News from the wild upper-midwest tundra

Wow. Where did the time go? I'll give you the cliff notes version of what's been going on in the Hamlin-Lewellen hemisphere...

1. It's butt-numbingly cold here in Milwaukee. Weather.com just showed us at a whopping 6 degrees with 30mph winds. Which, it computes, means it feels like it's -17 degrees. So we're freezing our gazoingles off. We also got completely bombed with snow. We got a foot of the stuff on Friday, and ever since those dang winds keep blowing it everywhere. The snow drifts are actually quite cool sometimes - you should see the sculptures on our deck through our glass doors. It's like sand dunes only with snow. But on to more pleasant and heartwarming news...(hey, if your ass has to be cold, your heart should at least be warm...)
   
2. Who's a big boy? Who is? Who IS??! Ben is now 1 year old! Where did the time go? I can't remember life without him. He's just such a lovable, happy, well-adjusted little guy. I think what surprises me even more than how fast it's gone is how much I just love his company. His new thing is to crawl very rapidly, slapping his hands and knees down with great enthusiasm, as he chases the cats down the hall with loud sighs/laughs that sound like wheezing. Of course this does not exactly motivate the cats to stay and wait for him to catch them, especially since his primary way of experiencing tactile things is to grab with his fists. He's also switching from formula over to whole milk. This is great for the budget, but not so great for whoever has to clean up a milk barf. Nothing like bilious, sour barf, right? Makes mommy want to join right in.
   
3. My parents gave Ben this great car toy for his birthday that makes all these loud car sounds, honks, makes engine and siren sounds, and vibrates loudly. Ben is scared shitless of it. Poor little guy. David and I were trying our best, quite unsuccessfully, not to laugh as we were comforting him. I bet he'll love it when he's 2 or 3. Ben is the only grandson on both sides and I'm sure my parents were just so glad to be able to buy boy stuff (the princess crap gets old, I'm told).
   
4. We did a whole mess of holiday concerts in the greater Milwaukee area. True, it's mindnumbingly tedious to play a zillion renditions of the Emporer Waltzes, the Robert Russell Bennet "Selections from the Sound of Music", and the Christmas Singalong that feels like it's 20 minutes long with the horns playing nonstop (mouthpiece through the back of the head, anyone?). But these concerts are some of the most important ones we do, because many of the people at the places we go - retirement homes, hospitals, assisted living facilities - would not be able to travel out to see us. To witness the sheer joy and transformation on these people's faces got me so emotional it was difficult to play, especially at the children's hospital where they televised the concert because so many of the children couldn't leave their rooms they were so sick. Just thinking about that makes me tear up like a blubbering idiot. Now that's the true meaning of the holiday season.
   
5. I have become seriously addicted to listening to trance and dance music on my iPod. Is that so wrong? I know the good Zen masters say you should really be fully present for whatever boring or odious chore you have to do (washing the dishes is Thich Nhat Hanh's favorite example), but I find it goes so much faster if I do it with the good ol' little Nano pumpin' through my ear buds. I guess I'm not a very good Zenmaster. I recommend "Rock (Radio Mix)" by M.Y.C, "Sunrise (Radio Edit)" by Angel City, and "Clear Blue Water (Radio Edit)" by OceanLab. All three songs give the best rush! I can be completely exhausted and put this stuff on and get an instant surge of energy. It's total ear caffeine.
   
6. Which is good, because I have gone completely off of actual caffeine except for an occasional mug of green tea, which doesn't even have as much as black tea, which doesn't have as much as coffee. And I've also figured out why so much decaf coffee tastes like complete ass! It's because most of it is chemically processed to remove the caffeine. If you get the water processed stuff, which is so much better for you anyway (who needs a chemical shit storm going on in their body, anyway?!), it actually tastes quite yummy and doesn't give you the jitters (or the shits, which regular coffee often does to me - one of the many reasons I gave it up).
   

