Also really been enjoying the Decemberists The Hazards of Love in the car!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Fabrizio de Andre - Volta la carta
I was listening to this in the car today. I used to dance to LOVE to dance to it when I was about 4.
Friday, February 18, 2011
hiatus over
Well, I haven't blogged in a while. So here are few unrelated things that I've been thinking about.
My friend from Northwestern, Stephanie, has a new blog about frugal living that I enjoy reading.
I am a now a big fan of Gabrielle Giffords, not just because she shares my first name, but I admit that might have something to do with it. I wish her a speedy recovery.
I played some pretty cool concerts last weekend. One of them was Peter & the Wolf with Jack Black as narrator. His son decided that the story's ending was too sad, and that the duck should have laser eyes. So, now I have laser eyes--pretty sweet!!
The other was Prokofiev's Classical Symphony with Symbiosis, a new group organized by my cellist friend Joo Lee. It was without a conductor and it was FUN!
WildUp had a concert that I unfortunately missed.
I've been teaching more, and enjoying it, but also with more teaching come more issues to solve, and sometimes I've been struggling with them. But not necessarily in a bad way. More in a, this is interesting, how do I fix it, kind of way.
OK, that's all for now. Hopefully I will be a little better about keeping this blog updated in the near future.
My friend from Northwestern, Stephanie, has a new blog about frugal living that I enjoy reading.
I am a now a big fan of Gabrielle Giffords, not just because she shares my first name, but I admit that might have something to do with it. I wish her a speedy recovery.
I played some pretty cool concerts last weekend. One of them was Peter & the Wolf with Jack Black as narrator. His son decided that the story's ending was too sad, and that the duck should have laser eyes. So, now I have laser eyes--pretty sweet!!
The other was Prokofiev's Classical Symphony with Symbiosis, a new group organized by my cellist friend Joo Lee. It was without a conductor and it was FUN!
WildUp had a concert that I unfortunately missed.
I've been teaching more, and enjoying it, but also with more teaching come more issues to solve, and sometimes I've been struggling with them. But not necessarily in a bad way. More in a, this is interesting, how do I fix it, kind of way.
OK, that's all for now. Hopefully I will be a little better about keeping this blog updated in the near future.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
let's just move on (and keep up the education work)
Everyone keeps talking about how to make classical music "relevant," especially to young people. At the same time, the classical music world is flooded with so many young musicians hoping to make a living as musician. Presumably, these young people love classical music. So what's the problem? I don't see one. The whole world is constantly changing, not just the tiny fraction of it that involves classical music. Deal with it and move on, stop grumbling, just go with the flow! Things will either sort themselves out, or we'll have to move on. Also, I think if we just perform music that we love and in ways that excite us, people will enjoy it. We should stop pandering to what we think other people would like, it just seems artificial to me. There have always been fewer people who like "high" art than "pop" art, that's just in the nature of the two beasts, yet "high" art (in all forms, visual, theater, film, music, etc.) has managed to survive, and I think it always will. It's part of human nature. So let's just stop freaking out. Also, I would just like to say that I like BOTH high art and low art, a lot. Fellini is fantastic, but so is Star Wars. I love Mahler, but I also enjoy Lady GaGa.
On a somewhat related note, I visited YOLA@HOLA yesterday, and introduced their 4th-grade wind instrument students to the oboe. The kids already play flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, and horn. They are hoping to start a few kids on oboe and bassoon in the future. The children were a great audience, they behaved well, were enthusiastic, and asked great questions. I even played the English horn for them. (Harry Potter was a big hit on oboe, they requested it on English horn, as well!!) The kids learn solfege, recorder, and how to read music, sing in choir, and they also learn about composers and music history. They compose their own works from early on (one adorable 4th-grader titled his first (4-measure) composition "Kevin's Symphony No. 1"). They also have a class for parents, so that parents can learn some of what their children are learning, and get an idea of what goes on when their children are at YOLA@HOLA. They also have a class of 1st-graders who are learning violin and viola. They seem to have a really good thing going on, with good teachers. So anyway, I think these kinds of projects, though very difficult to execute quite so well as they are doing at YOLA@HOLA, are excellent and a big part of the future of classical music. Plus they provide a great service to their communities, especially since music has been eliminated from so many schools' curricula these days. I hope to help our program between Crossroads and St. Anne's School blossom into something like that.
