Enjoying it all..."while I still can"! (smirk)

Hello there, festive and faithful friends and family!

No news here, which I suppose is good news as my due date isn't officially until 12/27. I went on maternity leave last week and am loving it. For several days I went crazy, running all the last errands and buying all the remaining baby things for the nursery and layette and my hospital bag.

Since then, however, my doctor has told me to take it easy and rest, because during the final weeks it's easy for blood pressure to escalate and mine showed minor signs of doing just that at my last appointment (which was the morning after a doozie of a major errand/shopping/nesting/exertion marathon day, followed unsurprisingly by a bad night's sleep). I was relieved to hear from her, doctor's orders, that I should no longer push past my exhaustion and discomfort in my anxiety to prepare for the baby's arrival. I am now feeling much better; even my ankles and feet, which were looking like a cabbage patch kid's, look normal and unswollen after periods of rest.

So now I'm just enjoying the last gasps of free time, sleep, recreational activities, and time to myself, all of which, according to all of the Harbingers of Doom who love to give advice, is all going straight to hell in a handbasket once we have this child. Our lives as we know them, according to these gloombots, are simply going to end. As the neverending "Get your sleep while you can!"s and "Just you wait!"s continue to pour in, I am honing my Academy Award winning smile and practicing my starring line: "I'll keep that in mind, thanks" as though this is actually somehow helpful (not depressing or insulting) advice that I am thankful to have received. After 6 months of this, I figure I deserve at least 7 Oscars at this point.

Despite the initial dread and anxiety that all of this naysayer feedback aggravated, I really think I've crossed over to the other side. I'm actually really excited now, and I can laugh at all of those Eeyore types who love to tell you all the bad things but who couldn't come close to describing to you the joy of holding your own child in your arms. Of course it helps that we finally have all of the nursery furniture assembled. David did a marvelous job, and the crib and dresser/changing table look absolutely beautiful, despite the fact that the instructions appeared to have been badly translated from Sanskrit and illustrated by M.C. Escher. He has been wonderful helping around the house, carrying things and shoveling the piles of snow here in the upper midwest. He must have shoveled 3 times a day on some days this past week. We now have well over 12 inches on the ground, and the piles along our driveway are at least 3 or 4 feet tall.

Meanwhile, I have been doing loads of baby laundry, intently studying the minute differences between receiving blankets, baby blankets, cloth diapers, burp cloths, lap pads, and washcloths in an effort recognize and categorize them as I fold and organize them in the baby's closet. (Does anyone know what a lap pad is or what you use it for? I asked my brother, also a new parent, and he didn't think he had any of those and had no idea.)

In the spirit of enjoying my life as I know it "while I still can", I have been indulging my reading itch as well as my Netflix account. I finished Jodi Picoult's Salem Falls, which was quite possibly the best book of hers I've ever read. I haven't read a book that riveting in quite a while. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. I was sad when I finished it, because it was such a great escape.

My most recent read was definitely out of my usual genre rotation. It was a debauched romp through the dirty world of Hollywood fame and fortune, following the often tragic and broken life of a stunningly beautiful and brilliant woman on her rise to success. I'm not quite sure what possessed me to buy this book (and don't remember where I was or what I was thinking when I did), but I did find it moderately entertaining - sort of like my guilty pleasure of occasionally buying and reading gossip rags. I wouldn't necessarily recommend Tilly Bagshawe's Adored to anyone who didn't avidly read Cosmo and People on a regular basis, but it was okay. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

I've watched a few great movies lately too, thanks to having finally found the last Netflix movie that had come months ago but had gotten lost in a mound of paperwork. Beauty Shop was a hilarious movie with Queen Latifah as a hairstylist who quits her fancy and tedious salon job (where she is bullied by Kevin Bacon, of all people, who plays a flaming and pompous European salon owner) to open her own in a questionable part of town. I think seeing Kevin with long heavily-styled locks and speaking with a queenish Euro-affected accent was one of the biggest highlights of the movie. Not the best movie on the planet, but definitely fun. I give it 3.5 stars out of 5.

Then, upon the recommendation of my brother, who along with me is a huge Will Ferrell fan, I watched Elf. Oh my GOD. If you want to laugh so hard you cry, you need to see this movie. The plot was okay and a little bit schmaltzy in the Christmas movie genre tradition, but Ferrell completely makes the movie. His schtick is just sidesplitting. A perfect Christmas comedy to rent around this time of year. I highly recommend it! I give it 5 stars, all of them going straight to Will.

That's all for now...back to folding baby clothes!! Stay warm and safe, and have a lovely week ahead of you.

Do you hear what I hear?

This week we're doing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. This represents my last full week before going on maternity leave. I'll be off until April 1st, at which point I'll come back to play Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. I'm looking forward to being off, but I'm also apprehensive. Will I go insane without the structure and fulfillment of my work, which I generally really enjoy? Yes yes, I know I'm going to be busy; I'm not a flaming idiot who thinks taking care of a newborn is going to be a cinch.

Ah well, no matter what, at least I can look forward to coming back in April. And I'm not taking all of the leave entitled to me, so if I do need more, I can take it. To tell you the truth, I'm not at all sure about anything that's about to happen to us once our son enters our lives, so I'm not really expecting to feel anything until it happens! (Very Zen of me, isn't it? Those Buddhist study and meditation group meetings at my church are coming in handy! **grin**)

So back to the Beethoven. I am thoroughly enjoying it. The soloists - Erika Sunnegardh, Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, Stuart Neill, and Andrea Silvestrelli, are incredible. They're all strong, but they also blend. I often dread that spot in the last movement when all four of them are singing at the tops of their lungs, because sometimes it sounds like four opera divas/divos seeing who can win the game of Survival of the Loudest and Widest Vibrato. Not these soloists. Man. The blend and balance was amazing and shook the entire house last night. I was particularly impressed with the bass, Andrea Silvestrelli, who we had actually heard sing one of the dragons (Fasolt) in the Lyric Opera of Chicago's Ring Cycle back in 2005. I don't think I've ever heard a more powerful voice. And of course the MSO Chorus sounds incredible, powerful, and perfectly in tune. I absolutely love performing with them. They're such a fun, energized, passionate group of people. We have two more performances, tonight and tomorrow afternoon.

Anyway, so I was sitting on stage last night, thinking about how many times I've played the 9th. A lot. But somehow it stays fresh. I think as a musician, you bring your most recent life experiences to any performance, no matter how many times you've done the piece before. This time, I'm 9 months pregnant. That, let me tell you, puts an entirely different spin on things, knowing that you're not the only pair of ears in your immediate vicinity listening to all the thunderous beauty happening on stage! I was overcome with happiness thinking about how amazing it was that our little guy was listening to one of the most magnificent, majestic, spectacular pieces ever written, along with his mom who was lucky enough to be a part of it.

And then, I began thinking about all of the great pieces he's been able to hear multiple performances of since his ears were fully developed in his 4th month. That goes all the way back to my summer festival in Breckenridge! I thought it would be really neat to go back and make a list of all the performances of big orchestral pieces he's been able to hear since then:

In Breckenridge:
Copland, Fanfare for the Common Man
Stravinsky, Rite of Spring
Walton, Crown Imperial March
Liszt, Mephisto Waltz
Mozart, Sinfonia Concertante (with mommy as soloist!)
Shostakovitch Cello Concerto No. 1
Mahler, Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Shostakovitch, Symphony No. 7
Dvorak, Czech Suite
Bizet, Toreador March from Carmen
Dvorak, American Suite
Verdi, Triumphal March from Aida
Saint-Saens, Concerto for Piano
Stravinsky, Scherzo a la Russe
Debussy, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Bernstein, Divertimento for Orchestra
Hummel, Trumpet Concerto
Britten, Variations on a Theme by Purcell (Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra)

(There was also a whole slew of great chamber music we did, way too much to list here.)

