sigmastolen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sigmastolen) wrote2006-05-21 10:29 pm
sigmastolen) wrote2006-05-21 10:29 pm
Topanga and more (the weekend in review)
1) No, it wasn't Topanga from Boy Meets World. Sorry, Paddy.... Topanga like the city. More on that in (5)
2) I just walked back from Schoenberg barefoot in the rain, with Dena and Chloe. My pant cuffs are pretty well soaked, but I didn't get too wet otherwise -- it only sprinkled until a minute ago when I was walking through DeNeve Plaza. Today I have so far done no homework, practised for about 45 minutes, and attended three recitals, all of which were for people whom I barely even know, only one of whom even recognizes me in the halls as Someone Who Goes Here (And Plays Bassoon) -- but that's okay... They were all really good. Yay! Right now I'm procrastinating a bit, then I'll probably do homework and procrastinate some more, then maybe sleep. I haven't seen Sonja since maybe 2:00 last night... She, Elliott, Aidan, and Liz came back here after Dormal, then they decided to go out to a restaurant somewhere and then retire at Hedrick. She's apparently been back since I left this afternoon, but now she's gone again. But, yeah, today's been fun.
3) I ended up not going to Dormal after all -- instead, I saw the LA Phil play Beethoven 5 and 8, and also some new piece the name and composer of which I cannot recall, since I left my program in Cory's car... Anyway, it was amazing and wonderful and I love the way Esa-Pekka conducts. It's so energetic and... flicky! I want to conduct like Esa-Pekka when I grow up. So, yeah, I was planning to just stay in my room doinghomework fuck-all and then maybe sleeping, but then Cory called and asked if I wanted to go see the Phil at 7:25, so I said fuck yeah and we were almost late... afterwards we went to Denny's with The Famous Kay & her fiance Chris and David Diaz, because Kay, Cory, and Chris wanted to catch up and David was kind of hanging about awkwardly so they couldn't not invite him and I was just along for the ride... we ended up getting back at 12:30ish. It was fun. Cory and I decided it was a reward for us, for doing that awful gig.
4) I just discovered that Friday night was this quarter's undergrad composers recital, and I missed it -- to sub for Heather in Debut, fumbling the third bassoon and contra lines in Mahler 4 while reading of the score. Fuck! I knew I had something that night, but I didn't have it written down so I didn't remember. I totally would rather have been at that concert. Fuck! Fuck. *sigh*
5) Except for between 5:30 and 7:30, I pretty much spent all of Saturday with Cory. She picked me up at eight to go to the gig in Topanga... it was only a 40 minute drive away from UCLA, but it was totally winding mountain roads and wilderness at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga. Craziness. So, they fed us breakfast and after maybe 30 minutes, Cory and I went to the ***outdoor stage*** (this will come back later) to escape from a loquacious percussion guy who was really friendly in that way that makes you feel really uncomfortable. So, we get there and discover that there's a folder for contra, which no one saw fit to tell us. All the parts were tacet or "optional (doubling bassoon 2)," which was fine since we wouldn't have been able to fit The Monster in Winston, Cory's little yellow Mini, anyway, but still. So we set up and warm up and that is really only a figure of speech, since there was a humongous shade tree over the stage and it was overcast in the morning anyway so the air was freezing and we were freezing and our horns were freezing and there was no warming up involved. The conductor was Guido Lamelle (sp? I'd verify it with my program but it's in Winston), a second violin in the LA Phil. He's a fun guy, evidently, which is probably why so many people keep doing this gig year after year -- the Topanga Philharmonic is a VOLUNTEER ORCHESTRA (which means they of course didn't pay us -- Cory and I donated our time to play at an event that raises funds for a preschool in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the area) which meets once annually, on Topanga Family Day or whatever -- but he's kind of a crap conductor: difficult to follow, not too well-prepared, and very inefficient (omg he just wouldn't stop talking). The concertmaster, we