New York Trip

     Last month, I went to New York with my teacher Dileep Gangolli.  It was an amazing trip!  We flew to Laguardia airport, and we stayed with Dileep's brother Ashok.


     On Thursday, I saw the Metropolitan Opera play.  They did Satyagraha, an opera about Gandhi's years in South Africa.  The opera was very surreal.  It was in Sanskrit with Gandhi's writings in English projected on the wall.  There was also no recitative, which means it was all songs with no explanations or bridges.  It was weird, but also really cool.  I loved Gandhi's solo at the end.  It was incredibly long, and every moment of it was gorgeous.  Anthony McGill's part was kind of boring and supportive, unfortunately for me, because I always love to hear Mr. McGill play as much as possible.  But, of course, he executed it perfectly, like the brilliant and lyrical clarinetist he is.


     After the concert, my teacher and I went outside the Met opera house where we saw a bunch of occupy Wall Street protesters trying to get the musicians of the Metropolitan Opera and the audience members to join their protest.  I guess this was because the opera was about Gandhi, and he was a non-violent protester, like the Occupy protesters.


     On Friday morning, I went to see the New York Philharmonic play Mahler's tenth symphony.  I enjoyed the experience much better than when I saw them last year.  This was an acoustical issue, I think, because everyone knows how great the New York Philharmonic is.  Last year, we sat in the balconies on the side of the concert hall where the sound was really inconsistent, and the solists were almost inaudible.  This year, I sat on the ground level, and the acoustics were much much better.  The horns were great throughout the whole piece (Mahler has the best horn parts).  The violas sounded a little shaky in the second movement when they had their big soli, but again, I think this was a problem with the Avery Fischer Hall acoustics, which isn't able to project the beautiful and subtle sound of the viola section.  There were a couple of parts that didn't sound right to me, but I think this is because the celli and the violas suffer most from the sound issues in that concert hall.  We are lucky to have the Chicago Symphony Center here in Chicago.  In the last movement there was a beautiful flute solo which was executed to perfection by the principal flutist.  He was almost as good as Mathieu Dufour, but not quite, but I have to admit that I am biased, because I am from Chicago, and I support my hometown orchestra.


     After seeing the orchestra play, we went to this wonderful French Bistro where I got a really great sandwich.  Later that afternoon, I had a lesson with Anthony McGill, principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.  It was an amazing experience, just like last year.  Mr. McGill had some really great insights into playing Rossini, which he shared with me.  He helped me balance the pressure I was placing on the reed when playing the high notes, and it helped my highest notes become more in tune.  He also gave me insight into dynamics.  He said to think of dynamics as a style of playing and not a volume.  This is a really good way to think about it.  We finished the day with dinner at a great Italian restaurant.  I had the lamb.


     On Saturday, I went to see Will, a friend of mine who I met at Interlochen, who lives in the New York suburbs.  Will's dad took us to the natural history museum where we spent most of our time in the jungle and African Peoples section.  It was really interesting tracing the African Peoples through the years and looking at their art.  I spent that night at Will's house.


     On Sunday, Will's dad dropped me back off at Dileep's brother's house.  We went from there to the airport.  When I got back to Chicago, I went straight back to my chamber rehearsal at Midwest Young Artists.  It was one busy weekend!


     I had an amazing time in New York.  I enjoy vising New York a lot, but I think I like Chicago the best.

It's Been Too Long Since My Last Blog Post

December was a really busy month!  I went with my teacher to New York to have a lesson with Anthony McGill again.  My youth orchestra (Midwest Young Artists) played several Christmas concerts in area malls, and I was busy preparing for the Walgreens Concerto Competition and the DePaul Concerto Festival.  Plus I performed a family concert with my great aunt Corean who is a concert pianist.

I won the wind category of the junior MYA division of the Walgreens playing the Rossini Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet, and I won the clarinet category at the DePaul Concerto Festival, playing the Weber Concertino.  I think this means I will get to play the Weber Concertino with the Oistrach Symphony Orchestra later this month.

