In the news department for my life, there are not a
lot of interesting things going on, but I thought I should share some things
anyway.
We are in the midst of winter now, so most days are
damp and chilly and rain can be generally expected. We did have an unusually
nice weekend last week though, which was fortunate as we had friends visiting
from KC, so we headed out to the mountain for some hiking. The nice thing about
Taranaki is if you get your fill of the mountain you can head to the coast and
hang out at the beach instead, which we did.
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| At the base of Dawson Falls |
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| Ice cold mountain stream |
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| The sun kindly came out for a few min so we could get cool pictures :) |
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| Cape Egmont lighthouse |
In other news, I have begun trio rehearsals for the
Brandenburg Concerto in November. Working on it in my own time has been tough
enough, but it is certainly at a new level now that the other solo parts have
been added. But at the same time it makes more sense to have it all together
(something my fellow musicians will understand I’m sure). In our most recent
rehearsal we were working on a section which is rather bare bones for the flute
and violin, but has incredibly fast notes for the harpsichord (yours truly). It
is one of the sections which has led me to believe that Bach may have had more
than 10 fingers. But anyway, I heard what I have waited to hear all my 18 years
of piano playing…. “You are playing far too slow.” What a change from the
weekly reminder in my youth that not every song was a race J
While we are on the topic of rehearsals, I accompany a
high school choir. In a rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, the director said one
of the coolest things ever about my playing. We were sight-reading through a
new piece, four-part harmony. At one point when we were stopped to review a
section the director told the choir they were not allowed to complain about
their part because I had to do the Rubik’s cube with my fingers to play all of
theirs at once. She got a lot of cool points for that!
Hope you are all enjoying summertime, stay cool and I
will write again soon!