In Milwaukee: Since we came back to work this fall at the MSO, our little guy has been treated to multiple on-stage experiences of:

Barber, Symphony No. 1
Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2
Mahler, Symphony No. 5
Williams, Nimbus 2000 from "Harry Potter"
Rossini, Allegro Finale from "William Tell Overture"
Grofe, "On The Trail" from Grand Canyon Suite
Copland, John Henry
Mussorgsky, Promenade (1st mvmt) from "Pictures at an Exhibition"
Williams, E.T. Flying Theme
Berlioz, Roman Carnival Overture
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5 (he heard this one a lot because we took it on tour)
Beethoven, Symphony No. 2
Higdon, Percussion Concerto
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4
Beethoven, Symphony No. 4
Waxman, Carmen Fantasie for Violin solo
Hanson, Symphony No. 2
Dvorak, Symphony No. 9 "New World"
Bizet, Suite No. 1 from L'Arlesienne
Ravel, "La Valse"
Lehar, "The Merry Widow" (his first opera, which he slept through along with his mom)
Sibelius, Symphony No. 2
Beethoven, Symphony No. 9
Strauss, Don Juan (which we're reading next week - the last piece I'll play before I go on leave for nearly 4 months!)

Isn't that cool? Some day, I'll be able to look back at this blog's archives and show our guy why he loves (or hates) Tchaikovsky so much. **grin** Hope you're all having a great weekend so far. It's snowing here, and the weather is supposed to get completely nasty later today - more snow, wind, falling temperatures, sleet, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes...ha ha, just kidding. Anyway, I'm glad my commute to work is just 10 minutes! :)

Hope all is well where you are! Stay warm and safe.

It's all Completely Normal!

So has everyone finally emerged from their post-Thanksgiving tryptophan-induced comas?

We had a lovely celebration with symphony friends who take "orphans" (those without family in the vicinity) into their festive home for major holidays. Because El Bambino is now taking up a significant portion of the room previously reserved for my vital organs, I was immediately stuffed, despite the fact that I had had barely anything else to eat prior to the Big Afternoon Meal (appropriately BAM, for short). Call the multi-gazillion dollar diet industry: who needs bariatric surgery when you have what's probably at this point a 7 pound kid sitting on your entire digestive tract?

I brought a sweet potato casserole and a creamed spinach dip, and David made his famed caramel pecan sticky buns (a holiday tradition in his family) and a very impressive-looking apple pie. We had a great time.

We finally finished painting the nursery! I love the yellow we picked. It's a very nice buttery, mellow yellow, warm and inviting. We did two yellow walls and two white ones, all semi-gloss which the paint guru at Lowe's assured me was the easiest to maintain and clean, therefore ideal for a small child's room. We have our crib, which was delivered last week and is still in the box. Which means we still have to put it together. According to some of the people in our class, this is about as much fun (and as easy) as going through a revolving door with 3 pairs of skis over your shoulder. I am not looking forward to it.

We also finished our childbirth education class series. We got a fancy graduation certificate with the hospital's seal and everything. We were so proud. Graduates! We did it! So apparently now, we are fully licensed and allowed to give birth. Does this make me feel better? A little. Am I still scared to death of the complete lack of control and utter pain I'm going to have to go through during delivery? You bet your 36 weeks pregnant bachache I am.

My mother wonders how she ever had kids without taking those classes; they weren't around for me or my sister, but she and my dad took one when my brother came along in the late 70's. At the end of the class she looked at my dad and said, "how in the world did we ever have the first two?!"

I have to admit, the classes were really great. Our teacher, who looked to be about my age but has already had 6 children, was excellent, and I would say that at least 95% of what we learned was completely new to me. David was there for all of the classes and even attended one I couldn't make because I was out of town. The reality of impending parenthood is still daunting, especially now that it's so close and coming straight at me head-on like a speeding freight train. I have never been around a newborn child in my life, and that is nothing short of terrifying. Truth be told, until fairly recently (4 years ago when my adorable little niece Jenna came along), babies looked like little bald aliens to me. Their sheer fragility and utter dependency really freaked me out. Everyone tells you it's different when it's your own child, and hopefully that's true. I sure hope there's some powerful parenting instinct or reflex that kicks in once the kid is out, because aside from taking care of our relatively independent cats, I have absolutely no frame of reference whatsoever for what is about to happen to us.

Which is why the classes, for me, were so helpful.

Anyway, other than that, things here are fine. The discomforts of pregnancy late in the 3rd trimester (only 4 more weeks until D-Day!) are intensifying, but, like every unpleasant, disgusting, exhausting, or bizarre thing that can happen to a pregnant woman at any time, I am learning from our many pregnancy and delivery reference tomes that it's all Completely Normal. Some of us were joking in our childbirth classes that we could make a lot of money writing a book containing every possible bizarre, horrifying, or otherwise disturbing symptom we could imagine, reassuring pregnant women that whatever they were experiencing was Completely Normal. "Oh, so your lower back is throbbing in 5/8 time, while your baby is simultaneously kicking your bladder in 3/4 time, resulting in a stimulating Stravinsky-esque counterrhythm that is keeping you up all hours of the night? And your stretch marks have changed color from simple red stripes to a lovely pattern of army green and fuschia paisley? Oh, well, of course. That amalgamation of symptoms is completely normal at 36.5 weeks pregnancy. Don't you feel so much better now, knowing that your complete discomfort and total lack of control over what's happening to your body is Completely Normal?"

We could make a lot of money.

Work is thankfully relatively low key and a wonderful distraction from the physical and emotional realities of impending motherhood. This is such a blessing. We did one of my favorite pieces of all time last week, Sibelius's 2nd Symphony. It was so blissful. I just adore Sibelius. I used to listen to my favorite recording of it, one of my favorite CD's in my collection, all the time purely for recreational purposes: Yoel Levi and The Cleveland Orchestra, Telarc label. The first movement is enough to just turn you into a big happy pile of goo; about 7 minutes into it or so, the rest of the orchestra drops out and the immense warmth of the entire brass section playing a lush chorale sweeps over you. You can almost feel the clouds opening up and basking you in sunlight.

This week we're doing 3 performances of Beethoven's 9th, and next week I have two reading sessions before I go on maternity leave. Then I'm done and don't go back to work until April 1st. Time to nest, prepare, clean, organize, do mountains of laundry, and otherwise prepare for our little guy's arrival into our home!

Happy holiday season to you all, and may the season be peaceful and joyous for you. XOXO

P.S. Because of the due date being smack dab in the middle of Christmas and New Years, we decided to not send out holiday cards, but will be mailing our annual holiday letter in the same envelope with the birth announcements in January. This will conserve tons of paper, to say nothing of immeasurable amounts of new-parent energy/sanity. :D

33 weeks and counting...

So I'm in the home stretch (not to be confused with stretch marks, which, thanks to the luxurious Body Shop Cocoa Butter Body Butter my awesome sister gave me, have been kept at bay) of my pregnancy! Thank god. Because things are getting uncomfortable.

Oh, it's all normal. I had an appt. with my doc yesterday and she said that the discomfort, shortness of breath, fatigue, and puffiness are all within the scope of an otherwise healthy pregnancy. My belly is sticking out so far now, I can no longer walk without looking like an idiot. I have to waddle like a duck. It's no joke (though I'm sure I look funny). It's just impossible to walk normally and maintain a good sense of balance when your center of gravity is so weird with the baby weight so high up in your belly. And slow...I'm sooo slow these days. That's frustrating, but I keep reminding myself that I have to take it easy.