So that's it in a nutshell. Alright, so that was a pretty big nutshell. But those of you who know how longwinded I am can appreciate the relative brevity here. Have a great week, and keep any appendages you wish to remain attached to you warm so they don't freeze off and bounce right out onto the frozen pavement!!

Changeling returns to Planet Milwaukee

I got so sucked into - and swept up in - mountain life in Breck this summer that I found it very jarring and strange somehow to come back to Wisconsin.

I don't know what it is. Perhaps the perfectly manicured gardens and hanging baskets I got so used to in that affluent ski resort area made the weeds and overgrown gardens in my own yard seem that much more glaring. Or the two-story condo we had to ourselves, complete with balconies off of every room overlooking spacious mountain views, making our tiny 3 bedroom ranch seem rabbit-holish by comparison.

And then there's the humidity. Which I mind far less than I know some people do. What can I say. It does good things for my hair and skin. But it can, in large quantities, make one feel sticky and nasty. There's nothing worse than bumping into a wall on your way down the hall and sticking to it.

But I think the weirdness really comes from having had such a fantastic, restorative and rejuvenating time, and worrying that all the amazing things I got from the change of perspective are somehow attached to the location and will leave me as soon as I move away from them geographically. Having typed that out, it sounds ridiculous, I know. But truly, there's something so powerful about uprooting yourself from your regular habitat and routines and plunking yourself down in an entirely different location for an extended period of time.

Again, perspective.

As I continue to settle in and realize that of course all of the internal change and growth that I experienced this summer is still with me despite the geography of things, I am relaxing a bit. I am still in possession of this very new, fledgling awareness of how my body reacts to certain foods and how clean and wonderful it can feel when I minimize those foods. I still love my new horn and am amazed at how long it took me to come around to the brass horn side of things. (Of course, it didn't help that the first two brass horns I tried weren't good matches for me, but you know.)

Despite the stress of childcare, I had a fantastic summer. This festival is challenging for me, and it was nice to be stretched, to force myself to grow and expand and open up to possibilities I may not have seen if I had just stayed home.

But that's just me. And perhaps it was just this summer. But I do know that I definitely plan to go back to the mountains next summer.

Mountains. Definitely not molehills.

This summer has flown by faster than a greased pig, so much so that I literally haven't had a nanosecond to write about it in here. So here's the Reader's Digest version of things.

Our basement is stabilized - dry and mold-free, and waiting for us to get home next week to choose new carpeting to be installed. Since we are not putting down padding underneath it, we opted for a high quality, thick, high-texture-resiliency type that was within the budget allotted by our insurance. I picked out several neutral (= cat barf camouflaging) colors that I will choose from. (David wanted none of the decision-making with regard to color, so it's all on me. Which is fine.) So that's good.

This is the last week of BMF here in Breckenridge, CO, where I've spent most of July and all of August so far. I can't tell you how much fun I've had, and man, does it make a difference to be at this altitude (9,600 feet elevation) without being pregnant. I had a monster headache the night we arrived, but I popped an Excedrin (gotta love that stuff!) and poof!! Gone. I had a great practice session that night, too. Because our condo is so much closer to the performing arts center than the one I stayed in last year, I've been loving walking to and from rehearsals with my spiffy new lightweight new Thompson Edition case on my back!

It's been a great season: Beethoven's 8th, Pines of Rome, Bernstein "On The Town" and "Fancy Free", Porgy & Bess, an all John Williams concert...and this week, we're doing Corigliano and John Adams!! Does it get any better than this??!! Oh, and for those of you who've known me as a die-hard 8D fan pretty much my whole life, you'd better sit down before you read this...I brought both the Yamadouble and the 8D out this summer, and realized....are you ready for this?...that I prefer my 667D hands down!! Is that a jaw dropper or what?! Listen, nobody was more surprised at this than I was! Since I had just gotten the Yamaha in late March and am required to play a brass horn at work (the 8D is nickel silver and thus has a very different sound that wouldn't blend well at all with the section), I never had the option of choosing before this summer, and I really sat down and compared the two of them. The Yamadouble is so much better in tune, light years easier to play, and the crystalline response and clarity...I just can't get over how much I adore it. It's about time I found a brass horn I liked this much!

