New name!

Hi hi,

I've temporarily changed the title of my blog because I am going to the Czech Republic for four weeks and rather than send twenty emails every time I sign on a computer I will simply update the blog and you all can comment and what not.

I leave on Saturday, flying from National Airport to JFK in New York (yes, I know, going to New York AGAIN) before meeting Ben (:-) !!) for our direct flight to Prague.

So...I haven't started packing yet, but I've been reading Rick Steves' website and guidebook and have been slowly working through Pimsleur's language learning thing for Czech. I can currently say (but not spell, so forgive me): Hello (Dobry den), I don't understand Czech (Ne rezumim Cesky), Do you speak English? (Mluvite anglitsky?), Excuse me (Prominta), and Please (Prosim) and other variations on those themes. Packing will start tonight. Theoretically. I can finally see the floor of my bedroom again, so I have a semi-clean starting point.

I'm pretty much completely freaking out about the music part of the festival thing - my pieces are all in pretty decent working order but nothing is memorized. Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso is definitely my least favorite right now. It's such a deceptive piece in that the melody of the rondo is fun to play and the whole thing sounds really cool...but it doesn't lay easily under the fingers at all and I've had to force myself to really work on it. The Mendelssohn Concerto...the second time around...is probably my most prepared piece (well, the first movement, at least), thanks to my trip to the Farm and Burton Kaplan's magic teaching. He faxed me bowings/fingerings for the other two movements so hopefully those will start coming up to scratch as well. I've been using his Technique of Intimacy (see his book Practicing for Artistic Success) with the first movement and it's been super successful. I guess you can say that Mr. Felix Mendelssohn and I get more intimate every day. ;-) Last piece is Beethoven Sonata for piano and violin No. 8. I haven't had a violin lesson on this for over a year, but I did write my final analysis paper on it for Form and it's come back pretty easily. I'm sure all three of my teachers in the Czech Republic will have their own opinions on everything.

In terms of chamber music, I am the second violinist (YES! Finally! I get to not have to learn high screechy melody lines. This is not to say that I hate playing first violin, but rather that I am looking forward to a new, less stressful experience) in a quartet playing - appropriately - Dvorak's American Quartet. Ben, my boyfriend, is our violist and he's ecstatic about it. For those of you non-string musicians out there, the viola is the most commonly insulted and overlooked instrument in the string family (I'm sorry, Ben, but it's true!) and the American Quartet starts with one of the biggest viola solos in the quartet repertoire.

So yes. I'm going to go continue that whole practicing thing so I don't completely humilliate myself in a foreign country. I'll keep you updated on...well, practicing, I guess, and packing.

That's all for now,

Claire