I blew through my latest James Patterson thriller, which was great (The Fifth Horseman), and have started a delightful - and entirely appropriate! - quality chick-lit romp called Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. It's a sort of "Sex & The City"-esque portrayal of 4 women living in Philadelphia; except that all 4 women are all married and in the last trimesters of their pregnancies! The timing of my reading this couldn't be more perfect - the stories of their backgrounds, deliveries, prenatal yoga, the challenges of taking care of a newborn, and hilarious stories of the mother in law from hell (who buys her new granddaughter a sequined tank top that says "Hottie"!! Eeew!) etc. are so engrossing and I am just eating it up. I adore this author; she is one of my favorites!

Speaking of entertainment, did any of you see the Bionic Woman this week on NBC? Man, that show is phenomenal!

The baby is doing very well and so am I, despite the routine discomforts. My blood pressure is still normal - 122/74 - for which I am eternally grateful (thanks, mom, for the good genes!). And the baby, bless his sweet little heart, still kicks and nudges and flutters often. He's started to do these somersaults that make me feel like I have a chicken rotisserie going on in my stomach. It's truly a bizarre sensation. Yesterday the doctor said his growth rate, heartbeat, and movements all sound perfectly healthy and normal, and that's what really matters.

I'll close this post with a hilarious story of recently going through airport security. I had my horn with me, of course, and it was going through the conveyor belt to get checked out. I always watch the airport staff when this is going on. This guy stops the conveyor, squints his eyes, backs up the conveyer belt again and stops it again, and looks more closely at the monitor. He looks over to his colleague, and says, "hey John, c'mere." John walks over. The guy points at the monitor. "What the hell is that?"

At which point I lose it laughing. John looks at me and asks, "is it a trumpet?" I am impressed that he even knows that it's a musical instrument and tell him it's a french horn. (It's really just called a horn in the orchestral world but most people don't know that, so you have to say "french" to make sure they know which horn specifically.) The guy behind me in line is cracking up and gives me the thumbs up and with a huge smile on his face, says, "Awesome!"

Anyway, I hope this blog post finds you all happy and healthy and enjoying a gorgeous fall day. The weather here is chilly but sunny, and the leaves are still gorgeous shades of gingery-turmeric gold and other shades of wine, burgundy, and tangerine. Just beautiful. Write back and tell me what you have planned for the weekend!

Less TV, more books and piano please

When we renovated what was previously the music studio to become the baby's room, we moved the upstairs TV down into basement storage, simply because we have a fairly small house and couldn't figure out where else to put it on the main floor. (We have a large TV in the finished rec room downstairs, so it's not like we're anti-TV or anything.)

So now, I am still watching TV, but it's very conscious, intentional watching instead of just having it on for white noise/filler like I used to before. Now I watch less than 3 hours of TV per week. I tape Law & Order SVU, The Bionic Woman, and The Women's Murder Club (based on a series of James Patterson mystery novels, which I have read and loved). Those last two shows are new this season and are fabulous. And because I tape them, I can fast forward through the ads and it only takes about 2.25 hours to watch them.

So what this means is that I have more time and brainspace to read and practice the piano!Lately I have had so much practicing to do on the horn that I haven't had much time for piano, but in a few weeks when things die down completely I am going to get the Beethoven back out. I've been working on his Eb sonata, Les Adieux, No. 26. I just love it, even though it's taking me a while to learn (horn player here, not really a pianist except for fun). It's so joyful and effervescent. Around this time of year, I also love practicing the Vince Guaraldi classics from the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and Christmas specials; they're just so refreshing, both classic and original at the same time. By the way, have I even mentioned to you lately how much I love our piano? It's been nearly a year since we had it delivered, and I cannot tell you how much I have just adored having it on our home.

I always read before I go to bed, because it helps untangle/unwind my brain and send me off. I finished Jodi Picoult's Vanishing Acts, which was quite good quality "chick lit". I then tore into the historical fiction category of my reading genre rotation, choosing Kevin Baker's Paradise Alley. It was a very detailed and in depth portrayal of the draft riots in NYC during the Civil War. I didn't expect it to be as riveting and engrossing as it was, but I'm telling you, with all of the incredibly varied characters and social commentary, I was completely sucked in. I also learned a lot about the historical events surrounding that particular place in history. Marvelous.

So after finishing that one, which though good was quite long, I've moved on to my third favorite fiction type: the murder mystery. There's nothing like a good James Patterson novel to get the pages turning, and I'm reading his 5th book in his "Women's Murder Club" series called The Fifth Horseman. It's even more fun reading it now that I'm also watching the ABC show "Women's Murder Club" (see above) that this series inspired!

Please write to let me know what you're reading/watching these days. I always love your recommendations and find them very inspiring! And yes, I know, I'll enjoy all this reading and TV time now while I still can! Because my life as I know it, and all of my free time (all 2.25 hours of TV per week and 20 minutes of reading per night before bed), is going to END when I have a child! (Timpani rolls loudly and plays Funeral March Ostinato of Doom...)

Ballerinas vs. Sumo Wrestlers

I think it's telling that my last post to this public blog was all the way back in August, for crying out loud. I have been writing a ton in my private blog, but somehow knowing that the entire googleable population could find and read this blog online was really cramping my style.

So I changed the name of this blog and its website url, which is now http://lacornistefolle.blogspot.com/ (french for "The crazy horn player"), and removed my name from the information on the blog. So now it no longer shows up on google under my name, and I think this will help me feel like I can write just a little bit more in this blog. Perhaps you will feel more comfortable posting comments on it now, too! :) Something about every ex I've ever had (and given my relatively "rich" past, there are a few real zingers out there) reading about my pregnancy and other life details wasn't very appealing and was definitely stunting my creativity! So, a few substantial privacy/security changes to this blog, and....phew! I feel better already. :)

I am currently in week 32 of my pregnancy. The third is is definitely my least favorite trimester, though given that my first 6 months were relatively smooth I suppose I shouldn't complain given what I've heard from so many women. I am feeling quite out of balance and unwieldy (strange, given that I wasn't particularly lithe and graceful before) and very fatigued, much moreso than I did in the first trimester where most women feel the most tired.

And I still have two months to go, during which I'm quite sure I'll get even bigger. After a lifetime of battling my body and dieting, I have to keep reminding myself that my belly is supposed to be getting bigger, and that it's not only okay but necessary in this case. I suppose I could consider this body image therapy?!

Again, though, I really should not complain. My blood pressure and blood sugar are both completely normal still, which I am eternally (and not complacently) grateful for, and our little guy's measurements, fetal movements, growth rate, and heartbeat are all perfect. He is definitely more insistent (and apparent) these days in his kicks and nudges, though for the most part he remains very quiet and still whenever I am on stage playing. I say "for the most part" because during the Higdon Percussion Concerto cadenza, which was sort of a fusion of a marching band drum cadence and a vigorous jazz drum solo, he went absolutely berzerk. I was alarmed because I was sitting quietly on stage and feeling this entirely separate percussion section going on inside my belly! I had to smile and remind myself that I was the only one aware it was happening along with the drum solo. Because of his history of being quiet and still during music most of the time, I'm not quite sure what to make of this percussion-inspired outburst. Did he love it? Was he dancing to it? Or did he absolutely hate it?

I suppose we'll find out when it comes time for him to choose an instrument. :)

Playing the horn, despite my decreased lung capacity due to my ever-expanding womb, continues to go well. I just have to breathe, and expel excess breath that I don't have room for, more often to prevent from hyperventilating and passing out. (Small details, right?) Fortunately I am sleeping marvelously and deeply and have been throughout the pregnancy. According to all the people that love to remind me of it, I am enjoying the sleep while I can, thank you. *smirk*

The past few weeks at work were quite intense. I was filling in for the Associate Principal Horn, who was on vacation/leave, and I played Principal on two of the more horn-scary Beethoven Symphonies, Nos. 2 and 4. They both have Principal Horn parts that are high, treacherous, and very easily glitched. Fortunately all four performances (two for each Symphony) went very well, and I was hugely relieved when they were over. I love my triple horn for high, delicate parts like that!

