May 13, 2011 ( Read more... )

May 12, 2011

I am conducting both of the performances of the Young Artist Competition winners with Symphony on the Bay at the end of this month. The two pieces being played are the first movements of the Mozart bassoon concerto and Marjan Mozetich’s “Affairs of the Heart”, concerto for violin. In rehearsal without the soloists, the Mozart came ( Read more... )

May 11, 2011 ( Read more... )

May 10, 2011 ( Read more... )

One of the most enjoyable aspects of this trip has been the mutable itinerary. The lead teacher was constantly on the lookout for opportunities to add experiences to our itinerary, even if it meant occasionally some drastic adjustments to the schedule. Some of these experiences have been the most memorable on the trip: the boat tour in Paris and ( Read more... )

Today's entry comes in the form of a series of vignettes and thoughts ( Read more... )

The monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat is an impressive site in so many ways. The monastery is located probably close to 1km above the valley floor, most of the way up the Montserrat peak. It is built on the side of the mountain face that looks out upon the whole valley, and despite the other hills around it you can see for miles. The monastery ( Read more... )

Today's post is going to be relatively short, because as I start this, we're five hours away from our wake-up. Tomorrow we cross the border into Spain, and spend most of the day on the bus, travelling first to Montserrat and its famous monastery, and finally to Barcelona ( Read more... )

After a little research and a little guesswork, the organizers of the tour managed to add a late-afternoon activity into today's schedule, and despite some delays and some more rain, we managed to get to everything pretty much right on time. The sunniest and clearest part of the day was, thankfully, during our self-guided tour of the Pont du Gard, ( Read more... )

Although today was almost as rainy as yesterday, Avignon somehow didn't suffer for it like Nice did. The walled inner city is the epitome of the quaint old Europe that I much prefer to resort-type places. I happily soaked in the cobblestone streets named after occupations, the unnecessarily large gothic stone palace that housed two centuries of ( Read more... )