Benjamin is doing fabulously, as usual. He sleeps 12 uninterrupted hours at night and still enjoys mid-morning and afternoon naps. (We enjoy his naps too. :D) He is almost ready to sit up on his own; it's a balance thing for him, since his head is so big and he's so lean and long. His legs continue to be strong and hilariously muscular; you should see his little quads and calves! He's not crawling yet, but man does he ever scoot. He can motor around the room on his back, using the back of his head and his legs in this weird crab-like backwards crawl. It's so entertaining. He is no longer breastfeeding, because he also now has two lower teeth which he thought it was uproariously funny to bite me with. (Me: "OWWWWWW!! No bite!!" Ben: "Heee!!" {big grin}) That was the end of nursing for me. Ah well...I can say I breastfed for 7.5 months, and that's pretty good. He's really much more interested in solid foods anyway. Garden Vegetables are his favorite.

This week David's mom is visiting to help take care of Ben and also to have a little vacation; David himself arrives on Thursday morning - yay! - and we drive back to Wisconsin on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. We'll stop in NE the first night and IA the second. Since we installed a nifty mirror above Ben's car seat, meaning he can see us and communicate with us in transit, he is a champion traveler. It's been a great summer in so many ways, and I'll be very happy to get back to our home, kitties, gardens, and the comfort of everyday Milwaukee life.

What a difference (WARNING: horn nerd post)

Hey there. I'm having a ball practicing these days, for many reasons; but the biggest and best is that I have a new horn!

A bit of history: I had bought a Yamaha triple horn in 2004 to blend better with the MSO section (the first brass double horn I'd bought, a Conn 11DRS, was too dark for the section and didn't blend well).

To understand what a triple horn is, you need to know what a descant horn is. A descant horn has much shorter tubing so it's easier to get high notes. A triple horn is basically a regular (double) horn with a descant horn built in; it has three layers of tubing rather than just two, hence the name. The extra third layer of tubing is very small (like a descant's), making it easier to play in the extreme high range with ease and grace. Typically, triple horns are mainly used by high horn players (those in Principal and 3rd horn positions).

To make a long story short, over these past several years of playing the triple - as amazing as it is for some things - I came to realize that I just wasn't comfortable on it for most of what I have to do at work. Don't get me wrong; it's a great horn, and I'll keep it for pieces that require more gossamer flexibility and agility, but for my position as 3rd horn (which requires more brute strength and high range endurance than grace and delicacy), I just don't need it. In fact, the triple was leading me down the scary road to lip fatigue and damage; it was so resistant, the air would back up and cause impact stress to my lip - which was especially painful when I needed to play loudly. That combined with how hard it is for me to get a really big sound on it would, in the long run, be a recipe for disaster and would endanger my playing longevity.

I have to pause for a second here and say that there are more adventurous horn players out there who are enthusiastic about trying new equipment (horns, mouthpieces, mutes, lead pipes, etc.) and who probably would have figured this out sooner. We in the brass world affectionately call them Equipment Nerds. They are your best friends when you're looking for something new, as they enjoy doing the research and probably know what you need. Alas, I am not an Equipment Nerd, and unfortunately lean toward the opposite extreme; I tend to stick to the same horn and mouthpiece for pretty much everything.

So how did I find this new magical horn? I had a student come in with a brand new Yamaha 667D. It's just Yamaha's professional brass double horn - simple, but extremely well made, affordable (since it's from the factory rather than built by hand), beautifully consistent in pitch, and not in the least resistant. Best of all, it has the wonderfully brilliant, bright, and more translucent sound that the MSO horn section is famous for. Anyway, this student wanted me to try out the horn to make sure it was a good one, to give her my blessing as to whether she should buy it or not.