In addition to playing Principal, I also had to cover my own position as 3rd horn for the heavier pieces on the 2nd half of each program. This included playing Tchaikovsky's 4th after having played Principal on Beethoven's 2nd; and playing Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 2 after having played Principal on Beethoven's 4th. The position of 3rd horn is kind of like the weight lifting/sumo wrestler position in the horn section; you have to play high like the Principal, but you don't have an assistant like the Principal horn does. The Principal, on the other hand, has to be acrobatic and flexible like a ballerina, which is why s/he has an assistant to help out with the loud stuff so s/he can "save face" for the delicate playing.

I found it very difficult to alternate between being a ballerina and a sumo wrestler for two entire weeks; the concerts were okay, but the rehearsals often had the heavy stuff first, making my lip stiff and tired before having to play the high delicate stuff. I discovered that using an ice pack helped reduce the swelling immensely. One morning I pulled up at a stop light on my way to work with the blue drugstore ice bag on my face, and a woman next to me in the next lane looked at me in horror, as though I had been a victim of domestic violence. I didn't think she'd understand if I rolled down my window and yelled, "No, it's not my husband, it's Tchaikovsky that's slugging me in the face!!"

Anyway, I am glad that's over, and that I can get back to just being a weight lifter, which is in many ways what I do best.

Wow, it sure is good to be back...expect more frequent updates now that I don't have to worry so much about privacy and censorship! :)

Breckenridge, Books, and Babies!!

Hey faithful bloggers! It's been far too long since my last post; I'm long overdue to post something here. So here's the Darcy Digest for the past several months...

First and foremost, David and I have a new little cousin! Sara Cordelia Lewellen was born to Andrew (David's brother) and Pamela Lewellen on August 17th. She is absolutely gorgeous! I will send you the link to pictures soon. We are very proud and can't wait to meet her, although given the logistics of our own pending delivery which renders us unable to travel over the winter holidays, it probably won't be until 20o8!

The Breckenridge Music Festival was just fantastic. The musicians were from all over the place and almost all of them had full time jobs in music performance (orchestras) or college teaching. I made lots of new friends from Charleston (SC), Florida, Tulsa, Dallas, San Diego, and Indiana. The quality of the musicians was extremely good, and it was a genuine pleasure to make music with them, especially under the direction of Gerhardt Zimmermann, one of the best conductors I've ever played under. He's so concise, efficient, and clear. I really click with him musically - every suggestion he has makes such sense and actually makes phrases easier! - and his passionate energy that positively emanates from the podium is infectious. What a joy to work with such a musician. I surprised myself by using my triple horn for more than half of the playing I did! The 8D was fun to use on the bigger stuff like the Rite of Spring, the Shostakovitch Cello Concerto, and the bigger romantic works, but the triple proved to be the perfect horn for chamber music, french orchestral works, and pretty much anything high. Wow!

David and I returned home early last week, and I have loved being home again. We have lots of tomatoes, jalapenos and zucchini from our garden, and I've already made zucchini bread (with dried cranberries instead of raisins - a great variation) and a big bowl of zesty (medium) cilantro salsa. Tonight I'm making pizza from scratch - the dough is currently rising and I'm about to go make tomato sauce with a bunch of our romas that were picked this week. Have any of you ever tried japanese eggplant? They're the thinner banana-shaped variety of eggplants and they're very sweet and mild and we grew them too this summer. They're great in stir-frys or broiled. I'm putting some on top of our pizza tonight!

I read some great books this summer, all fiction (representing the rotation of my favorite fiction styles: historical fiction/murder mystery thriller/quality "chick lit"). The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai was an intricate exploration into the Himalayan mountains of India, exploring the disintegration of the various immigrant groups there as well as the parallel issues surrounding illegal immigration in the US - a fascinating, refreshingly different escape. I had discovered a new thriller author, Lisa Gardner, who wrote the brilliant and riveting The Survivor's Club. What a ride! I loved her ability to throw plot twists and shockers at you while simultaneously developing the characters with moving depth, and her writing in general was superb. Right now I'm reading the prolific Jodi Picoult's Vanishing Acts, and it too is excellent. I love authors that write different chapters from different characters' points of view, and she's a master at it. I'm impressed that she can crank out so many novels quickly yet each one is more riveting than the next. So....have you read any good books lately? I always love learning about new authors and hearing about what you all are reading these days.

The symphony starts quite late this year (9/25, my 37th birthday, is our first rehearsal!). In the meantime we are working hard to get the remodeling done on our baby boy's room! Once we get all the furniture out of what is currently the music studio (which will become the nursery), we will be ripping up the old stained carpeting in the hallway that leads into the studio and replacing it with hardwood floor laminates. We're having Lowe's do the installation. I plan to paint the baby's room white with one or maybe two buttery yellow walls. The bedding pattern I picked out for him is a bright patchwork quilt and should prove to be quite festive!

That's about all for now. How are your summers wrapping up? Would love to hear from you. Write soon! :)

Let's go to the movies!

So has anyone seen any good movies lately?

Appropriately, David & I went to go see two movies within the past week that had to do with pregnancy (how often does that happen, that there are two movies out at the same time about being pregnant?!), both of which were wonderful. Waitress, a Sundance Film Festival hit with Keri Russell as the star, was very well done, had a great message and was very touching. There was a lot of "food porn" as David calls it, because Keri's character bakes scrumptious gourmet pies to deal with her unwanted pregnancy and boorish husband. (To watch a preview trailer for this movie, click here and then click the yellow "Watch Trailer" button)

And before that, of course, we saw Knocked Up (definitely click the yellow "Watch Trailer" button when you visit that link!). I can only say that even if you have no interest in children (or having them) whatsoever, this movie will make you howl with laughter. It was absolutely sidesplitting - especially as an expectant mother. I laughed so hard I was initially worried about upsetting Peaches (nicknames for our baby depend on which article of produce s/he most represents the size of during any given week) but s/he seems to like and be soothed by motion and laughter - even my horn playing - , which is good. There were a few scenes which were so hysterical I had to catch my breath and actually got dizzy from laughing so hard. The only caution I would offer is that if you have a prudish sense of humor - if movies like South Park or Borat offend you, for example - you might be a bit in over your head. I also would not recommend drinking or eating anything unless you enjoy liquids flying out of your nose and the person next to you is well versed in the Heimlich. Uproarious!

I also cried like an idiot at the end of both movies when the baby was handed to the mother for the first time. What is happening to me!?!?

Over the past several months I've also slowly but surely used my Netflix account, which I still love. Sometimes I watch 2-3 movies in 2 weeks; sometimes it's over a month before I have time to sit down and watch anything. But it's always just 10 bucks a month for whatever I decide, no late fees. And the selection of movies on Netflix is unrivaled and I'm quite sure that I wouldn't find half the movies on my queue at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. Anyhoo, here are some of the ones I've watched with my ratings for them:

Fat Girl - a disturbing foreign film (in French with English subtitles) with a shocking commentary on girls' self esteem and body image issues. I thought this was a brilliant film, but it was extremely violent and quite unsettling. My rating: 3 stars.

Mysterious Skin - yet another disturbing one but still thought provoking and extremely interesting. Two young boys suffer the same childhood trauma and the movie tracks how they differently they each deal with it through their adolescence. Also quite violent, but very thought provoking. My rating: 3 stars.

Unfaithful - The classically hot Diane Lane/Richard Gere movie about a woman who has an affair, and how it destroys everyone involved. I thought the plot was set up particularly creatively because her marriage seemed quite healthy and she had a great life before she started the affair. My rating: 4 stars.

Aeon Flux - And now for something completely different! This was a futuristic post-apocalyptic vision of the 25th century. Based on MTV's animated adventure series of the same name, Charlize Theron stars as Aeon Flux, an assassin for a secret rebellious force against a totalitarian government. As a true Xena and Buffy fan, I love watching women kick ass, but I had a hard time getting into the whole Sci-Fi thing. This is mostly me though - I am not much of a fantasy or sci-fi kind of girl. My rating: 3 stars.