On a somewhat related note, I visited YOLA@HOLA yesterday, and introduced their 4th-grade wind instrument students to the oboe. The kids already play flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, and horn. They are hoping to start a few kids on oboe and bassoon in the future. The children were a great audience, they behaved well, were enthusiastic, and asked great questions. I even played the English horn for them. (Harry Potter was a big hit on oboe, they requested it on English horn, as well!!) The kids learn solfege, recorder, and how to read music, sing in choir, and they also learn about composers and music history. They compose their own works from early on (one adorable 4th-grader titled his first (4-measure) composition "Kevin's Symphony No. 1"). They also have a class for parents, so that parents can learn some of what their children are learning, and get an idea of what goes on when their children are at YOLA@HOLA. They also have a class of 1st-graders who are learning violin and viola. They seem to have a really good thing going on, with good teachers. So anyway, I think these kinds of projects, though very difficult to execute quite so well as they are doing at YOLA@HOLA, are excellent and a big part of the future of classical music. Plus they provide a great service to their communities, especially since music has been eliminated from so many schools' curricula these days. I hope to help our program between Crossroads and St. Anne's School blossom into something like that.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
unpleasant surprises
So I was just fooling around on my computer, waiting for the cupcakes in the oven to finish baking. I had on a recording of Carmina Burana with Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony, circa 2001, and was feeling nostalgic for my high school music days in Houston. My sophomore year of high school, I was in the children's chorus of Houston Grand Opera's production of Mefistofele, and I started to wonder if any of those kids were on facebook. I could only remember a couple of full names. There was one friend that I especially hit it off with, Rachel. I was pretty sure I had her name right, but I couldn't find her on facebook, so I decided to google her. What came up: her obituary. She died five years ago at age 21 in a bike accident. That really caught me off guard, and I just needed to share it somewhere to deal with that a little. She was really smart, as well as a fine singer. I thought she must be doing something great by now. What a terrible surprise.
Friday, October 8, 2010
picture books
Wow, this story really annoys me:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/us/08picture.html
My dad insisted that I NOT learn to read until I started kindergarten (childhood is for being a child), so that's what I did. I started out behind some of the kids whose parents had been teaching them to read, but that did not last long. I loved reading from the beginning, maybe because I never felt forced to do it. I certainly do no think that I have suffered educationally or linguistically as a result of learning to read a little bit later than some.
On top of that, picture books are excellent ways to get kids to enjoy reading. Most people enjoy mastering something that they have to make an effort for, but if they have to struggle too much, they stop enjoying it. Picture books are perfect for kids in this way: they have to make an effort to read, but the pictures help them along, and they feel more accomplished for having figured it out themselves. Chapter books are just be boring and frustrating if they're beyond a child's level, and I would think that would turn them OFF to reading, instead of helping them to enjoy it.
And how many wonderful children's picture books are out there? My life wouldn't have been the same without The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Dr. Seuss, the Pinkerton books (about the Great Dane), Alphonse the Loch Ness monster, anything by Tomie DePaola (my all-time favorite: Prince Pazzo), so many excellent books that I remember clearly and fondly to this day! I will always love The Snowman, which fueled my creativity when making my own snowmen, and I also enjoyed the beautiful movie they made of it(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeVaj4zkWy0). In fact, I remember attending a Hartford Symphony performance of it, with the orchestra playing the music to accompany the movie. Or what about the beautiful Father Twilight, or Miss Rumphius? I could go on forever. Anyway, I just had to balance the universe and pay tribute to the wonderful world of picture books, which are apparently not being treated with their due respect these days!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/us/08picture.html
My dad insisted that I NOT learn to read until I started kindergarten (childhood is for being a child), so that's what I did. I started out behind some of the kids whose parents had been teaching them to read, but that did not last long. I loved reading from the beginning, maybe because I never felt forced to do it. I certainly do no think that I have suffered educationally or linguistically as a result of learning to read a little bit later than some.
On top of that, picture books are excellent ways to get kids to enjoy reading. Most people enjoy mastering something that they have to make an effort for, but if they have to struggle too much, they stop enjoying it. Picture books are perfect for kids in this way: they have to make an effort to read, but the pictures help them along, and they feel more accomplished for having figured it out themselves. Chapter books are just be boring and frustrating if they're beyond a child's level, and I would think that would turn them OFF to reading, instead of helping them to enjoy it.
And how many wonderful children's picture books are out there? My life wouldn't have been the same without The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Dr. Seuss, the Pinkerton books (about the Great Dane), Alphonse the Loch Ness monster, anything by Tomie DePaola (my all-time favorite: Prince Pazzo), so many excellent books that I remember clearly and fondly to this day! I will always love The Snowman, which fueled my creativity when making my own snowmen, and I also enjoyed the beautiful movie they made of it(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeVaj4zkWy0). In fact, I remember attending a Hartford Symphony performance of it, with the orchestra playing the music to accompany the movie. Or what about the beautiful Father Twilight, or Miss Rumphius? I could go on forever. Anyway, I just had to balance the universe and pay tribute to the wonderful world of picture books, which are apparently not being treated with their due respect these days!
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