In Memoriam, 2007

The New York Times Magazine devotes the last issue of the year to people who have passed away during the previous twelve months. Usually they create one short article for the really important/famous people, and then a series of smaller articles for lesser-known but still influential people. I have my own, somewhat more personal list, that coincides a bit with theirs, but not completely.

Eleanore Schoenfeld
Tara Davis
Molly Ivins
Gian Carlo Menotti
Norman Herzberg
Kurt Vonnegut
Boris Yeltsin
Mstislav Rostropovich
Berverly Sills
Jerry Hadley
Michelangelo Antonioni
Ingmar Bergman
Merv Griffin
Luciano Pavarotti
Madeleine L'Engle
Eudice Shapiro
Benazir Bhutto
Clarence Ching

Seems like we lost a lot of good people in 2007.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

happy birthday lone oboe

heh, i kind of forgot, but, happy birthday to my blog! it's a year old now!

done

Got the DVD made, thanks to a wonderfully helpful employee of the Leavey Library at USC whose name I never got. It was complicated and took two hours, but I finally got my 6-minute recording done. What a lot to put up with for such a small DVD.

First semester is over, THANK GOD. Just one left, and only on academic class at that!!

Meanwhile, I'm transferring my recital (back in May) from MD to CD. I am amused to hear my friends' voices at the end of the first half all debating how to turn off the MD player. How many musicians does it take to operate a MiniDisc? Lets see, I heard Kim, Jamie, Carla, Ben, Shirley and Ginni. That would be six :) The recording, well, the recital had its ups and downs. But it will make an excellent Christmas gift for parental types.

AAAAAUUUUUUGGGHHHHH.

So on Friday I found out that I had to make a DVD recording before I leave on Wednesday. My friend was kind enough to let me borrow her DVD recorder, and I have made the recording. However, she has a PC. I have a Mac. Apparently, her camcorder is not compatible with macs. I googled the issue, which led me to this website, with many varied, complicated, confusing, and sometimes costly ways to get around the issue. She's going home tomorrow, so she won't able to help me. I have to give the camera back to someone else before I leave so that she can have it when she gets back in January. I have a final tomorrow morning at 11, and I really need to study for it. It is now 2:15 am. I also have to have lunch with one friend whom I might not see again for a long time, and dinner with another. I need to pack. I need to make two other recordings, one definitely before I leave, and one hopefully. I need to return library books to USC and UCLA. Oh yeah, and I need to pack. AAAAAUUUUUUGGGHHHHH.

international gig

Yesterday I did a gig with a Bulgarian, an Albanian, a South African, a Belgian, a Venezuelan, and five other Americans. There was also a hummingbird stuck in one of the churches.

yay jobs!

I have a few more friends that have won jobs, and I thought I should mention it. In the past few months, Alana (horn), Natasha (oboe), Eric (trumpet), and Jonathan (clarinet) have all won jobs, so congratulations to them all! Plus two YOA friends that I don't keep in touch with but have updated their facebook pages to include job information: Harrison (bassoon) and Patty (cello). Congratulations to them, too! It makes the music world seem a little less discouraging to see friends win jobs.

no more papers (/school), please!

I finally finished my horrible paper today for my Stravinsky class. I have never really enjoyed writing papers, but there have been times when I've actually been quite interested in my topic, and thus the writing process was not so excruciating. There have also been times in the past when I would have been intrigued by the idea of writing a paper on Stravinsky. After almost twenty straight years in school, two degrees and very close to a third, this is no longer the case. I wrote a really bad paper, but at least I turned something in. It's the only paper I've had this semester, and considering I used to have to write them on an almost weekly basis, I don't know why I've suddenly developed such intolerance, but I have. Anyway, hopefully I will only have one more paper two write ever in my life, next semester, before bidding academics adieu forever. At least that's how I feel right now. While the prospect of graduating, getting a job at Starbucks or equivalent, and taking auditions doesn't sound thrilling, staying in school is simply no longer an option for my sanity. Anyway, there are just a few things to do now before I go home for Christmas. Maybe I'll actually be able to see a few friends, go shopping, finish The Rest Is Noise. Oh yeah. And work on reeds. Not now though. I am in dire need of some sleep. Goodnight.