Next on my Netflix queue are four comedies (which I sure need, after the heavy hitters I've been watching!! Sheesh!): Beauty Shop, Imagine Me and You, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and Wedding Crashers. I probably won't be able to fit them all in before I leave for Breckenridge, but I'm still looking forward to them.

So....have you seen any good movies lately? What do you recommend?

Gardens and books

Hello Junebugs! How is your summer going so far?

Our peonies have started to open; the fuschia ones just have buds, but the white ones have started to bloom in their snowy fragrant glory. Our vegetable garden (largely David's impetus, but I help out and enjoy it too) is planted with multiple varieties of herbs, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and zucchini already soaking up the sun.

The orchestra season is wrapping up. We've had quite the concert lineup recently - last week was Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique and Corigliano's Piano Concerto with William Wolfram. That man is unbelievable. And I adored the Corigliano. Think Shostakovitchian orchestration with the lyricism of Samuel Barber, the percussion techniques of Joseph Schwantner, and the rhythmic complexity of Stravinsky, all in one thoroughly electric and stimulating piece. All of those composers are among my absolute favorites, so I was in my glory! But the concert, which also included Copland's Appalachian Spring (which, thankfully, I didn't have to play, since I'm definitely not a Copland fan), was really tiring.

This week, we have Doc Severinson's farewell week - the last concerts he will ever play before he retires - and all four concerts are sold out. I think they have been for a while. And then next week we have Mahler's 2nd Symphony, which I have never played onstage before (I did the offstage brass with Cinci a while ago, but it was only the last movement and I didn't even have to get dressed up, so I don't really count it as having played Mahler 2).

So keep your fingers crossed that I will survive through the end of the season.

So have you read any good books lately? If you liked Moby Dick and are in the mood for a wonderfully epic historical fiction, I can recommend Sena Jeter-Naslund's Ahab's Wife, a thoroughly researched escape into life in 1850's Nantucket through the eyes of Una, Captain Ahab's wife. It was so well-written, and I felt completely transported. It took a while to read, because the writing was so intricate and written in period dialect, but it was well worth it.

I also read the James Patterson mystery whodunnit thriller Mary Mary - which I also enjoyed but don't remember much about off the top of my head. (Fast-paced, action-packed adventures are often like that for me - fun at the time, but not especially memorable.)

I then explored a new author that Jen recommended for me. The brilliant young novelist's name is Zadie Smith, whose book White Teeth spans the British 1940's to present day and tracks the interrelationships of several intergenerational British immigrant familes and cultures - Jamaican Jehova's Witnesses, Bangladeshi Muslims, non-religious English. The ease with which Smith taps into and portrays each character so believably is truly stunning and made for a wonderful escape.

After that, the murder mystery genre was up again in the reading rotation. I had picked John Lescroart's The Hunt Club. It was published by Signet and was supposedly a New York Times Bestseller, which as I read it I found hard to justify. Not only was the story line plodding and often all dialogue/no action, but I had figured out who the murderer was halfway through - which made me impatient for the characters in the book to catch up with me. But what really steamed me was that I found several errors in spelling, grammar, and syntax as I read. And Signet is a reputable publishing house! It made me mad that I was wasting reading time on such a book. I will not buy this author again, because life is too short to read crappy books. The climax of the mystery was moderately entertaining, I'll admit, but I give it 2 stars, at best.

So now I'm reading The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, which is good so far; I will keep you posted. After that, I think I'll be in for a quality "chick lit" romp - like Jennifer Weiner's Little Earthquakes or Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger (she wrote The Devil Wears Prada).

So what are you reading lately? And how do your gardens grow? ;) Post comments and let me know....

Frozen tootsies in search of heat (or "Where the &!$# is Spring?!")

Okay, folks. I'm getting about nine kinds of tired of this 40's-50's Wisconsin weather. It's MAY, for crying out loud! It's time to break out the cute summer blouses, the capris and pedal-pushers, the adorable new summer sandals! It is time to show off one's pedicured tootsies painted all kinds of cheery corals and reds and pinks!

It's time for the HEAT!!

I was born in Georgia and grew up in Cincinnati, which may be why I absolutely adore hot weather. I am never happier than when it's 90 degrees out and humid. It does great things for skin and hair, and I adore the feeling of freedom that comes from an entire season where no jackets, coats, or socks are required. Unlike many women, I love to sweat. It's good for the skin - it purges it of impurities, allowing you to glisten with healthy radiance.

Which isn't to say that I don't also enjoy the fact that our house has air conditioning. :) But I am definitely more acclimated to hot weather than the cold. I've become more tolerant of winter weather over the years simply by necessity (hello, Cleveland and Wisconsin), but there's no question as to which extreme I do better with. David calls me a "thermophile" because I will roast happily next to a space heater for hours and bury myself under two down comforters (both as recently as yesterday). I call him a "frigiphile" because in the dead of winter he goes all Nanook on me with his frequent leisurely pleasure walks in the negative 5 degree tundra - and that's before you factor in the wind chill.

So I am very excited about the inevitability of warmer weather. (It has to come sometime!) I bought some adorable Papillio sandals in the (they're made by Birkenstock so they're way comfy, but unlike some of Birkenstock's aesthetically challenged regular styles, Papillios are updated, fashionable and cute). I also got some Dansko sandals (Mirabelle, in black), which are dressier and not quite as comfy as the Papillios (as in they wouldn't pass the "running 3 or more errands at a time" or "2 mile walk" test) but they are still very nice. I've defiantly worn them three times even though my toes froze every time.

The birds continue to come to our feeders, which are in full view through the sliding glass doors that lead from the kitchen out to the deck. The finches are very close to the door and are a gorgeous bright yellow. This aviar entertainment is also known as Kitty HBO. Bianca doesn't really seem to give a meow about the birds, but Emma chatters and flops over on her back waving her paws in the air when they come within feet of the door or hop on the deck toward her. Gabby sits in the classic mother hen pose with her ears back, muttering and annoyed that she can't get to the birds she sees and wants. David says I'm more entertained by the cats than I am by the birds. He may be right. :)

We had planted even more daffodil, hyacinth, and tulip bulbs last fall, and they are coming up radiantly and gorgeously. I am astounded at how tall some of the tulips have grown! We are enjoying picking bouquets to brighten our sunny little home. I am particularly impressed with the varieties of daffodils we have: the quintessential bright yellow, white with yellow centers, tiny sprays of multiple baby daffodils on a single stem. They are just delightful.

Professionally, things continue to go extremely well. I did the pre-concert lecture again a few weeks ago, interviewing then-featured composer Paul Chihara, who was fascinating and fun. The Quintet has been booked again for the Symphony on the Square concert series in Cathedral Square Park in downtown Milwaukee on June 28th, and we're very psyched about that. And one of my prize horn students, Emily Schroeder, got a huge scholarship to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY! For those of you non-musical types, Eastman is to Music what Harvard is to Law. This is a tremendous honor and I am proud as peaches of her!

I can't think of anything else, so this is going to have to suffice for a very overdue update on things in the Darciverse. Please do write back or comment on this post and tell me how your springs are unfolding for you! I'd love to hear from you.

Winter to spring

Dearest friends and family,

I have been thinking of you often and fondly during the past several weeks. Things have been wonderfully busy and rich with activity. I am exhausted but happy and fulfilled, so it's a good exhaustion. :)

And thus I finally sit down to write to you on this lovely Sunday morning, wet with the first of spring rains and smelling of our green garden, sprouting new growth with crocuses and daffodils poking their colorful heads up out of the ground. Spring and fall are my two favorite seasons and always have been. It's easy to love them - the thaw of the cold, hard, greyscale ice and snow, the technicolor explosion of gorgeous nature, the vibrant colors of autumn. Yet as I grow older and wiser, I have come to hate winter less. (I used to really hate it, but if you were constantly driving in blizzards like I was during my freelance years in Cleveland, you'd have definitely hated it too.)