Wow. I almost went through the roof. I told her that if she didn't want to buy it, that I did. (After that endorsement, she bought it. :D)

It's the same old story: you don't realize how you're suffering until you aren't anymore. I hadn't realized how confined I had felt by the resistance and notchiness of the triple until I started singing, really and truly singing, through this more open horn which could take everything I had to give it. I was so ecstatic I called the regional Yamaha dealer and had him order two for me to try so I could buy the "pick of the litter". I bought one at the end of March, and had Wes Hatch put his lead pipe on it for pitch and air flow. Many horn players like to strip the lacquer (protective metal coating) from factory made horns, and I have done it to other horns I've had, but I decided for acoustic reasons to leave it on this particular one. This will also preserve the shininess.

I cannot even begin to tell you how much less stressful work has been since I got this horn (and again, I didn't even really realize it had gotten that way until I made the switch). I have literally had so much fun every time I've performed on it. My endurance has shot through the roof again now that my face isn't pummeled by the air backlash of the resistant triple, and my accuracy has improved immensely since the notes on this horn have larger "shelves" to place them in rather than the smaller notches of the notes on the triple. What a difference!

And on a purely cosmetic note, this horn is absolutely stunningly gorgeous. This isn't really essential but is a nice extra. ;)

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.

I can't wait to practice today!

So I ordered the original Barenreiter Bach Cello Suites score from http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/, which is a great online source for pretty much anything you could ever want (a relief for us professional musicians who get tired of schlepping ourselves around to various local music stores who only seem to have band method books and Easy Piano versions of classics like High School Musical and Harry Potter. Ugh...).

So I'm very psyched about having such a great edition to practice from. It's going to be a challenge, because to play it in the original cello key of C, the horn player has to live in the bass clef (we normally are most comfy hanging out in the treble clef) and also have to transpose from our home key of F to the key of C. This means every note goes up a perfect fifth. That involves some pretty nimble mental acrobatics - to say nothing of the embouchure ones! - but that's what makes it fun. :)

Another thing that makes practicing fun is being comfortable and well-supported. (What a concept.) So when I finally got sick and tired of sitting on our dining room chairs, which are too tall and have no padding, I ordered a Wenger professional orchestra chair for use in my own home when I practice. It arrived a few days ago and is extremely comfy - I got it with the lumbar cushion option. It was ridiculously expensive, but for the amount of time I'm going to spend on it it's worth it to me.

Salome: The girl we love to hate

I have had a great time playing Richard Strauss's opera Salome this week, happy that I was in relatively decent shape and able to step in when they hadn't found a horn player to replace me. I had missed my job. And I had never played a Strauss opera.

It was a great experience, but initially Salome totally kicked my ass. The counting, instantaneous meter and tempo changes, and transpositions were enough to make my head spin. Man, was it hard, especially after being away from work for two months (I'm going back on maternity leave after this; I'll go back to work officially in April). Barnewitz, who has played the Santa Fe Opera for many years and was nailing the insanely difficult Principal Horn part with amazing ease, says that this is the easiest of the several Strauss operas he's played. Holy crap. That was humbling.

Some of the things I love about this opera are its length (only 90 minutes total, without intermission), fantastically sensationalist and riveting score, and grippingly depressing and disturbing story. I wrote this post about Salome back in 2006 when David and I went to see it in Chicago, but I still just can't believe how messed up the plot is. Salome is 14 and her mother, Herodius, marries her uncle Herod after her father dies. Herod openly lusts after his stepdaughter (his former niece) right in front of her mother. Makes Jerry Springer look tame, doesn't it? Salome is curious about John the Baptist, who has been imprisoned in the basement of their palace for openly spewing venomous judgments against Herodius for marrying her brother-in-law. (Oh sure, in the Bible, men are allowed to take lots of wives and openly sleep with their handmaidens to produce children and have recreational concubines without shame, but god forbid a woman remarry after her husband dies...gross as it is that she marries her bro-in-law...)

