swing away

Here I am again. Someday I will get back into this whole blogging thing. Jack says he misses my blog, so I know there is at least one reader out there!

What's new here? It's almost Easter, which means plenty of work at church. I'll be over there today getting things ready to go, so I can simply get ready in the morning and show up, instead of showing up at 6am and racing around to get things ready to go. Getting up early on Sundays can be brutal. Plus, I always have the following conversation with the Semi Stoned, Yet Really Annoying Starbucks Guy:

SSYRASG: Good morning! Welcome to Starbucks! Can I interest you in a Grande Chocolate 'n Niblets Latte to start off your day?

ME: Um, no thanks. I'll take a tall coffee with light cream

SSYRASG: Would you like a low fat cheesecake pop or a lemon poppyseed cluster to nibble on this morning?

ME: No thanks. Just the coffee

Then I drive around to get my coffee. Because up until a week ago it was winter-y, my skis and ski gear live in the car, in case of spontaneous skiing adventures.

SSYRASG: I see you are going skiing this morning!

ME: (Note: It is 6 in the morning, pitch black, and I am wearing a dressy outfit) Nope! Just headed off to church! (like I do EVERY Sunday when we have this conversation!!!)

The most recent development in my life has been my decision to apply for the job of Music Director for the Boise Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. The qualifications they are looking for include

1) A masters degree in conducting

2) Be a violinist

3) A history of working with youth

Well! I am only qualified on 1/3 of the criteria! Why not apply?

You can't hit a home run unless you swing, so I sent in all my application materials. I had to come up with conducting footage, so I bribed a bunch of friends to get together and play a couple things. The "Beer Symphony Orchestra" recorded The Magic Flute and a couple of Bartok dances. Nothing amazing, but if you can't conduct something basic, there's no way you can conduct something really complicated.

I think if I can get to the part in the audition process where you get to actually rehearse the orchestra, I have a pretty good chance to win the job. It's just getting all parties involved in the decision making to take me seriously. Which may be challenging, since I don't really take myself too seriously.

We will see what happens next! Stay tuned!

mozart

It's Mozart Week here in Boise. All Mozart, all the time! We're playing the Sinfonia Concertante (the winds one, not the string one) Symphonies #35 and #36 and the Flute Rondo.

The Symphonies are by far my favorite. I also like how our conductor (Robert Franz) is using this time to really work on our musicality. So many times I feel like we just sort of plow through stuff. Detail work is good sometimes, too. Robert does a good job working on both the big picture and the fine lines. The past two days have been very detail oriented. We'll see what tomorrow's rehearsal brings.

rick rolled

I was minding my own business at Thomas Hammer, when I heard the familiar strains of Rick Astley....'never gonna give up up, never gonna let you down...." Could it be years after the trend that I am still capable of being Rick Rolled? In other news, there was seemingly a meeting of the Midget Prostitutes of Boise taking place at the same time. Surreal.

We are about 10 days out from a Boise Philharmonic family concert, one that the orchestra has donated its time to perform. It's being advertised via social media that we've donated our time, so that the revenue from this concert can go towards stabilizing our Family Concert series. Mostly I think this is a good thing, but I must admit being somewhat annoyed at the fact that four years ago I fought long and hard for change, and now that change is actually occurring, I am likely to be left out of playing any of the new and additional services. For example, many of the new fun things the orchestra does are for chamber orchestra. The problem comes when it's time to hire violas. The front stand are both contracted players, and are obligated to play everything. Then, our third chair violist is a 'named chair', which I'm guessing means she gets first crack at extra services. Generally, there's not more than 3 or 4 violas hired for something qualifying as chamber music. So, where does that leave me, a random section player? Out in the cold!

If nothing else, this solidifies my position that in order to have a career as a musician nowadays, you have to create your own performing opportunities. This is why I'm starting up a new chamber music series, with our first concerts being this Spring, followed with a little summer festival, and a full blown series next year. It will be a pain to manage the whole thing, but I think it will be worth it, musically speaking, in the long run.

crunch time

My back is sore from doing these silly Pilates crunches. My abs are also sore. This is my punishment for taking time off.

I started doing some planning for our upcoming choir tour. I am not really in charge of anything, but I did a little route map and plan for the head director to make it easier for him to plan. Plus, by setting it up as a Google doc, I can now avoid going to a meeting. Yay, me.

I had some free time, but didn't get tons of stuff done for work like I had been hoping. Oh well. There's always tomorrow.

arm and a leg

Went back to the gym today. I wasn't exactly on track over the past several weeks, for one reason or another. I had a pretty exciting inner ear infection, then my final Herceptin infusion, then some cold flu crap kept me down for about 2 1/2 weeks. So today was challenging. Between my reduced thyroid function and bad MUGA score, it was a real mess. Hopefully, this is as bad as it will get, and tomorrow won't feel as terrible.

The Y is canceling a class I enjoy going to-thanks YMCA... It's funny how they will spend all kinds of money on useless things (fattening snacks for re-branding meetings, four color brochures for events for an extremely limited demographic, step aerobics classes only 3 people attend) but they won't fork over extra money to keep on my Body Attack class. I enjoy a wide variety of workouts, but I've probably been the most consistent with Body Attack. So what does the Y do? Cancel it. Not cool, YMCA -not cool. By the way, YMCA, you are overpriced.

Speaking over overpriced: I ordered new strings today. I go through a set about every 6-8 weeks, but just like the contacts you are supposed to wear for two weeks before you toss them out, I try to make them last a little longer than they are supposed to. But-wow! It was almost $100 for a set of strings.

I saw Black Swan over the weekend. I may never pick at my nails again.

Hmm-what else is new? I'm back into my usual teaching routine today. I think everyone will need some kind of "Scale Detox Program!" to recover from the holidays. Me included.

We are playing Peter and the Wolf for our next Boise Philharmonic event, and it occurs to me that I have NEVER actually played Peter and the Wolf. I'm closing in on 30 years of performing, and I've never played it. I'll look through today to figure out what needs practice.

back at it

I started back at work a little today after a week off. It was nice not to teach any lessons, practice, or direct any ensembles this week. But I'm starting to feel well rested enough to get back at it. Tomorrow will step things up with many lessons, some practicing, and some planning for some upcoming events. Plus getting back to the gym.

Today was pretty mellow: I taught two lessons, organized music for my bell choir, talked about some upcoming pieces to play with the organist. I also did a couple things I'd been procrastinating, like sending in a description of a clinic I'm supposed to do for the AGO and a bio and all that kind of thing.

Later, we're probably going to hit the Home Depot and pick out some new flooring for the kitchen. Romantic, right? There's many little things that need to be done around the house, so we're going to tackle one little thing each month this year. That's the resolution, anyway.

new year, new blog

Well, I'm back. Why not kick off the New Year by resurrecting my blog?

Here at Adventures of an Idaho Violist, you can keep up with musical happenings in Boise, follow my career as a violist, teacher and assistant church music director. You can also find restaurant reviews, rants on a variety of subjects and keep up with all my crazy shenanigans.

Who doesn't like shenanigans, really?

Today's shenanigans began with a ridiculously slow 5K run and devolved into a day of watching "Worst Cooks in America", which may be the most absurd concept for a show ever. They take people who can't cook, and then, get this, yell at them for not being able to cook. TV magic.

So, if you've stumbled onto this blog, do enjoy. Mostly, it's a semi-daily look into the life of a completely average musician.