Winter certainly does not provide the pleasing and aesthetic color palettes of spring and fall, and we are limited and slowed by the cold and the decrease in natural light. I used to suffer tremendous seasonal depression before I understood how to use winter to my benefit. In recent spiritual growth, I have become increasingly aware of our inherent connection to nature and the cycle of life as it manifests itself everywhere. For example, gardening, which has largely been David's initiative, has helped me to see how vital winter is if we want to see the growth of spring. This applies to our literal gardens of flowers, herbs and vegetables as well as our figurative spiritual, physical and mental gardens. We need to rest, to hibernate, to go inward and nurture our roots - just as the daffodils and tulips and rosebushes need that time to absorb their nutrients and slowly grow. Lately during the snowy, cold, dark winters, I have not expected to have the energy that I do during the spring and summer. Just relieving myself of that expectation has been energizing and liberating. Drinking hot tea helps, of course, and so do savory soups and breads and hot water bottles in bed. But the biggest and most transformative help has been accepting and understanding winter - and thus not feeling trapped, isolated, or oppressed by it.

And so I welcome spring, not out of relief that winter is over, but simply because it is where we are in nature's brilliant cycle of life - time for the crocuses to burst open in all their goldenrod glory and rich violet splendor. Time for us to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, herbs, and peppers. Time to spread rich composted soil on the earth, to dig our hands into the soil, and to water and tend gently to the seedlings. Happy springtime, everyone! (((hugs)))

If I...were king...of the forEHHHHHHHHHST

Sometimes, it's comforting to realize that even the great masters throughout history had to start somewhere.

As in, some of their early stuff is really really bad.

I am shaking my head in astonishment this week as we do Verdi's "Macbeth". I don't know much opera, and I'm not the world's biggest opera fan. (I'm trying to be, since I'm married to one, but I don't know if I'm cut out for it.)

So I wasn't sure whether it was just me when we were reading the opera in rehearsal earlier this week and I was bored out of my mind.

Thus, I was grateful when someone who plays with the Santa Fe Opera every summer (i.e., he does a lot of opera) said that this was probably the worst opera he's ever played or heard. It just doesn't make sense. Macbeth is a tragedy, right? So why, in a big swordfight and revenge scene, does the music sound like an 19th century Italian version of The Chicken Dance? "I hate-a you! I poot a vendetta on-a you life! Now lets-a dance!"

[The rest of this blog entry has been censored because I was alerted that its original contents could have offended some who remained nameless, even though this blog is not enabled for google searches. Apparently my blog is now sweeping the nation and I have to be Big Brother about who reads it. I should be so flattered...]

Digital trumpet?!

What next, a solar-powered player piano? An eco-friendly electric guitar amp that runs on vegetable oil? Composting your discarded clarinet reeds?

No, this takes the cake, as far as I'm concerned:

http://www.digitaltrumpet.com.au/

It looks like a machine gun, especially in the case, but also when the guy's holding it.

But then again, who am I to judge? I know plenty of trumpet players who would just love these features:

• The MDT lets you play any sound like anything you have ever wanted from acoustic instruments to electric guitars. (yeah, because why would you want to limit yourself to just one sound?)
• The MDT gives you 10 octaves of pitch perfect range. (because 4 is just NOT enough!)
• The MDT lets you control your notes without having to "Buzz" your lips. This gives you hours more endurance. (I don't even begin to understand this concept, so I'm not even going to start commenting on it.)
• The MDT can be used for alternative sounds that a musician cannot produce on their acoustic instruments. For example you can use the MDT to double on clarinet, saxaphone, guitar, or bass. An investment in a MDT wind controller pays for itself by making the musician more marketable and in-demand. (Yeah, I want my horn to sound like a bari sax. That'll make me more marketable!)
• Transposition is a button push away. (And it's the perfect way to torture a person with perfect pitch!)

Freezing February silliness

http://www.weather.com/ says that currently, here in sunny Milwaukee, it has gotten up to a whopping ZERO degrees. It was -11 this morning.
And that's without the wind chill.

I have to go out and run errands today - we are horribly low on produce and I need to be eating lots of it - so I plan to wear yoga pants under my sweats and to keep my entire head wrapped in my extra long knitted scarf.

Ooog. I was supposed to give a music presentation this morning, but the schools are closed today because it's not safe for kids to be waiting at bus stops. Lots of other buildings have closed too since many people have to take public transportation and/or park far away from where they need to go and would be endangered by being out in the bitter cold. The news channels are all spouting information on how to deal with frostbite and hypothermia.

So those of you currently living in tropical climates, if you send me emails telling me how sunny and warm it is where you are, I'll personally hire some hacker to figure out how to blow up your computers. Okay fine, I don't know any hackers who know how to do that, but lay off it until we at least get into the teens, okay?

Warmer news - it's my marvelous mother-in-law Mimi's birthday today! From the moment I met her back on Thanksgiving in 2002, she has always extended her home warmly and with the utmost hospitality. She has adopted me as her own daughter, and I've always felt close to her. I am so glad she was born - for selfish reasons of course, because of David - but also because I love having her in my family. Happy Birthday, Mimi!! :)

In other news, the kitties have been just absolutely silly of late. Emma, quite intelligently, has figured out that sleeping on the heater vents in the floor is the way to go in this weather. Bianca and Gabby like sleeping on the tops of the couch and loveseat cushions (David gets irritated because they leave giant dents in them, since they make a habit of this). Sometimes to keep their noses warm they sleep on their faces. That's hilarious.

Here are some absolutely sidesplitting pictures of Bianca and Gabby, playing in the basement rec room.

These little furballs are just too much fun!!

Sesame Street & Bob McGrath

A few Sundays ago we did the probably best young children's concert - we call them "Kinderconcerts" - that, in my estimation, we've ever done since I've been with the orchestra.

Bob McGrath came to work with us! Remember him, from Sesame Street?! I totally adored him!

He was exactly the same as you remember him - sweet, effervescent, and unbelievably amazing with children. And a huge advocate of arts education - he told everyone in the audience to keep working to keep music in the schools because a child who doesn't have music is receiving an incomplete education. I loved him even more during this concert than I remember as a kid.

What really was amazing to me, listening to all of this music I grew up on with my now highly attuned orchestrally educated ears, is just how phenomenal the music of Sesame Street really is. We did Rubber Duckie; the Rainbow Connection; Sing, Sing A Song, and People In Your Neighborhood - and all of the old memories came flooding back as if I was 4 years old again. I haven't had such a powerful hit of nostalgia from my early childhood in my life! So this was a hard concert for me to play, because it instantly vaulted me back to the joy of my childhood (making me even more cognisant of the passage of time and the inevitable reality of aging); but when I could get past all the emotion, I marveled at what a gift that show and its music was and hopefully still is to the millions of children who watch it.

Rubber Duckie, for instance. That's a great tune!! The chord progressions, the rhythms, the structure - it's not "dumbed down" for younger listeners. It's got all the substance of a great jazz harmonic framework! I wouldn't be surprised if it's ever used as a jazz tune.

A hilarious moment was when we did "Your Face" - a song about the fact that everyone's face is different and no one has your face (unless you have a twin). So Bob says to the audience, "I have a question for you - did you bring your face?" This was the day after a particularly difficult concert the night before; and the term "face" is used slangily by wind and brass musicians to describe their embouchures. I looked at Barnewitz and asked him, "so did you bring your face?" and he laughed, shook his head and said, "No". That was funny.