So anyway, Salome seduces one of the guards and convinces him to let her see John the Baptist. She falls madly in lust with him, all buff and bare-chested and long-haired in his chains, and tries to seduce him, too. But he just tells her that she's evil, that "by woman evil did come into this world" (again, gotta love the Bible's scant and mostly misogynist portayal of women) and to get the hell away from him.

Now, I'm not saying he should have given her what she wanted, but man, couldn't he have been less of an asshole to her in the process of letting her down? Like, "Look, hon, I'm just not that into you. The life of a prophet and everything, you know. Can't do it. But I wish you well. No hard feelings, 'k?" But no, all this anger and judgment is like throwing a match into a gas chamber. Clearly, Salome's living a less than ideal life with a stepfather/uncle always trying to get into her pants. JTB does sing some really beautiful parts prophesying the coming of Jesus, to be fair, but in the same breath he completely disses her mother. And viciously, too.

So of course, Salome, Princess of Judea, is used to getting what she wants. (I never said she wasn't spoiled.) And she is most certainly not used to her seductions falling short of any man she wants. So she is absolutely livid. She goes upstairs and her stepfather, nasty and pedophilic as always, says he'll give her anything she wants if she'll do a sexy dance for him. After the evil light bulb goes off in her head, Salome does. This is the famous Dance of the Seven Veils, which is spine-chillingly raucous; sort of a late-romantic interpretation of a middle-eastern strip-tease. (I'm not sure if our Salome strips down to a body stocking; the Salome in the Lyric Opera of Chicago version we saw did. You only saw her naked for a split second before the lights went out.)

So then Herod, who after this dance is panting and ridiculously horny, asks Salome what she wants in exchange for her entertainment. She demands the head of John the Baptist on a platter. (You saw that coming, didn't you?) After much begging and pleading to give her anything else instead in vain, he finally agrees, and they bring it to her, all dripping and hairy, on the silver platter.

Now I'll admit this next part is completely nasty: Salome proceeds to dance with and sing to the head, kissing it and rubbing it all over her body, saying things like, "I got you after all" and "see, I got to kiss you anyway!". Her sparkly white dress and her entire mouth becomes stained with his blood. Eeeeeeeew.

Herod walks in on her doing this, suddenly realizes he wants her dead and orders the guards to kill her. They stab her with their bayonets as the opera crashes to its bitter end with a flourish of violent chords.

Despite its morbidity (and perhaps even because of it), this is really an amazing opera. Every second of it is filled with tension, and you are hanging on for the ride at every turn. Once I caught up with all the tempo changes and transpositions and felt confident about not trashing my part, I started really having a good time.

Here's my rant on the popular interpretation of Salome. Everyone focuses on how demented and evil Salome is. Fine, but how the hell would you have turned out if you were spoiled rotten, had never been denied anything but were simultaneously being molested by your uncle, who is also your stepfather? And why doesn't anyone seem to remonstrate Herod's pedophilic ways, or his wife's ineffectual passivity and voyeurism as he lecherously drools over her daughter? And what about the aforementioned John The Baptist, who seems to think it his mission in life to tell everyone and their mothers that they're horrible and evil and going straight to hell in a handbasket?

I'm not saying Salome shouldn't be held accountable for her actions, but come on, people. Let's be fair and look at the whole picture, at all of the players involved in the admittedly dysfunctional family situation. It's the same thing when people judge prostitutes and strippers for what they do without even acknowledging, much less shining some of the same judgment on, the men who support them so well, whose conduct is equally immoral if not moreso. Yes, of course, women should seek empowerment and avoid such demeaning work, but I refuse to judge them for doing so unless the men who make such professions so lucrative stop enabling it. Both parties are equally reprehensible.

Lullabye, Bennybye...

