Hello everyone! Bonne annee!
As is evident by looking at the date on my last post, I definitely haven’t been posting as much as I should have. Thus, I’ll start off the new year with a big long post, and then I’ll try and do bi-weekly updates. That way, I have something to do to keep up on my progress (or lack thereof). Anyway, here goes:
Solo work:
So far, I’m back at Saint-Saens (Concerto No. 1), trying to polish up the first movement for auditions for college at the end of the month. Fortunately, I’m not working anymore, so I’ll have a lot more time to practice. Unfortunately, auditions are RIGHT after finals…which should be fun…not. However, I’ve been starting to work on making my playing more emotional, which has been a lot of fun. I’ve found that I really like delving between the notes and accent marks to find the emotion in a phrase/movement/piece. Also, if anyone has any tips on playing more expressively, please share. I’m always open to suggestions. Besides the Saint-Saens, however, I’m also playing the Sarabande from Bach’s second suite. I’m also revisiting this one as well, which is a nice trip down memory lane. It’s also nice because I can play it better this time around. 
OH! I also have to memorize these two pieces, so if anyone has any suggestions on how to memorize pieces quickly…feel free to type them in below. 
Orchestra:
This past month has been somewhat relaxing, seeing as how I didn’t play in the Christmas concert…which has left me tons of time to finish those oh so fun college apps. However, the first rehearsal for the next concert begins tomorrow which is really exciting. We’re playing pieces by Saint-Saens, Debussy, and Ibert…which is a whole lot better than our last concert where we played all this “celebrate America” music. Don’t get me wrong, I love the US as much as anyone else, but I can only take brass fanfares for so long before I have to plug my ears. The music we’re playing this concert though, I just can’t wait to play.
Chamber Ensemble:
Well, we had our first concert in December which was…interesting. We played two pieces, the first of which was great. We had two solo violins and a solo cello who were really amazing. The second piece however, was substantially less than perfect. While I did like the piece in general, the solo cellist we had was not ready for the solo she played. I mean, she admitted to me that she only practices on weekends for 30min each session. However, she did work really hard on the piece…and she was REALLY excited to play a solo. If only she could have played those high notes in tune…but, on a lighter note, we have our first rehearsal since the concert this friday, which should be interesting.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to, and I’ll make sure to post more regularly. Also, I’ve been looking for books to read about the cello — generally, books dealing with cello technique that have more words in them than notes. Also, a good cello-themed biography would be neat too. So, if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
Merci!
