You know that thing I said in my last long post about the second half of the year being disproportionate in terms of performances? I take it back. I should know better than to think I would be not so busy. I was talking to an old friend today and she asked how everything was, and I replied, "Oh you know, busy as ever." To which she responded in mock shock, "Gladys? Busy?! Never!! What have you done with yourself?!" So yes, I should know better. Me, of all people, should have expected this!
So this post will recount several exciting adventures since 10 October:
The Recital
The recital. The big event (or not?) of the ANAM year for each student. Each student is required to present a 50min (or so) public recital which makes up part of the ongoing measure of progress. We have free reign over the programme - it is completely free choice. At university, one usually tries to pick a programme that best demonstrates capacity to cross a range of styles and technical demands. While that is nice and all, we are at liberty to pick a programme here that may have thematic links, may include ensemble pieces, and/or just be stuff that we'd like to play. Such freedom! (With great freedom comes great difficulty in decision-making.) The recital is presented to the public (so it means the usual enthusiastic crowd, and as many friends and family you can muster together) and there is a panel consisting of your teacher (or other instrument specialist) and another who sits on all the recitals for this year (this year it is the flute teacher). We don't receive grades or numbers as such, but we do get comments, and a indication along a scale from Not Satisfactory - Exceptional. It is nice in many ways to not have any grades, as we are not studying for any degrees or qualifications, but instead are setting particular goals about artistic achievements and are refining our craft by doing and getting practice at doing. So even though I had this amazing breadth of choice about what I wanted to play, I somehow ended up with a full 50min recital of solo repertoire. Don't ask me how it happened - it just kinda did and look, I found myself with no ensembles in my recital! I suppose that meant that I could prepare at exactly my own pace. The programme was as such:
Bach: Four Duets BWV 802-805
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 17 in d minor Op. 31 No. 2 'Tempest'
Rachmaninoff: Variations on a Theme of Corelli
I only realised much later after I had decided on my programme that the key structure was quite extraordinary and the progression of pieces was really organic. The four duets progress as such: e minor, F Major, G Major, a minor. The Beethoven is in d minor, but opens with an A Major chord in 1st inversion. The piece ends quietly with a d minor arpeggio downwards. The Rachmaninoff opens with the La Folia theme in a plaintive way in d minor.
It was extraordinary and totally unplanned!
I had done several runs of my programme for various very kind and willing friends. However much one prepares for things like this, I think I am still at that point where there are still some things that you can never anticipate, or plan for, or that you will react in very different ways than anticipated, or that you might never feel 100% ready. My mum had flown in that weekend just to see my recital (and okay, I suppose, hang out a bit with me, which we did) and several friends had told me that they would be coming to my recital. I supposed that I had better practice if all these people were coming to see me play!
One of the biggest things I had anticipated but didn't realise the extent was just how exhausting it would be to play an hour's worth of recital. I knew it was tiring - it is a big programme and it is all very intense music requiring much concentration, particularly if some of it was from memory! Adrenalin obviously kicks in, but one usually can't practice the adrenalin, only ever anticipate the theoretical effects or remember the experience of what it feels like. Through the recital, there were times where it felt like I could conquer the world (okay, not really. Maybe just the music and the hall) - what energy! And that people were sitting anticipatedly in silence to hear ME play....crazy!! Straight afterwards, as I was pushed out onto the stage to take a couple more bows, and through the lovely big hugs from friends, I found it difficult to stand upright on my two feet, let alone smile, due to utter exhaustion. So much adrenalin pumping through...!
Upon receiving my feedback, the comments were fair and very complimentary. I took the rest of that day off (rebellious!! The rest of the afternoon AND the night!!! AND I only went in for 10am the next day..!!!) and enjoyed hanging out with mum, a family friend, and some cousins.
So all sarcasm about taking a 'holiday' straight after my recital aside, there was actually still much to prepare for. I was playing in a friend's recital two days after mine - Beethoven's first violin sonata. This is a piece we had worked together on earlier in the year, and thankfully I had played it about a month before the recital (albeit with a different violinist). It was lovely to re-visit a piece we had worked on a while ago, when we were both still pretty fresh. It was so obvious that we had grown so much in five months. Also it is a piece that I only started studying this year, so it technically bears only ideas from this year, which I felt have changed greatly (in a positive way, to do with technique, ways of thinking about music) in the course of studying at the Academy.