It's so strange to think about it, my loving motherhood so much.

I know that sounds weird, but hear me out. When you're pregnant for the first time, it's bloody terrifying. You have absolutely no idea how a baby will change your life. Sure, people tell you, but you can't know how you, personally, will change, react, grow, feel. All you can do is hope that you will survive the immense and drastic changes without the world as you know it collapsing around you in pieces.

For most of my life I have considered myself the complete career musician. I still do. I never pictured myself as the "mom" type you see plastered all over every ad for every household product, food, cleaning item, laundry detergent, etc. I still don't. It doesn't bother me, though; I never saw myself as the "wife" type either, and I adore being married. It's just blissful. It's been fun redefining these roles, rewriting them to fit whatever David and I want or need them to be at any given point.

It just never occurred to me that a baby would give me a new lease on life, more energy (despite, somehow, the 4am feedings), a renewed focus, a clarity of perspective on what really matters. But that's exactly what happened. Ben is such a little sweetheart. Every time I used to think about what it would be like to take care of a baby, I never thought it would feel like anything other than a chore. I'm grouchy when I hear him crying at 5am, but as soon as I get into the room and scoop him up in my arms, I smile through my groggy exhaustion at his sweet little teary face and kiss his cute chubby cheeks.

And how could I have possibly known how much fun it would be to sing him to sleep? We keep a music stand in the nursery by the glider for magazines for us to read during Ben's meals. I have recently put a Disney songbook and a book of jazz ballads there, for sending him off to dreamland after his immense belchfests. It's so much fun to sing to him. So far he loves Gershwin, Copland, Ellington, Jerome Kern, and Cole Porter tunes. In the past several days I've sung a capella versions of "Over The Rainbow", "Body & Soul", "When You Wish Upon A Star", "Someday My Prince Will Come", "Once Upon A Dream" (Sleeping Beauty Waltz), "Mood Indigo", "The Nearness Of You", "Moonlight In Vermont", and "Misty". The song "Embraceable You" is another one of his favorites, and the words of that song really hit home somehow now that I'm a mom. I want to print out lyrics to "My Attorney Bernie", which is one of my favorite contemporary jazz songs, and I need to get the sheet music for "Blame It On My Youth" which is another great chart.

For some reason, though, "Chim Chim Cheree" (from Mary Poppins) really freaked him out tonight. Maybe it was the cockney accent or the minor key combined with the waltz tempo, but it might have just been unfortunate timing with some uncomfortably unreleased gas.

But as I sit there, singing to his sweet little face and looking into those perfect, tiny deep blue eyes that are gazing at me, his budding little mind thinking a million thoughts, I think over and over again, this is absolutely fantastic, blissful, wonderful. It's relaxing, grounding, and so fulfilling to take care of him and to continually meet his needs and to know I can meet them. I'm sure a lot of it is programmed into us as humans, this love between parent and child, to ensure the survival of the species; it kicked in so strongly and suddenly as soon as I held Ben for the first time that it must be an instinctual response. Whatever it is, it's completely taken over my heart. I had to go into work a few days this week to be on an audition committee, and when I got home I was so happy just to hold him again, even to change his diaper and feed him.

Which isn't to say I'm not getting a bit of cabin fever. It felt fabulous to go back to work for a few days and see everyone and to have highly intelligent adult conversation and musical stimulation. I really miss my job. I volunteered to play the opera since our personnel manager hadn't yet found anyone to play for me that week, and I'm really looking forward to it. We're doing Salome by Strauss. I've never played a Strauss opera before, and I'm really excited about it!

By the way, it feels wonderful to play the horn again. I started playing a few weeks ago; I had really missed it. My lip feels light years better now than it had while I was pregnant. I think pregnancy really loused it up. I had thought my face was swollen from overuse, but in hindsight, I think 90% of it was pregnancy water retention. Anyway, I am very glad to have my face back and to be playing again.

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.

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! :)