Concerto finals!!

I played tonight in the SFCM concerto competition...  and I got a message on my phone about a half hour ago from my accompanist, Keisuke, that said:  "Congrats! Looking forward to the finals!"   I hadn't heard anything yet, but he saw the results posted on the SFCM website at about 11:30 or midnight -- and I am on there as one of the finalists!   I am so happy!  But now I have to get ready for the final round on Friday!  There were four pianists chosen out of twenty-one for the finals, and on Friday the four of us will play our entire concertos through with our accompanists in the concert hall for the public.  Then the judges will choose one winner to perform with the SFCM orchestra next year...  so please send me all the positive energy and powers and prayers that you can (or good "mojo" as my voice teacher from L.A. calls it!).    I will be working very hard the next few days...

Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!

Goodnight!

at the beach

The other week I had a diction coaching with the diction teacher at the conservatory (her name is Marcie Stapp.  Her house is right next to the beach so after my coaching I went and hung out there for a little while.  It was such a beautiful day!

Ravel-ing (or Un-Raveling)

The run-through of Ravel in studio class went well today!  So it's definitely a go for Friday!  AAAAaaaaaa!!!
Now I officially have Ravel's Concerto in G major in my repertoire.   So happy!

:-D

Rainy days

It has been raining and raining and raining here the past three days.  Here is a picture from my street in San Francisco this morning...all wet.

Concerto Update

Yesterday I played through my concerto with Keiseke, who will be accompanying me in the concerto competition.  I made it through the whole thing from memory, but it had several rather large mishaps...   He had some good suggestions for me on it though because he has played it before.

Today I practiced only Ravel most of the day... Tomorrow I will do the same.  And Monday Keiseke and I will play it for studio class and see how it goes.   If it seems like an acceptable performance on Monday then I will go ahead and do the concerto competition... If not... .... well I might still try haha!   I think I can I think I can I think I can....

Next Deadline

So I just got back from my Colorado Audition... and now I'm trying to get my Ravel Concerto ready for the concerto competition at the conservatory by next Friday!  I don't know if I will actually be able to do it or not.  I just memorized the last two movements recently and they are still not solid in my brain at all.  I played it for my lesson for Paul today and needed to play the 2nd half of the 2nd movement with the music.... And tomorrow is my first rehearsal with my accompanist for the competition!  I will just have to practice every spare minute until Friday next week...  and we will see if I make it.

      I asked Paul this morning, "So do you think I can do this by Friday?"   His response was,  "You know, you interest me very much.  You played quite well in studio class last week. I was impressed that you could get up and play such a long program so well.  You're a good performer...and you like it...."      I guess I will take that as a "yes"... 

All done!

Oh my goodness I have been laying in bed trying to sleep for two hours... but it has been so hard to fall to sleep these past few days!  Tonight I finally decided to give up and write on my blog instead.

I am sitting here in a hotel room in Boulder, Colorado. My flight leaves tomorrow at noon to go back to San Francisco.  I am here with my dad....He drove here from Montana to meet me and we drove around Boulder a lot this weekend to look at the area and possible places to live (if everything comes through for me with a scholarship).  Tonight we had a movie and pizza party in our hotel room to celebrate because I had my solo audition today at CU! I am very happy because I think it went quite well.  I messed up in my left hand at the first entrance in my Scarlatti sonata (L. S6), but all the repeated notes after that were perfect.   A couple of other minor mistakes happened in some of the other pieces - but I think it was an effective performance.   I prepared an hour long program but they only listened to bits and pieces of it.  They probably heard about 20 minutes of my playing altogether.   That is how it always is at these sorts of auditions.  The judges will stop you in the middle of a piece and then ask to hear something else. 

This morning I had my interview with Dr. Korevaar for the teaching assistantship, and yesterday was the audition for the accompanying assistantship.  Those also went alright I think...  We will see though!

The university just remodeled its concert hall and it is so pretty!  I'm going to paste some pictures here I found of the various music halls at CU that I found on their website:

Grusin Music Hall where my audition was today (except there were only the three piano faculty members in the audience!): 

And from the onstage vantage point (where I was - sitting at that beautiful Steinway):

Here is the outside of the music building (but right now it is actually all snowy!):

The BIG hall (called Macky Auditorium). They mostly perform operas and symphony concerts here:

Nice, yes?  Maybe one day I will be able to play to a full house in Macky!  That would be awesome.   I heard that Macky seats about 2000 people.  The biggest audience I have ever played for so far was at the Alberta Bair Theater in Billings -- That was when I played the Mozart Concerto and that was a sold-out concert in a hall of about 1300 seats.  That made me happy!


I am so happy this audition is all over.  Now I can focus my concentration back on what is going on in San Francisco. And I will be back there tomorrow afternoon!    Time is such a strange thing...

Goodnight!

On my way

Tomorrow I leave for my audition in Colorado!  I am so nervous and excited and I feel weird! 