Port Fairy & Team Awesome (PFE)
The other project soon after my recital was the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival. Directed by Anna Goldsworthy, this Festival has been running for just over twenty years (Anna not directing all of those..!). This year, a quintet of us from ANAM were invited to be part of the festival. Our quintet was a dymanic bunch of people, including our esteemed Artistic Director, Paul Dean, who is a lot of fun to play in an ensemble with, and excellent fun on a roadtrip, as I discovered. We were to play two concerts on the one day: Stuart Greenbaum's 'All the Ways of Leaving', which is incidental music to a Nick Earls short story (which was narrated by Michael Moore at Port Fairy), and a concert later in the day entitled 'Converging Spheres' featuring a work by Paul Dean of the same title, another of his pieces 'Abyss' for the quintet and violin, as well as the Beethoven Quintet for Piano and Winds in E Flat Major Op. 16 (a mainstay of my repertoire now!). We also played in a Saturday late night caberet show of fun acts. We had a powerful hire car in the oh-so-sexy black and took off on our way towards Geelong. I had never been very far west of Melbourne down the coast, no further than Geelong in fact. It was a great car ride, with the tunes pumping loudly, a bucketload of snacks (we prepared well) and good laughs to be had on the way. I was in the passenger seat, which of course means various duties: ensuring the driver has enough fuel (food-wise), holding things, reading signs, reading the map and directing once we got into town, experimenting with the music choice, among other things.
The journey took just over four hours, including the lunch break in Camperdown. It really is very different scenery on that journey. I often don't think of Australia having breath-taking scenery, apart from great beaches and desert, but one remembers that Australia is a land of great natural beauty of some much variety, even in Victoria. As we neared Warnambool, one can look out and see ocean!! This was particularly exciting as it reminded me a lot of home - we live near the beach (although we rarely go!) and it's a bit like driving down the coast. It is so beautiful, but I had always taken it for granted. I moved to Melbourne and don't really see any great beaches around. I have been to a few beaches out the other way of Melbourne but this was a bit exciting! As we rolled in to Port Fairy, I definitely got the small town vibe. It was wonderful! Crossing over the river and looking back, it looks a bit like what (apparently) Boston looks a bit like (I've never been, but I can imagine it!). The river, with many boats tied up, and houses right on the river - many older style buildings, some obviously renovated with floor to ceiling glass windows to drink in the magnificent view. Our accommodation was in self-catered apartments a mere three minute walk from the beach. They were comfortably furnished and a nice home-away-from-home for the weekend. One thing I love about going on such trips is that the sheets are always (okay, mostly!) white and crisp, and tucked in very tightly. Something I do NOT do! We had a rehearsal at the Drill Hall in town, which is attached to a restaurant/bar now - a magnificent piece of architecture that links the old and new with clever use of glass. Kawai was a sponsor of the festival, so all the pianos were fairly new and really very nice to play on - the Shigeru Kawais, which are their top range, I think. We then had the rest of the afternoon off to do whatever we liked. So we retired back to our apartments, and then went to the oval just down the road, which is actually the home of the Port Fairy Seagulls, the local football club. We had a kick of the football and threw the frisbee around. By 'we' I am loosely suggesting that I partook in such physical activity; in reality, my involvement was admittedly quite minimal given that I am fairly uncoordinated at any sporting activity. We then went for a wander to the beach (!!!) and then into town: we ambled along the river, crossing the bridge and walking along the pier. We spotted some funny looking birds, and admired the boats, some bearing funny names, some obviously recreational, to the last, which appeared to be a sizeable fishing vessel. We wandered along the streets of Port Fairy; I admired the quaint architecture of many buildlings along Norfolk Pine-lined streets. There is much charm about the town.
The artists of the festival were invited to drop in for dinners (early to late!) at a house that the festival rents every year to provide hospitality. We decided after our non-extrenuous walk, we would go for a home-cooked feed. We were met by a few musicians/culinary experts, and their friends, also chefs extraordinaire (as we were to find out!). We were greeted with such a warm welcome and were fed extremely well and richly. One of the people who were helping to cater for hungry tummies over the weekend was my former piano teacher, who had also brought her two children along. It was fantastic to meet them, as her eldest (daughter) was born while I was learning with her, and her son was born just after I stopped learned with her. I had actually seen part of their growth, which was a beautiful to see in front of me! Over two nights I managed to hang out a bit with them, watching some of their movie, and getting to know them a bit. By the second night, her daughter felt well and truly comfortable to crawl into my lap and stayed cuddled as we watched the movie. How beautiful children are! We headed home on foot (which was up the road) and I remembered that the city is full of light pollution - it really was very dark along this street!
