couple years, who knows what will happen.
then tonight they had a welcome dinner for us at a thai restaurant across the street from the hotel. considering that in switzerland it seems that restaurant entrees start at about $20 no matter how crappy the restaurant, it was pretty nice! had some good curry, rolls, the usual, as well as some crazy roll things with taro root in them, which i don't think i've ever had before. quite tasty all in all.
went walking with assia and kate, which was nice but kind of chilly. i think i'm going to have to invest in a new sweater sometime soon. hopefully not in $witzerland though. nice country here, but soooo expensive... at least the town is gorgeous. there are a couple castle type buildings that we're going to try to check out in our spare time pre-concert on saturday, and the town is right on lake geneva, so the view is incredible.
also. note to self: start taking camera places. today was a gorgeous day for photos, clear sky and the lake was beautiful, but of course i forgot my camera in the hotel. grrr.
time in transit today: 0h
time flying today: 0h