I played through my entire program yesterday for my studio class (the class where all of Paul's students meet to play and listen to each other and give each other comments).  It actually went really well. I was very happy overall.  I think it was probably the cleanest I have ever played an hour-long program...which means I am getting better!   I didn't really have any memory slips...and relatively few technical mishaps either.  My friend Hannah afterwards said, "You have nothing to worry about!  You didn't make any mistakes!"      It's not really true -- I did make mistakes, but if she couldn't tell that is a good sign!  She is a very good musician.   Paul also made me play and sing my "Meet me in Montana" song for the class that I performed for Governor Schweitzer last week.   They all liked that too.

    ......................................

Tomorrow my flight is a straight shot from San Francisco to Denver. That will be nice. When I fly anywhere from Billings I always have a layover.

So, here's the schedule:  I fly in to Denver/Boulder tomorrow evening.  On Thursday I practice and look around the city to get an idea of where I might want to live if I go there in the fall...  Friday I have my accompanying audition where I will perform the first movement of Beethoven's 2nd Cello Sonata unrehearsed and have a sight-reading test.  Then Saturday morning I have an interview with Dr. Korevaar for the teaching assistantship.  Saturday afternoon at 2:50 I will play my hour long solo audition program. Then I fly back to San Francisco on Sunday.

When I come back it will be back to classes and I will need to start practicing the  Ravel Concerto like crazy for the concerto competition!!!!!

Wish me luck!   I'll let you know how it goes as soon as I can...

 

Improv Debut!!

Tonight I had my first ever performance where I improvised an accompaniment for myself while singing!  I am so happy!  

Last month someone contacted me to ask me to play and sing for a conference in February where the Montana governor and the Montana Ambassadors would be present.  They asked me to prepare one classical piece on the piano, and then to play or sing one piece that was kind of "Montana-y"  (something not classical and possibly country-western).  

Since I haven't really sung any country music before, I called my mom to ask for her help finding something to sing.  The next day she found a song on Youtube that Dan Seals and Marie Osmond sang as a duet, called "Meet Me in Montana".  It seemed perfect, so I immediately went online to order the sheet music.  

Alas, to my dismay, I could not find the sheet music anywhere.  It was not available for download or mail-order - and when I did a little more researching I found that the sheet music was in fact, not available anywhere from any publisher, or even from the library of congress. 

So, I found some guitar tabs for the song online, which had the basic chords lined out.  I tried playing around with it a little bit, but was really nervous and didn't feel ready to improvise for myself at the conference.  I decided the best thing would be to find a guitarist who could come and accompany me... So I asked around at school - about six or seven different guitarists, and none of them were available to play for me tonight!! (I guess the guitarists at SFCM have just as busy a schedule as I do!).   I really wanted to perform THAT song though, so I decided I would have to face my fear and play for myself.

I worked on it a lot, and yesterday I still thought it was still sounding pretty bad... my melodic improvisation in my right hand was haphazard and disorganized. 

But then this morning at my piano lesson with Paul, he had me play and sing it for him, and I decided to try it from memory.   To my relief, it actually went quite well.  I found that under the pressure of performing it for him I simplified things quite a bit, and in so doing my playing sounded much more under control.  That gave me the confidence to decide to go ahead and perform it without the chords or words in front of me tonight at the conference.

So I did - and the audience loved it!  Several people, including the governor, told me after my performance that my song moved them to tears!

  I am soooo happy about that. Only a year ago such a thing would have been impossible for me - I would not have been able to hear the chord changes well enough and I would have messed up a million times. 

 I plan to keep doing more and more improvising - and I will keep improving at it.  I want to improvise and play classical music and sing all combined at my performances... I really enjoy it and it makes me feel complete.   I love life!!!

Another push

There is always more to do... My concert went pretty well on Friday night.  I sang three arias by Handel:  Care Selve (from L'Allegro and Il Penseroso),  Sweet Bird (from Atalanta), and Oh Had I Jubal's Lyre (from Joshua).  Then I sang a Bach aria from "The Hunt" cantata:  "Sheep May Safely Graze."   My favorite part was performing with the flautists and harpsichordist. That was a lot of fun.

Now I am trying to frantically get ready for my audition at the University of Colorado in Boulder in only a week and a half.  I have to play an hour's worth of music plus a cello sonata.  I am re-auditioning for scholarships for their doctoral program.  The nice thing is I am already definitely accepted into the program because I auditioned there last year and they accepted me, but I chose to defer my enrollment for one year so that I could go to the San Francisco Conservatory and get the Professional Studies Diploma.   They said that if I choose to defer they cannot guarantee a scholarship, so I have to go and re-audition for scholarships and graduate assistantships now.  My audition is on February 12th.  I'm pretty nervous about it.  I feel like I haven't had enough time to prepare for it with everything else that has been going on. 

On Thursday this week I play a mini-concert for the governor of Montana, who is coming to San Francisco for a meeting with the "Montana Ambassadors".  I am going to play "La Campanella" by Franz Liszt, and then I will have my "improvising-while-singing" debut!  They wanted me to perform a song that was related to Montana, something country-western.  So I am going to sing a song that Dan Seals and Marie Osmund performed as a duet, called "Meet me in Montana".   I'm going to accompany myself on the piano with chords while I sing... just like Billy Joel! :-)    I'm excited about that.  It makes me happy because my improvising is getting so much better.... I would not have been able to do such a thing even a year ago. 

But now I should go and get some sleep.  I have a voice lesson with Jane early in the morning.

Goodnight!