discovered that night, is one of the Phil's first violins, and the principal bassist was also there and the first clarinet is the Phil's bass clarinet guy and stuff... so that was kind of cool, I guess (they looked so different when we saw them all fancied up in their tuxes that night), and the orchestra at least sightread very well & could tune (even outdoors in the cold). But. There was a harp soloist. Supposedly some kind of international star... and somehow related to Guido's wife. She was pretty cool at first -- a middle-aged chick with ribbons weaved into her salt-and-pepper cornrows, singing and playing a bright blue electric harp, dressed in all black with biker boots... When she started singing a rather pornographic-sounding song about a weeping willow tree named Belinda, Cory and I started to think it was dodgy. And then she also sang about her garbageman... and nightingales (that was actually a pretty nice song... it made me want to cry a little at first, even though the first line -- "she was... my nightingale" sounded sketchy until we heard it in context)... and she was pretty impressive, but after an hour and a half of Guido not knowing the scores and Deborah (the harpist) being some kind of punkish diva, we were more than ready to move on to Sibelius. In fact, we wished we had moved on to Sibelius at least a half-hour before. So we took a break and came back to Sibelius (oh by the way the R. Strauss thing was a fanfare, arranged for brass only...) with only an hour of rehearsal left, or possibly less. So we read through the first three movements, rehearsing things here and there and Guido just generally talking too much and conducting poorly. We definitely could have used the entire two-and-a-half hours on the Sibelius. Perhaps the last hour on the third movement alone. (At least Cory and I totally nailed the duples-against-triplet-accompaniment soli in the second movement. Yeah, baby. Yeah. Except for my reed crapping out early when I tried to hold out the long notes full value.) And by the time we reach the finale, we're basically out of time, so we play the first 50 bars, and a couple of spots in the middle/end, and then Guido says, "You guys will be FINE!! :D:D:D" and excuses us to lunch. Cory (in an undertone, for my ears only): "I love sightreading in concerts, don't you?" I'm so lucky we played the finale at Poly. As it was, I had completely forgotten how hard it is to count -- and the other movements were even harder. Lunch was pretty good, if a rather awkward affair, and Cory had very positive things to say about the wine they provided... Then we went back for the concert at two. Deborah had the first half of the concert, and she spent more time telling stories and singing to the audience (sometimes introing pieces, and sometimes just as filler material) than she did playing the stuff that we spent way too much of our rehearsal on. And some of that was pretty damn dodgy as well. The song about her garbageman (featuring two percussionists pounding on garbage cans) was meant to be an encore, so after we finished the set that was actually written in the program, Guido prompted her to do more. Not understanding the cue, she proceeded to do self-indulgent solo things -- a medly consisting of Take Five segueing into Danny Boy. So then Guido tries again, saying he'd hoped for something we could all do together. So she does a singalong with the audience. FINALLY Guido just comes out and tells her, "Yeah, I meant, how about the encore that we actually PREPARED?" and she was like, "OHHHHHHH THAT encore" all wide-eyed and naive. Yes, Deborah, THAT encore. Intermission was after that, twenty minutes long, which I thought was excessive until we saw that they'd set out the desserts for us to partake of, and Cory said, "Good, that means we can leave right afterwards!" Dessert was also good, but even better was being able to sit in the sun and warm up. The flowers and butterflies were also pretty. Then we went back for the second half, and we knew it was just going to be terrible when we stopped about five bars into the first movement because the entire orchestra was lost. Or perhaps even before that, when the entire orchestra, as a surprise, had to improvise "If You're Happy And You Know It" as accompaniment to the preschoolers. I don't even remember which half of the concert that