Today I took a bit of a risk. I got a call from the orchestra/chamber music manager at Mannes today saying that a cellist had just dropped out, and he needed someone to play the Brahms clarinet trio on October 20th. No small cello part, only a month to learn it, and two other chamber groups besides, one a modern clarinet trio by a composer I've never heard of (Lyon?), and the other the Tchaikovsky piano trio. But yeah, of course I took on the Brahms, it's one I've been meaning to learn for a long time, and frankly, I had so much fun doing chamber music at TMC this summer that I'll take all I can get. I'm just praying right now that I didn't hideously overbook myself. I'll find out next week. Despite feeling somewhat nervous about the situation (this is definitely the most I've ever had on my plate at one time . . . I know it's commonplace for some of us, David, but not for me), I'm also excited. I'm pretty sure I can handle it. It's only a month of insanity anyways. And when I told Mr. Eddy he said I should definitely do it. Speaking of Eddy . . .
He's definitely tougher than my other teachers. Not more overtly demanding, but he seems to expect more. I've been working on Dvorak for maybe 3 weeks now, but only on and off, and mostly on the exposition to the first movement, and today when I played the second half of the first movement (you know, the hard stuff) and missed a bunch of 6ths, he said he was surprised. I guess he has high expectations. So now I have to do a bunch of exercises to do this week to fix this structural deficiency. I gotta admit I'm pleased that he doesn't let me get away with much, and he definitely does it nicely. He wasn't mean about the out of tune notes, just very direct and matter-of-fact. I think I'm going to accomplish a lot with his help.
I'm getting used to International House. As with any dorm it has its certain times when it's tough to practice, or tough to do laundry, and one just has to take that into account. I am starting to like my tiny room, at least. It's kinda nice to have everything within reach, and its small size gives me a big incentive to actually keep it somewhat (emphasis on somewhat) clean. At least it has the sink in it. I don't think I'd be able to live without that sink (god knows many here do), since I eat a lot of food here in my room and have to do dishes daily. Certainly makes my life easier. Oh, and apparently the clarinetist from both my clarinet trios lives here too. Might make scheduling rehearsals a bit easier, since we can rehearse here, provided our pianist isn't averse to making the trek.
FInally things are starting, and I'm practicing regularly. It's nice to be busy.

I've been spending a lot more money than I should be since coming to NYC. The problem is, going to the bar, going out to eat, all costs money . . . and those are good things to do with people. This weekend, for instance, I went to a bar last night with two friends, breakfast this morning with a friend going to school in Germany who's visiting a bunch of people here, and tonight I went to a Bohemian beer garden with Kimberly, and then a really different sort of bar that she read about in some guide book she has. All in all the beer garden was by far the most fun thing I've done here . . . the atmosphere was like there was a perpetual party there, the clientele was all our age, there was an acoustic band up on stage playing covers of 80's hair metal songs, and the beer was very, very good. For instance, I'd never had the chance to drink Hoegaarden on tap before, so that was a nice change. We went to a small bar afterwards because it said in the guide that they had deserts, so we went and got some taramisu, which was amazing. This bar was really strange in some ways, it had your traditional bar, but the rest of the room was filled with fluffy couches with big pillows on them, and there was even this small room with a couch in it up some stairs with a curtain you could pull down in front of it . . . kinda . . . iffy. These two places were in Queens, so I was in Queens for the first time tonight. At first glance, I like it a lot . . . much more interesting than my neighborhood, I think.

I've had a week of classes now, and I gotta say I'm not thrilled. Of the three classes, two have the most boring teachers on the face of the earth, and the third, graduate review counterpoint, I wouldn't care about if the most dynamic lecturer on earth were teaching it. But working with Eddy was amazing for my first lesson, and honestly, he's the reason I'm here, so all's good. Tomorrow the orchestra is reading the first movement of Bruchner 9, since we'll be working on it later this semester and I guess the conductor wanted to get a bit of a jump on it . . . which is funny, since the orchestra is always rotating anyways. They have roughly twice as many musicians as they need for the orchestra (23 cellos for 12 chairs), so I have a feeling I'll at least be out for 3 of the 8 concerts. Hopefully, anyways. Plus, for one concert a year, we can request a leave, so if I ever really need a cycle off, I can get it. SO yeah, I like a lot of things about this school. Sometime this week, Wayne and I will find out who our violinist is, so I'm excited (or maybe a little nervous) for that. Either way, I can't wait to start playing chamber music again.