Also, my chamber trio auditioned for WFMT Introductions, and we were selected to play on January 28.  We will be playing the Mozart Kegelstatt Trio (k. 498) and the Schumann Marchenerzahlungen for viola, clarinet and piano.  I'm really excited about playing, but I'm kind of scared of the interview part.

Scheherazade with MYA's Symphony Orchestra

On October 30, I played with MYA's Symphony Orchestra.  We played Scheherazade, which was my favorite concert that I've ever played in.  It was a busy day.  I played with Concert Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Honors Wind Symphony as well as Symphony Orchestra.  I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday.

http://wmya.fm/2011/11/11/wmya-172-scheherazade/

Master Class with Bill Buchman, Assistant Principal Bassoon for the CSO

Today I attended and played at a master class at the MYA center taught by Bill Buchman, the Assistant Principal Bassoonist for the CSO.  Mr. Buchman has a physics degree from Brown and a music degree from Yale.  How cool is that?

This was a very informative master class.  He covered some of the most important ideas in wind playing and musicianship in general.  He emphasized making the time signature more obvious and playing technical sections more smoothly.

I started the master class with Rossini's Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet.  I've been working on this piece for many months now.  Mr. Buchman stopped me after the first half of the introduction.  The first thing he talked about was making sure that all of your playing is smooth.  This can be hard on the clarinet, because the resistance is very different between some of the notes.  This is because some notes you play with all of the holes on the clarinet open, and some notes you play with all of the holes closed.  Going between these notes is very difficult, so you need to work to make sure that the notes are smooth.  You do this by pushing the air through the phrase and maintaining a steady flow of air.  When you are playing these difficult intervals, and you are playing quietly, it is even more difficult to keep your sound steady and full.  Mr. Buchman said it seems surprising, but you actually need to use just as much or more air on the quiet notes so they can resonate just as much as the forte sections.  He had me play this section again several times with these ideas in mind, and it made a big difference.

Then Mr. Buchman had me play the Theme.  This section is quicker and more technical than the Introduction. I played it, and after I finished, he had me play the very beginning again.  He asked the other kids in the master class guess what the time signature was, and where the downbeat was.  Only one person could tell, and I think that's because he was looking at the music.  The point Mr. Buchman was making was that I wasn't making it obvious to the audience where the downbeat was.  This is a problem, because it makes you sound disjoint and out of tempo, and it makes it hard for your audience to understand the music.  He said it was really to establish this right at the beginning.  He revisited this idea many times during the master class.

Many students played after me:  Julia, Clayton and Marissa played bassoon concertos, Vince played a baroque sonata on his oboe, and Yoon and Steven played the 2nd Weber and the Rossini on clarinet.  And finally Theo, Tamara and Julia played a trio.  Mr. Buchman covered several ideas through the rest of the masterclass.  First, he worked on how to practice a technically difficult articulated section.  He suggested working on the fingering and tonguing separately.  You can do this by slurring the section and slowing it down.  This lets you work on your fingers without having to worry about the tonguing.  He also said it was important to keep your air flowing through the articulations.  You do this by not stopping the air with your tongue, but simply lightly tapping the reed with your tongue to briefly stop the reeds vibrations.  Another point he made was to practice slowly.  He said if you can't play it slowly, then you will sometimes crash and burn when you play it fast.  That happened to me last year at the Walgreens when I was performing the Weber Concertino!  My piano teacher makes this point quite often.  You don't really know a piece until you can play it slow as well as fast.

When Vince played, it was clear to Mr. Buchman that Vince was quite nervous.  He had some advice to help with this nervousness that everybody feels.  He said to acknowledge when you're nervous.  You can use the extra adrenalin pumping through your veins to help you play better.  It all depends on how you think about it.  You can  respond to the nervousness by saying to yourself that you're terrified and you're going to fail.  Or you can see it as an advantage.  You can say to yourself, I'm nervous.  That's good, because I have more energy, and this can help me have an exciting performance..  My concentration will be at a higher level than normal.  However, when you get nervous you see time differently, you will tend to rush.  You need to be aware of this and consciously hold yourself back and play slower than you feel is the tempo you normally play at.  I'm going to try this when I play at the Walgreens next month.