During The Rainbow Connection (another incredible song with amazing harmony and voicing), there was a slide show of all these amazing photos of your favorite Sesame Street characters. I cried shamelessly during that song!

In completely unrelated news, I found out this week that based on a CD audition I recorded (I wasn't sure about it and was, as usual, too hard on myself for its imperfections), I've won the position of Principal Horn with the Breckenridge Music Festival! Check out their website here: www.breckenridgemusicfestival.com. I've heard that Breckenridge (CO) is stunning, and their festival is about a month long (perfect length for a festival, in my opinion) with chamber music as well as orchestral. I'm very excited about it! I know and adore the conductor, Gerhardt Zimmermann, and am so psyched about getting to work with him again. Woo hoo!!

Orchestral ongoings

So far, 2007 has proven to be a very busy and exhausting month for MSO musicians.

Last week we did both Stravinsky's Petrouchka and Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. I would like to sit down and have a little chat with whoever programmed that doozy of a concert. It was exhausting, both mentally and especially physically. I do love both pieces, but I've never played the Tchaik without an assistant and I was really stiff from all the loud and constant playing. I did love not having to play the solo. It was nice to just listen to it and enjoy it. Barnewitz did an exquisite job with it. I have to ask him about how he approached it - it was different from how I've done it in the past and I liked his better. More introspective, not overplayed; and I really loved his articulation for some of the sustained notes in the peak phrases.

Petrouchka was fun and very intellectually stimulating. If you've ever played Stravinsky, you know you have to count like a crazy person just to know where in blazes you are at any given point. What the Tchaik did to my face, Petrouchka did to my brain. By the time the week was over, I felt like my face and brain had been pureed, thrown into a saucepan and scrambled along with my sanity.

I did enjoy the Stravinsky though. Stravinsky's my favorite composer of them all. Can you guess who else is in my top 5? ;)

This week is much more manageable. We're doing Prokofiev's Cinderella, and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3. Gorgeous, beautiful, sweeping, moving. The best combination of elements in a horn part - we have lots of interesting things to do, but none of them wastes your face. There's plenty of recovery time in between, too, which helps immensely (the Tchaik was just constant playing, pretty much the whole time).

What's next week? Hmm...Oh yes, Scheherezade, which I adore, and Shostakovitch Vln. Concerto #1. We did the Scheherezade already on tour this year, so I don't have to practice it. I don't know what my part looks like for the Shostakovitch, but I don't care - he's one of my favorite composers of all time (oops, I gave away another one of my top 5 composers!!).

What else? Bianca, Emma and Gabby are doing fine. I took some hilarious pictures of them recently that I will post soon. David and I used a gift card tonight for the Cheesecake Factory and it was really good but we're both rolling around like stuffed potatoes now. I didn't even have cheesecake (well, okay, I had a few bites of his, but still...) and I had a salad and some fish tacos which were amazing going down, but they felt like anvils when they finally landed. I think we'll be atoning for our indulgences tomorrow with lots of oat bran and high fiber foods like lentil soup for dinner...

Enjoy your weekend!

There's a mouse in the house

Okay, so remember this post from last year when I talked about the stupid mouse in my new CRV's glove compartment?

Well, we cleared all the bags of birdseed and bird suet cakes that had apparently served as the deluxe mouse buffet out of our garage. I saw none of the evidence of mice that I had seen before (gnawed restaurant napkins and scatalogical souvenirs) for the rest of the year. I thought the problem was gone.

Until I opened my glove box last week.

To my horror, several Starbucks and Panera napkins had been shredded, gerbil and hamster style, to confetti.

This time, I was done. I don't care how much mice like masticating recycled gourmet chain food store napkins: no more furry little bastards are going to invade my new car. Not even my glove compartment.

So I took the humanitarian mouse trap box thingie that had sat, unsuccessfully, in our basement for so long when we saw a few mice when we first moved in. The pretzel was stale but was still in there, untouched, and the peanut butter was still on the outside flap (to lure the mouse inside toward the pretzel, wherein the door closes and it's trapped).

I put it in the glove box.

For several days, I checked. Nothing. Today I wasn't expecting anything either, which is why when I took it out today to check it I was not prepared for the fact that there was, indeed, a mouse in the trap. It was dead, and had an anguished look on its face which almost (almost) made me feel guilty and bad for it. I will spare you the rest of the gory details, but you can imagine what happens to mammals when they die and lose muscular control of their functions. It was, in a word, completely nasty.

Fortunately the trap was designed for this, and I was able to dispose of the putrid mouse (which could have only been in there for a day, and in very cold temperatures which should have preserved it) without having to touch it. But the smell was ungodly.

I am hoping that I won't get any more mice. But the trap is obviously working, and I'm going to keep putting it in there until I stop seeing the hairy little pests in my damn car. I don't go hanging out in their field nests, do I? Sheesh.

Nasty. That's what that was. That's the Mot Du Jour.

Australian cellist working in China

This was posted to the orchestra-l email list I'm subscribed to, and I thought it was fascinating. Very interesting perspective on how orchestras function in other corners of the world!

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As a young, aspiring cellist there are a few places I thought I might end up: London, Paris, New York, perhaps even Berlin. Over the years this list altered slightly but one place that was never on it was mainland China. Yet here I am trialing as principal cellist of the Shenzhen Symphony orchestra; an orchestra in a city that, just two months ago, I didn’t know existed.

In fact it’s not that surprising that I hadn’t heard of Shenzhen. Just 25 years ago this city didn’t exist at all. It was just a small fishing village on the border of China and Hong Kong. Since being granted “special economic zone” status in 1980 it has grown to a city of 16 million people, hundreds of sky scrapers, thousands of cars, pollution, corruption, 33 billion fake designer watches, and one Symphony Orchestra.

China was never a place I planned to work. In fact I’m still somewhat surprised at being here at all. In 2005, after finishing most of my Master’s Degree in Brisbane (a few papers still withstanding), I moved to Melbourne in search of casual work with the various orchestras there. The move was a strain, I had almost no contacts in Melbourne, no money, and students were few and far between. So I found myself doing what so many aspiring musicians do: working in hospitality. Before I knew it I was drowning in a sea of Mocha Latte and Belgian waffle orders, getting no practice done, missing audition opportunities, and watching my dream fade away fast.
So when the call came through from an old acquaintance in Brisbane that the Shenzhen Symphony was looking for cellists, I put together a CD faster than a brass player heading to the pub after a Mahler concert. In two days I managed to get a decent recording down, having paused only for the occasional train to pass by (which, in fact, was every 10 minutes. They ran within meters of our back door). A few weeks and 140’000 Mocha Latte orders later I got the call: The Shenzhen Symphony wanted me there immediately, yesterday if at all possible. So I packed my bags, said farewell to my girlfriend, and headed to China with nothing but my cello, a few summer clothes, and my enormous Mandarin vocabulary: “fat”, “bugger”, “coffee”, and “Mapo Tofu”.

In a recent edition of BBC’s Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson was heard saying about some nameless car that ‘‘This...is probably the best of the people carriers. Not that that’s much to shout about. That’s like saying: ‘Oh good, I’ve got syphilis, the best of the sexually transmitted diseases.’” So when I was told that I’d be playing with “probably the best orchestra Guangdong province” that exact phrase leapt to mind.

The Orchestra I found myself in is a strange beast indeed. What you have is a full time, full size, fully funded symphony orchestra that evidently has nothing to do. They’re completely government funded which seems to absolve them of any responsibility in regards to minor things, like putting on concerts or finding an audience. In the six weeks since I’ve been here we’ve played just one concert which involved any degree of preparation (Brahms 4th Symphony). Despite also including the Bruch violin concerto, performed by an excellent Chinese violinist, this concert drew less than 200 people.