So now I'm done with all of my registration stuff. Said "stuff" consisted of a music history placement exam, orchestra placement audition, appointment with my advisor, and a library tour. As for the first on that list, it was split into two halves: a baroque/classical half, and a romantic/modern half, with a general listening section at the end. I knew most of the romantic/modern ones easily, but the classical/baroque half was a disaster, with questions like "who was the music director at the court of Louis XIV?" I answered MAYBE half of the questions with any confidence, another 10 with some semi-educated guesses, and the last 10 I just left blank. And yet through some miracle, I passed out of both section of music history. Their standards must not be very high, heh.
As for the orchestra placement audition, I was well-prepared with excerpts, although I missed some stuff I don't often miss, and the sight-reading was pretty easy after all the reading I did at Tanglewood . . . the problem came at the beginning, when they asked for a concerto. They hadn't mentioned that on the sheet. I had started Dvorak about 5 days ago, but that wasn't memorized yet and I didn't have the music with me. So they said I could play something else, but Dvorak is pretty much the only thing I'm working on at the moment, as I'm waiting to discuss rep with my teacher. So I played the first movement of Arpeggione, which I haven't played for 3 months or so. It went surprisingly well, actually. That's kind of a piece I trust to be always in my fingers at the moment since I've spent SOOO much time on it, and sure enough it was pretty much mostly there, which is all I could ask for. So yeah, scary, but hopefully I did ok. I strongly doubt I'll get principal (unless it's rotating like at Eastman . . . not sure yet how they do that).
The appointment with my advisor was really nice. Unlike at Eastman, you actually sit down with your advisor and do the whole registration thing together, which makes sure everyone takes the classes they need to be taking. This semester is going to be quite busy, as I'm actually taking 18 credits (although we get 6 for lessons here), since I'm trying to get most of my grad requirements out of the way early, such as a counterpoint review theory course, and something called "graduate research", which I guess teaches one how to use primary sources to do research,which will be a very useful tool if I want to do a DMA. I'm also taking a seminar course on the Beethoven string quartets, which I'm very much looking forward to, which will fulfill the requirement that one take at least one seminar course.
And lastly, we come to the library. It's much, much smaller than Eastman's, of course, but it seems to have what I'll need. And if it doesn't, we have borrowing privileges at a few other libraries, including one apparently quite extensive library at NYU. Even better, it's attached to 3 different online music databases, so now I can stream a lot of music. It's also nice to have the likes of LexisNexis and ProQuest again, I can finally start reading a lot of things I couldn't afford to this past year (all that "subsciption required" crap). Being in school certainly has its advantages.

Well, time for the first update in a LONG time. I just got to NYC from Tanglewood a few days ago. I never felt like updating while at Tanglewood because, frankly, I hate typing on a laptop keyboard. It just feels so cramped. But anyways . . .

Tanglewood was pretty amazing, in many ways. I had a great string quartet, the sort of people I hope to have in every group I play in in the future. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun playing with anyone. And the performance went really, really well. Listening to the recording only confirmed that impression. Nice when that happens, for once. And Andrew Jennings is an amazing coach, for the record. He actually had our group play Haydn as new and exciting music, which in many ways it always will be, and it was a thrill to work with him. The other high point was the week I spent with Pam and Claude Frank working on the Schubert Bb piano trio. Admittedly, our group didn't gel quite as well, we had some issues early on, and some issues during the performance, but at least the day before the performance, I think we managed to get the piece quite well. Some things just didn't happen as I wanted them to, under pressure and all. But still the experience was great, the Franks were amazing coaches, and it was quite something to hear them play. I was lucky enough to play the entire scherzo movement with them when Pam wanted to demonstrate some things, and that was an experience, to be sure. Also, playing Don Carlo with James Levine and a bunch of MET singers was pretty cool too. Levine is by far the most interesting conductor I've ever worked with . . . he's someone who everyone who ever has the chance should work with, I learned so much from him. What a musician.