was on. So Sibelius went mediocrely, even for virtually no rehearsal, because we couldn't follow Guido and the acoustics were terrible so it was hard to hear the string parts. At some point in the fast movement, all the winds but the first flute player were lost for about a page, and the only reason we got back on was because she came in correctly and we all followed her... And it was just. Rather terrible. And of course they were clapping between movements, so Guido actually had to announce that the fourth movement was attacca, so there would be no break for applause. There's hardly even a break for breath, so it's not like they would have had a chance to clap anyway -- the third movement really just builds into the fourth (and it always sounds really awkward on my cd player because there's an automatic space between tracks so for a beat between them I always hold my breath and want to die). After the concert began at two and we realized the first half was really just a vehicle for Deborah to be a diva, Cory's mantra became, "They should be paying us for this." Afterwards, she noted, "Sibelius might have made up for it, if it hadn't just been embarrassing." We even left early -- Guido told the orchestra that if people had to leave (evening engagements and all), we didn't have to stay and play "The Stars and Stripes Forever" -- so we didn't. When he said that, Cory and I looked at each other for a while, and then she said, "Let's get out of here," so we packed up, and ducked offstage just as the flutes switched to piccolo and stood up for the soli. We could hear the trombones doing their thing as we dashed across the grounds to escape, and spent most of the ride back to UCLA laughing breathlessly in relief. Cory said, "That was eight hours of my life that I can never get back," and I think that was perhaps the most accurate description of our feelings. She has her recital in two weeks, too -- she totally could have been practising. So could I, for that matter -- juries are the Thursday after that. The high point (aside from leaving, of course) was when we found a fuzzy grey caterpillar crawling on Cory's arm. We named him Fred (it was crazy -- she said Fred just as I was thinking Frederick. bassoonists must be psychically linked) and set him free on a leaf (after I took pictures, of course, but they were really hard to focus). He probably fell off of the shade tree... it was dropping little pollen-pod things on us all day. So, in all, DEFINITELY not worth having to miss Laura Kling's recital (about which I am very bitter). But hanging out with Cory was cool... (we've been seeing a lot of each other lately, and all of a sudden. it's fun)
6) Anyway, as I said, Friday night I subbed in Debut for Heather, playing third/contra on Mahler 4, and reading off of a score because she didn't leave her part. It was okay, I guess -- good score-reading practise, and I was happy to meet Kay at last. We only worked on the third and fourth movements, which was a definite relief... But, I dunno, I didn't like the conductor very much (though in retrospect, he was much more competent that Guido), and now that I know I missed the undergrad composers concert, I'm really bitter.
7) And now it's twenty past midnight and I still haven't done homework or any of the other things I had meant to. Crap. Well, at least the ranting is off my chest, yeah? Off I go now to be a good student...
2) I just walked back from Schoenberg barefoot in the rain, with Dena and Chloe. My pant cuffs are pretty well soaked, but I didn't get too wet otherwise -- it only sprinkled until a minute ago when I was walking through DeNeve Plaza. Today I have so far done no homework, practised for about 45 minutes, and attended three recitals, all of which were for people whom I barely even know, only one of whom even recognizes me in the halls as Someone Who Goes Here (And Plays Bassoon) -- but that's okay... They were all really good. Yay! Right now I'm procrastinating a bit, then I'll probably do homework and procrastinate some more, then maybe sleep. I haven't seen Sonja since maybe 2:00 last night... She, Elliott, Aidan, and Liz came back here after Dormal, then they decided to go out to a restaurant somewhere and then retire at Hedrick. She's apparently been back since I left this afternoon, but now she's gone again. But, yeah, today's been fun.