The next morning was an early start with a rehearsal at 8.45am in our venue. The rehearsal only could go for about an hour because there was another concert at 10am in the same venue. Such is the schedule of festival: there are often so many concerts happening simultaneously, and many are back to back as well. We went to another venue for a 10am performance of Paul's piece, then immediately jumped across to another venue (where Paul was supposed to also be having a 'concert conversation' at the same time!). We were left to our devices for about forty minutes, where we wandered about town a little bit, including a foray into the lolly shop. This actually was child in a lolly shop - amazing! One of those old school stores where there were all sorts of wonderful boiled lollies, sour lollies, chocolates of all imaginations, sherbert delights, flavours of all sorts! It was quite difficult to not spend all our money there, and we walked out with big grins on our faces and decidedly excited about consuming said treats.Our concerts went really well, although it seemed to be a long day, with a rehearsal squished in-between our two concerts! We managed to fit in lunch at a fantastic cafe (Rebecca's. It is good. Seriously good. Go there.) and bumped into many audience members at this time, and later in the afternoon. Some of them even stopped us on the street. Most of them wanted to tell us how much they enjoyed our concerts. It was pretty funny feeling like a minor celebrity, even though we were such small names (or more like, no names!) in the whole scheme of the artist line-up. Apparently one audience member declared the second concert we did to be the best concert of the whole festival! Quite a declaration given the line up of the festival! After our concerts, we were able to scoff our faces with our fine purchases from the lolly shop, and to wander about town a little more. It was definitely a day for ice-cream, so we went to a fine ice-creamery and enjoyed even more culinary delights.
So I seem to have made out that all we did in Port Fairy was play some music, eat LOTS of food (most of it extremely fine. Actually all of it, bar the roadtrip snacks) and wander around, enjoying fresh air, the slower pace of a small town, not having to do other stuff and to enjoy hanging out and a weekend away. I certainly expected those things, and am glad to report that my expectations were met. We had another rehearsal in the evening (after a cheeky drink at the bar) for the evening caberet-style concert that was to happen at about 10pm that night. This show was hosted by Tim Ferguson (whom I admit we did a search for on Google to find out about him...!) who turned out to be a funny, quick-witted man. It was a very entertaining show for all involved. A late night at the bar with old and new friend ensued, and was enjoyed, particularly with the prospect of a lazy Sunday for us (not so for PD who had a rehearsal and then a concert of Messien's Quartet for the End of Time!). We slept in - I was under strict orders that I could not get out of bed before 9am (even if I was awake before then); this was not so hard to manage, though a little part of me really wanted to get out of bed! A quick pack-up preceded a walk into town where we had decided to return to Rebecca's to enjoy a big cooked breakfast. So, country servings....are LARGE! A wonderfully slow relaxed morning of great food and fun friends was followed by some more wandering. I had seen a sign for a school fete, and suggested we go. On our way, we stopped by a fun store where a guy was selling kites, and other fun games like the diablo, juggling balls, those mind trick games and other fun stuff. We stood for a while outside his shop playing with things and learning how to make them work and figure them out. We continued along to the school to check out the fete (what else did we have to do?) and wandered around. The boys 'played' guinea pig racing (this is the most obscure and random thing I have seen in a while!), we observed fun fair things like a massive blow-up slide, the hot dog (and other hot fried foods) stand that we felt ill about smelling after our deliciously large breakfasts, the various tidbits for sale, gift hampers, and a large selection of cakes and other delectable looking baked goods, and the jams and things people had made (yes, country school fete feel. Amazing!). Some beautiful dogs lined a footpath on our walk back into town (all 10mins of it..!) and we headed off to the Cafe des Artistes for one last feed before we embarked on our roadtrip home.
As the carload found out that I had never been past Geelong on the western side, and therefore never been along the Great Ocean Road, we decided that our roadtrip home would go via part of this scenic route. I had asked our accommodation owners for a suggested route that might add only a couple of hours on to our journey. He suggested that we take the turnoff from Warnambool and join the G.O.R. from there, where we would pass several look out points, including London Bridge (scene of accident several years ago where erosion finally proved its point and some people were left stranded on this outcrop), and the Twelve Apostles (of which there are only four left). It was a fantastic day for driving - sunny, a little bit windy, just beautiful. But windy at the coast means a pretty wild gust; I felt like I was going to be blown away with all the other tourists! We took our obligatory tourist shots (of course!), and marvelled at the scenery, commenting on how scary it would have been to be one of those people stranded at London Bridge, and admiring nature. Our car ride home was entertaining, quite ludicrous and sugar-filled. Coming back into the city, I felt somewhat anxious about having to go back to the real world of deadlines and the fast pace of life. What a great weekend of music-making with such fun people and fun memories!
Monday, November 07, 2011
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
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