It was a great masterclass, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to attend and play at it.

City of Tomorrow Master Class

A couple of weeks ago, my piano Trio played for City of Tomorrow, last year's winner of the wind division of the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.  It was a good experience.  They gave us feedback about a number useful things when playing chamber music.

We played the first movement of the Mozart Kegelstatt Trio for viola, clarinet and piano, and they had a number of comments to make about how we could improve our performance.  One thing was the turns that happen many times throughout the piece need to all be exactly the same no matter who is playing them.  They also talked a lot about the style of playing Mozart, and how it should be very even and very lyrical.  In a way Mozart can be harder than more complicated pieces, because everything has to be perfect or it really stands out.

They talked a lot about communication.  They said we should look at each other more, which, of course we know, but we don't always remember to do as much as we should.  They pointed out that we should look like we are enjoying each other's performance of their parts, as the audience will pick up on how we view each other.  That was something I haven't heard very often and a really good point.

Playing for City of Tomorrow was a great experience.  I hope shows in our performance on Sunday.

City of Tomorrow

The city of tomorrow is a wonderful woodwind quintet who were awarded the first prize of the wind division for the 2011 Fischoff National Chamber Competition.  The members consist of flutist Elise Blatchford, oboist Andrew Nogal, bassoonist Amanda Swain, clarinetist Camila Barientos, and hornist Leander Star.I saw them perform at MYA’s Music at the Fort Concert Series. It was an outstanding performance, one of the best chamber concerts I have ever seen. 

They opened with Summer Music by Samuel Barber.  They dominated the first part with their expressive playing.  I especially like the runs in the flute, clarinet, and bassoon.  They did not seem forced at all, just flowing out like it was the easiest thing in the world.  The transitions between the different sections in the piece was flawless.  It starts out very smooth and flowing.  The second section is repetitive and angry.  The third section is pure bliss, with hopping sixteenth notes everywhere.   There are many more sections and all of them have to be very played differently.  They didn’t enjoy this piece as much as they enjoyed other pieces but this was my personal favorite of all the pieces they played. 

The next piece they played was wind quintet number 4 for George Perle.  I didn’t like this piece as much as some of the others but the quintet did.  You could see in their faces and body movement that they liked this one the best.  It is an extremely modern piece with a muddle of the instruments in the first movement.  The second movement starts with the French horn playing quick notes and the clarinet comes in with a few notes here, a few notes there, nothing consistent.  The clarinet is soon followed by the rest of the group.

The last piece of the concert was David Maslanka’s third wind quintet.  This piece is supposedly based on themes Bach.  It was bewildering, how well they played together in all the pieces, but especially this one, I really noticed their communication.  I loved their musicality.  I couldn’t find a single thing wrong with their performance of this piece if I tried.  I hope I get a group which can play this well someday.  They finished the concert with this colossal performance.

This was an awe-inspiring chamber performance.  I am very happy that I got a chance to see the City of Tomorrow play.  I hope I get to see them again some day!

My Clarinets Were Stolen!!!

Last week, my clarinets were stolen!  I was on the way to vacation and my family and I stopped at a hotel in Findlay, Ohio.  It was three A.M. at night and my mom said we could leave our instruments in the car just this once, because we were all so tired.  I woke a few hours later to find out that someone had broken our car's window and stolen my clarinets, my sisters cello, and my friends french horn.  In my clarinet case were my R13 A and Bb clarinets, a Backun bell, four barrels, a Walter Grabner custom mouthpiece, seven legere reeds, a neck strap, and a couple neck strap extenders.  Some of these were very hard come by.  Insurance is paying for all the losses which is good but I have my Midwest Young Artists's Symphony Orchestra seating audition coming up in a month so I need my clarinets back soon.  I am trying out a Bb clarinet but I have yet to find an A clarinet.  Hopefully I can find one soon so I will be prepared for the audition when it comes around.  The moral of this story is to never leave valuables in the car overnight.