Rites of Spring

Well, it's official - spring is finally here!

At least for a few days, anyway, here in good ol' Wisconsin.

This past week was a doozie for me. I finished organizing, data-entering and spreadsheeting all of our tax information to get to our accountant by Tuesday. UGH. Then I went back to work officially full time after being on maternity leave, and it was a 9 service week. (A service, in orchestra parlance, is any unit of 2.5 hours, such as a rehearsal or performance; a normal week is 8 services. For those of you who are doing the math and thinking, "that's nothing!": factor in at least 10 hours of practicing and score/recording studying, as well as the physical and mental exertion of high mastery performance, and it's a long week.)

And the repertoire last week was awesome. We did Beethoven's 6th Symphony, the Pastoral - think shepherds in their fields, bunnies hopping, birdies tweeting. It's a total Disney movie. Oh wait! It was! In the original Fantasia, it was the one in the meadows where the goats (I think?) were hopping around? And then we did Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which was awesome. And it was also in Fantasia, I believe! Wasn't it used for the dinosaur bit? Anyway, it was amazing. The Rite of Spring is probably my favorite piece of all time. It is so intense, difficult, and pulsing with energy and rhythm. I adored listening to Ted Soluri play the opening bassoon solos - they sounded so effortless and sweet. All three concerts were well attended, and we got standing ovations after every performance.

It was an appropriately timed concert, with its spring theme. We've had two consecutive sunny days in the 60's now, here in the upper midwest, and after the abominable winter we've had, they seem even more precious! We have three crocuses in bloom in our front flower bed, and shoots of tulips and daffodils are poking their way through the thawing soil. I went to a Buddhist meditation seminar at my church yesterday so couldn't get out for much of it, but today David and I took a walk with Benny in his stroller. It was so nice. I have the windows open here at the house and the cats are excitedly sitting on the sills, sniffing the air enthusiastically.