3) I ended up not going to Dormal after all -- instead, I saw the LA Phil play Beethoven 5 and 8, and also some new piece the name and composer of which I cannot recall, since I left my program in Cory's car... Anyway, it was amazing and wonderful and I love the way Esa-Pekka conducts. It's so energetic and... flicky! I want to conduct like Esa-Pekka when I grow up. So, yeah, I was planning to just stay in my room doing
4) I just discovered that Friday night was this quarter's undergrad composers recital, and I missed it -- to sub for Heather in Debut, fumbling the third bassoon and contra lines in Mahler 4 while reading of the score. Fuck! I knew I had something that night, but I didn't have it written down so I didn't remember. I totally would rather have been at that concert. Fuck! Fuck. *sigh*
5) Except for between 5:30 and 7:30, I pretty much spent all of Saturday with Cory. She picked me up at eight to go to the gig in Topanga... it was only a 40 minute drive away from UCLA, but it was totally winding mountain roads and wilderness at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga. Craziness. So, they fed us breakfast and after maybe 30 minutes, Cory and I went to the ***outdoor stage*** (this will come back later) to escape from a loquacious percussion guy who was really friendly in that way that makes you feel really uncomfortable. So, we get there and discover that there's a folder for contra, which no one saw fit to tell us. All the parts were tacet or "optional (doubling bassoon 2)," which was fine since we wouldn't have been able to fit The Monster in Winston, Cory's little yellow Mini, anyway, but still. So we set up and warm up and that is really only a figure of speech, since there was a humongous shade tree over the stage and it was overcast in the morning anyway so the air was freezing and we were freezing and our horns were freezing and there was no warming up involved. The conductor was Guido Lamelle (sp? I'd verify it with my program but it's in Winston), a second violin in the LA Phil. He's a fun guy, evidently, which is probably why so many people keep doing this gig year after year -- the Topanga Philharmonic is a VOLUNTEER ORCHESTRA (which means they of course didn't pay us -- Cory and I donated our time to play at an event that raises funds for a preschool in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the area) which meets once annually, on Topanga Family Day or whatever -- but he's kind of a crap conductor: difficult to follow, not too well-prepared, and very inefficient (omg he just wouldn't stop talking). The concertmaster, we discovered that night, is one of the Phil's first violins, and the principal bassist was also there and the first clarinet is the Phil's bass clarinet guy and stuff... so that was kind of cool, I guess (they looked so different when we saw them all fancied up in their tuxes that night), and the orchestra at least sightread very well & could tune (even outdoors in the cold). But. There was a harp soloist. Supposedly some kind of international star... and somehow related to Guido's wife. She was pretty cool at first -- a middle-aged chick with ribbons weaved into her salt-and-pepper cornrows, singing and playing a bright blue electric harp, dressed in all black with biker boots... When she started singing a rather pornographic-sounding song about a weeping willow tree named Belinda, Cory and I started to think it was dodgy. And then she also sang about her garbageman... and nightingales (that was actually a pretty nice song... it made me want to cry a little at first, even though the first line -- "she was... my nightingale" sounded sketchy until we heard it in context)... and she was pretty impressive, but after an hour and a half of Guido not knowing the scores and Deborah (the harpist) being some kind of punkish diva, we were more than ready to move on to Sibelius. In fact, we wished we had moved on to Sibelius at least a half-hour before. So we took a break and came back to Sibelius (oh by the way the R. Strauss thing was a fanfare, arranged for brass only...) with only an hour of rehearsal left, or possibly less. So we read through the first three movements, rehearsing things here and there and Guido just generally talking too much and conducting poorly. We definitely could have used the entire two-and-a-half hours on the Sibelius. Perhaps the last hour on the third movement alone. (At least Cory and I totally nailed the duples-against-triplet-accompaniment soli in the second movement. Yeah, baby. Yeah. Except for my reed crapping out early when I tried to hold out the long notes full value.) And by the time we reach the finale, we're basically out of time, so we play the first 50 bars, and a couple of spots in the middle/end, and then Guido says, "You guys will be FINE!! :D:D:D" and excuses us to lunch. Cory (in an undertone, for my ears only): "I love sightreading in concerts, don't you?" I'm so lucky we played the finale at Poly. As it was, I had completely forgotten how hard it is to count -- and the other movements were even harder. Lunch was pretty good, if a rather awkward affair, and Cory had very positive things to say about the