The other performances have been more akin to pops concerts, and even that is stretching the definition of pops concert. One gig last week had the entire orchestra sitting on a giant platform which actually rolled onto the stage from the wings. We had been hired to play less than six minutes of background music whilst two speakers gave our audience (Shenzhen’s local army divisions) a nice, moral-boosting speech. The stage broke in half during the dress rehearsal leaving the string players in the wings, propelling the brass on stage, and dumping the wind section somewhere in between. The show was abruptly canceled. Prior to this was a special performance for the wives and children of Guandong’s largest cigarette manufacturer. This consisted primarily of Christmas music which, in the true spirit of communism, has been completely disassociated with any form of religious holiday so we can hear it all year round (please kill me).

What makes the above seem even stranger is that the orchestra is actually quite good. There are a large number of excellent musicians from many countries, particularly Eastern Europe. The technical ability of the cellists in my section is formidable and has been quite a wake-up-call for me. The main thing holding these musicians back is money. For many of the Chinese and Russians here this orchestra is the end of the line. Salaries for westerners like myself are reasonably good. Salaries for Chinese and Russians are not. With a monthly income less than that of an underage Australian café worker, these guys can’t afford to travel overseas for Auditions. And they certainly can’t afford the quality of instrument necessary for a position in a professional western orchestra. I am surrounded by cellists who know the complete Piatti caprices by heart, yet whose cellos are literally held together by sticky tape. I was speaking to one excellent Georgian bass player who has his heart set on working in London. In the early 90’s he had finally pulled enough money together to buy a decent bass. Then, during the attempted coup in his homeland, a tank fired a shell on his apartment. It destroyed his house, his bass, and came within inches of killing his family. Needless to say these are experiences that your average Australian musician just doesn’t have to contend with.

Most of the Chinese musicians are wonderful people and wonderful players. Tomorrow we’re due to give a concert of all piano concertos; the soloist in the Mozart is nine, the girl playing the Rachmaninov (second concerto) is just 14. These are some of China’s new prodigies in a country where 100 million people study classical piano. Australians and other western musicians are in an extremely fortunate situation where Chinese orchestras will hire us simply because we’re foreign. It’s seen as prestigious to have white faces in an orchestra here. It is also for this reason that every foreigner invited here is offered a principal position. Hearing the local musicians I can’t imagine that this situation will last for long. Those that believe Asian musicians to be lacking in musicality and adept only at scales and studies are living in a dream world.

I’m not certain what I’ll gain from this orchestra. I had come here hoping to perform some major symphonic works before returning to Australia to audition for the local orchestras. But sadly these works don’t seem to be on the concert schedule. In fact there is no concert schedule. Most of our concerts seem to be organized two weeks in advance at the very most. Occasionally we’re only given a few hours notice before having to perform. It seems the orchestra must play at the whim of any official who wants a symphony at his party that evening. This lack of organization extends to their treatment of foreign musicians. Having been assured a certain salary and accommodation package before I left Australia, I arrived in China to find the details had changed. They tried to offer me just two thirds of the original salary, and wanted me to find my own accommodation. Extensive negotiation followed. The accommodation I am currently in (paid for by the orchestra) is abysmal by Australian standards. I am on the fifth floor of a grey, concrete apartment building with no lift. My front door doesn’t close, the walls are full of cracks and holes, the gas lines leak, and there are live electrical wires running right under the shower. Whilst it’s easy to complain, I was given a reality check when I realized that in the opposite apartment, which is exactly the same size and condition, live ten people.

I’m going to stay in China for at least the next 5 months. Perhaps I’m not gaining the solid orchestral experience I had hoped for, but I’m gaining life experience that I’ll never regret. I have left the tranquility of Melbourne for a city that, in just a few years, will have a population larger than the whole of Australia. There are already dozens of Starbucks here, malls lined with Prada, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton shops (both genuine and fake). Shenzhen is a city growing so fast that “Shenzhen-speed” and “Shenzhen-efficiency” are well known tag-lines in the business world. If the orchestra starts to develop at anywhere near the pace of this city, than it could soon be an ensemble to be reckoned with. Until then, I know exactly the people to call for you next non-denominational-christmas-themed-work-party…

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Charles is currently undertaking a trial as Principal Cellist of theShenzhen Symphony Orchestra. When not in China he works as a freelance cellist and teacher. He has spent much of the last decade at various universities throughout Australia, New Zealand and the UK studying both performance cello and opera, working with ensembles, large and small. Charles has been principal cellist with a number of other orchestras including the Northern Rivers Symphony (featured on ABC's AustralianStory), sub-principal of the National Youth Orchestra of New Zealandunder the special invitation of Benjamin Zander (conductor of the Boston Philharmonic), and principal of both the University of Auckland and Victoria University (Wellington, New Zealand) orchestras. Most recently he was a member of CacoFony, a clarinet trio and winners of the Australian National Eisteddfod (Canberra). For more, visit http://www.charlesbrooks.info

Hello, 2007!

Ahh....a new year.

I was chatting with my brother yesterday and he sounded surprised that I found this one of my favorite times of the year. While I admittedly think that much of February and March is a dreadful stretch of winter, there's something about it that allows for introspection, quiet, space to achieve and grow.

And it also means, if you made it to January, that you survived the holidays. Yay!

The reasons I dread the holidays typically revolve around:

• the anxiety of buying gifts that friends and family will like, need, & appreciate (I think I did fairly well this year, with a few exceptions)


• the discomfort of travel (the older I get, the more attached to my home, kitties, & creature comforts I become)


• lack of control over what I'm eating most of the time (bring on the sugar and saturated fat, though certainly no one is holding a gun to my head forcing me to eat it)


• the irrational fear that I might unwittingly offend a family member or friend since I'm not used to interacting with them on a regular basis & have forgotten where their emotional land mines are.

This year, I think things went very well. With a few exceptions of people that are hard to buy for in the first place, my gifts were well received, and though I was ecstatic to get home to my own bed, kitties, and shower, I managed my detachment from them quite well on this trip.

Highlights of the trip included:

• My mother-in-law Mimi's open house, which was a lot of fun and a nice way for me to meet more of David's extended family community
• Seeing and spending a lot of time with our niece, Jenna (my sister Dana's daughter), who continues to be absolutely adorable and even more interesting as her interactive capabilities expand
• Relief at getting in some practicing every single day and knowing my endurance and lip wasn't completely deteriorating away from my normal playing schedule - Verne Reynolds etudes totally kick some major caboose! (They sure kick mine, which is what I need!)
• Playing games with Phil & Julie on our fun visit down to Columbus, where we enjoyed the fruits of Julie's expert culinary labors for dinner on Wednesday after Christmas. We had a ball, and man, can Julie cook! She's truly a gourmet. Phil is a lucky guy! ;)
• Getting to go to my dad's performance in The Boar's Head, a medieval musical rendition of what happens after Christ is born. To say it's a pageant does not even begin to describe it. Check out this link for more about their production; it's tremendous. The music was commissioned specifically for this big Episcopal church in Cincinnati, which owns the arrangements, and it's performed every year the weekend after Christmas by full choir, soloists, a full cast of characters in makeup and costume, and of course the orchestra. It's a very interactive experience for the audience, too, since there is singing throughout. When do you get to sing hymns in a setting like that, with full orchestral accompaniment and such spectactular orchestration? It was a ball. I grew up with my dad doing this every year, and we went to it every year I was growing up, and I loved it but never really fully appreciated the meaning and brilliance behind it. What a great tradition.

• Getting to see my Grandma Ginny & Grandpa Phil (my mom's parents) and my Auntie Lee (my mom's aunt, Grandpa Phil's sister) on our visit to Cincinnati. We don't normally get to see them, since I usually had to high-tail it back home to play a New Year's Eve concert. But we didn't have one this year, so we could stay later for their visit!

Anyway, that's about all that's going on here. I hope that 2007 treats you well, and that you are as energized and motivated by the "blank slate" of the new year as I am. I'll upload more pictures soon. :)