Anyways, beyond that, the orchestra was pretty damn good (by far the best I've worked with), and we definitely has some great performances, and some performances that went better than they had any right to. I made some friends as well, and fortunately for me, a lot of them are New York people, so I'll be seeing many of them this year. I now know quite a few Juilliard folks, which is good, since that's the school I figured I'd have the least contact with of the three, being that Manhattan is right across the street.

Anyways, as for New York . . .
I'm so glad to be living here in many ways, but in others it's an adjustment. The room I'm living in at I-House is quite small . . . or was, anyways, until I moved my bed. Now it actually feels like I have plenty of space, and am quite content with it. Everything is expensive here, but actually, food is still pretty affordable, especially produce. There are so many stands around here selling fruits and vegetables, that it's actually pretty easy to find good deals on those things, basically as cheap as the public market in Rochester. Like I bought 3 very nice red and yellow peppers for a dollar the other day. That made me happy. And 4 peaches for the same. Happy day. And speaking of food, the dining center here at I-House is actually quite good and the prices are very reasonable. So it looks like food isn't going to break my budget, something I had worried about. Other than that, I must admit, I don't have much of an opinion about this place or New York yet, as, well, I haven't done much. I've been on a little mental vacation, doing a bit of practicing, but mostly doing nothing, which is exactly the way I like it. I'll have plenty of time later to get all busy and do fun and exciting New York things, but for right now, I'm content to do nothing.

Wandered down to Central Park the other day with a future Mannes student and friend from an earlier festival (pretty much the only thing I HAVE done since getting here, aside from occasional trips to the local supermarket, which is AMAZING I might add). We definitely managed to walk down the wrong street to get there, which in the day obviously is fine, but it drove home the fact that until I know the city better, I should restrict my night-time wanderings. New York seems funny that way, some places are really nice, and then 2 blocks later, you have an entire few blocks of, well, projects. Kinda like Rochester in that sense, except a bit more surprising, since in Rochester you EXPECT that.

Anyways, in the spirit of doing nothing, I might add that yesterday I finally acheived my long-time goal of breaking 120 seconds on the expert mode of Minesweeper, completing it in 106. Go me.

More updates pending as more stuff actually happens.

So tomorrow's my last full day at home. On Saturday, I leave early-ish for Chicago so that my dad can get back home in time to host a dinner get-together. My mom's cooking a big cajun meal for some Korean friends, a bit of ethnic food for ethnic food trade, and of course it's the day I have to leave (cry). Kinda strange, I'm not feeling much excitement, nor apprehension, just the sense that life is inevitably moving on. Plus I guess I've been too busy these last few days to really take in the fact that in a few days I'll be gone from Madison "for good", most likely. I mean yeah I'll still come back in the summers most likely, and for Christmas, but still, embarking on a graduate degree feels different, somehow. I mean, for the first time in my life I'll be truly "on my own". Sure, my parents would probably come through financially for me if in an emergency, and I'll still be attached to my dad's health insurance plan (til 25) . . . but I'm pretty much going to have to handle everything on my own. And thank god for that, one's gotta grow the fuck up eventually. I've always been pretty good at handling finances, but then again I always had my parents in the background. Depending on whether or not International House decides to give me some financial aid, and of course depending on how fast I can nail down some semi-regular work in NYC, money could be really tight, or I could have more than I need next year. Right now the picture is very uncertain. I'm of course hoping for the latter, since there's a good bit I'd like to do/see in New York that costs money. Guess I'll find out soon enough, at least about I-House.
Tomorrow should be pretty simple. Some practicing, a shopping trip to gather up all the missing odds and ends, and the last bit of packing/dissassembling my computer, and that's it for me. Then it's off to the next phase of my life. Kinda sounds cheesy and overly dramatic, but I think it's accurate.