wine they provided... Then we went back for the concert at two. Deborah had the first half of the concert, and she spent more time telling stories and singing to the audience (sometimes introing pieces, and sometimes just as filler material) than she did playing the stuff that we spent way too much of our rehearsal on. And some of that was pretty damn dodgy as well. The song about her garbageman (featuring two percussionists pounding on garbage cans) was meant to be an encore, so after we finished the set that was actually written in the program, Guido prompted her to do more. Not understanding the cue, she proceeded to do self-indulgent solo things -- a medly consisting of Take Five segueing into Danny Boy. So then Guido tries again, saying he'd hoped for something we could all do together. So she does a singalong with the audience. FINALLY Guido just comes out and tells her, "Yeah, I meant, how about the encore that we actually PREPARED?" and she was like, "OHHHHHHH THAT encore" all wide-eyed and naive. Yes, Deborah, THAT encore. Intermission was after that, twenty minutes long, which I thought was excessive until we saw that they'd set out the desserts for us to partake of, and Cory said, "Good, that means we can leave right afterwards!" Dessert was also good, but even better was being able to sit in the sun and warm up. The flowers and butterflies were also pretty. Then we went back for the second half, and we knew it was just going to be terrible when we stopped about five bars into the first movement because the entire orchestra was lost. Or perhaps even before that, when the entire orchestra, as a surprise, had to improvise "If You're Happy And You Know It" as accompaniment to the preschoolers. I don't even remember which half of the concert that was on. So Sibelius went mediocrely, even for virtually no rehearsal, because we couldn't follow Guido and the acoustics were terrible so it was hard to hear the string parts. At some point in the fast movement, all the winds but the first flute player were lost for about a page, and the only reason we got back on was because she came in correctly and we all followed her... And it was just. Rather terrible. And of course they were clapping between movements, so Guido actually had to announce that the fourth movement was attacca, so there would be no break for applause. There's hardly even a break for breath, so it's not like they would have had a chance to clap anyway -- the third movement really just builds into the fourth (and it always sounds really awkward on my cd player because there's an automatic space between tracks so for a beat between them I always hold my breath and want to die). After the concert began at two and we realized the first half was really just a vehicle for Deborah to be a diva, Cory's mantra became, "They should be paying us for this." Afterwards, she noted, "Sibelius might have made up for it, if it hadn't just been embarrassing." We even left early -- Guido told the orchestra that if people had to leave (evening engagements and all), we didn't have to stay and play "The Stars and Stripes Forever" -- so we didn't. When he said that, Cory and I looked at each other for a while, and then she said, "Let's get out of here," so we packed up, and ducked offstage just as the flutes switched to piccolo and stood up for the soli. We could hear the trombones doing their thing as we dashed across the grounds to escape, and spent most of the ride back to UCLA laughing breathlessly in relief. Cory said, "That was eight hours of my life that I can never get back," and I think that was perhaps the most accurate description of our feelings. She has her recital in two weeks, too -- she totally could have been practising. So could I, for that matter -- juries are the Thursday after that. The high point (aside from leaving, of course) was when we found a fuzzy grey caterpillar crawling on Cory's arm. We named him Fred (it was crazy -- she said Fred just as I was thinking Frederick. bassoonists must be psychically linked) and set him free on a leaf (after I took pictures, of course, but they were really hard to focus). He probably fell off of the shade tree... it was dropping little pollen-pod things on us all day. So, in all, DEFINITELY not worth having to miss Laura Kling's recital (about which I am very bitter). But hanging out with Cory was cool... (we've been seeing a lot of each other lately, and all of a sudden. it's fun)
6) Anyway, as I said, Friday night I subbed in Debut for Heather, playing third/contra on Mahler 4, and reading off of a score because she didn't leave her part. It was okay, I guess -- good score-reading practise, and I was happy to meet Kay at last. We only worked on the third and fourth movements, which was a definite relief... But, I dunno, I didn't like the conductor very much (though in retrospect, he was much more competent that Guido), and now that I know I missed the undergrad composers concert, I'm really bitter.
7) And now it's twenty past midnight and I still haven't done homework or any of the other things I had meant to. Crap. Well, at least the ranting is off my chest, yeah? Off I go now to be a good student...