Graduate Schools

So I got into San Francisco Conservatory into Jodi Levitz studio. I just think it is funny after the whole sh-bang and the lesson etc. It is still pretty cool though.

Money wise, I am not really that happy about what I got. With the scholarship and the government loans, it wouldn't even pay for tuition. At least I got something right?? Now I just have to think if this school is really worth all the money that it costs, $39,000 a year (ahem). We shall see.

I heard back from Mannes, remember, the school that I really wanted to go to but had such an awful experience (aka faculty not being there and people being hoyty toyti to not just me but Chris as well).... I was not accepted. I am not really that surprised, but it still hurt a little. Hopefully I hear back from CCM soon. I did call them today though and the Admissions Office says that Cathy Carroll has not said anything about graduate students. I have a friend who applied and got rejected so at least this a positive sign? I hope so. Dr. Biggs says that usually the No's hear first. Haven't heard no...

2 down, 1 to go.

the gravel IS the place for me

So, this past weekend I have been working on two presentations. Of course, with me, I over work things and so I spent 40 hours in three days working on these projects. Saturday, I worked from 8a to 2a with a three hour break to see Blood Wedding at BYU. Anyway, I learned a lot about Joan Tower, Ruth Crawford-Seeger and Virginia Woolf. When I was choosing a reading example from A Room of One's Own for my Masterpieces of English Literature class presentation, I really admired what she is saying in this work. At first, I was kinda upset that the selection we were assigned to read came from a series of essays based on lectures, but then I realized that though it is not Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse it is still a masterpiece. The things she says are just so profound and deep. :) This is why I am not afraid of Virginia Woolf. I also had to incorporate the movie The Hours into the presentation. This is just a remarkable movie with an astounding message. I am showing the beginning where Woolf kills herself, which, btw I learned, is actually how she killed herself by putting stones in her pocket and walking into the river, and the letter she writes in the clip is exactly what she wrote to her husband Leonard. Such a profound movie about decisions and life itself. With a life full of death, sexual abuse and mental instability, Virginia Woolf was able to write some pretty amazing things. Here is the section I chose from A Room of One's Own. It is long, but it is great:

“It was thus that I found myself walking with extreme rapidity across a grass plot. Instantly a man’s figure rose to intercept me. Nor did I at first understand that the gesticulations of a curious-looking object, in a cut-away coat and evening shirt, were aimed at me. His face expressed horror and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came to my help; he was a Beadle; I was a woman. This was the turf; that was the path. Only the Fellows and Scholars are allowed here; the gravel is the place for me. Such thoughts were the work of a moment. As I regained the path the arms of the Beadle sank, his face assumed its usual repose, and though turf is better walking than gravel, no very great harm was done [….]

“Strolling through those colleges past those ancient halls of roughness of the present seemed smoothed away; the body seemed contained in a miraculous glass cabinet through which no sound could penetrate, and the mind, freed from any contact with facts (unless one trespassed on the turf again), was at liberty to settle down upon whatever meditation was in harmony with the moment. As chance would have it, some stray memory of some old essay about revisiting Oxbridge in the long vacation brought Charles Lamb to mind—Saint Chares, said Thackeray, putting a letter of Lamb’s to his forehead. Indeed, among all the dead (I give you my thoughts as they came to me), Lamb is one of the most congenial; one to whom one would have liked to say, Tell me then how you wrote your essays? For his essay are superior even to Max Beerbohm’s, I thought, with all their perfection, because of that wild flash of imagination, the lightning crack of genius in the middle of them which eaves them flawed and imperfect, but starred with poetry. Lamb then came to Oxbridge perhaps a hundred years ago. Certainly he wrote an essay—the name escapes me—about the manuscript of one of Milton’s poems which he saw here. It was Lycidas perhaps, and Lamb wrote how it shocked him to think it possible that any word in Lycidas could have been different from what it is. To think of Milton changing the words in that poem seemed to him a sort of sacrilege. This led me to remember what I could of Lycidas and to amuse myself with guessing which word it could have been that Milton had altered, and why. It then occurred to me that the very manuscript itself which Lamb had looked at was only a few hundred yards away, so that one could follow Lamb’s footsteps across the quadrangle to that famous library where the treasure is kept. Moreover, I recollected, as I put this plan into execution, it is in this famous library that the manuscript of Thackeray's Esmond is also preserved. The critics often say with its imitation of the eighteenth-century style was natural to Thackeray—a fact that one might prove by looking at the manuscript and seeing whether the alterations were for the benefit of the style or of the sense. But then one would have to decide what is style and what is meaning, a question which—but here I was actually at the door which leads into the Library itself. I must have opened it, for instantly there issued, like a guardian angel barring the way with a flutter of black gown instead of white wings, a deprecating, silvery, kindly gentleman, who regretted in a low voice as he waved me back that ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the College or furnished with a letter of introduction.

"That a famous library has been cursed by a woman is a matter of complete indifference to a famous library. Venerable and calm, with all its treasures safe locked within its breast, it sleeps complacently and will, so far as I am concerned, so sleep for ever. Never will I wake those echoes, never will I ask for that hospitality again, I vowed as I descended the steps in anger. Still an hour remained before luncheon, and what was one to do? Stroll on the meadows? sit by the river? […]”

Tata for now. Go see the movie The Hours. It is so great.

"To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours."

Brody and Brahms

I am done with auditions for graduate school. Let me tell you how awesome this is!!! No more stress, no more losing sleep over what ifs, no more buts, no more practicing 7 hours a day on one piece. Yes, my recital is in April, but I have played this rep literally across the country, so it will be a piece of cake. My recital is April 10 at 3:30P in the Madsen Recital Hall at BYU. This is my rep list:

Bach Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor BWV 1008
--Sarabande

--Menuet I

--Menuet II

--Gigue

Fuchs Sonata Pastorale

--II. Pastorale

Taylor Pulse Aria & Achoo Lullaby for electronic tape and amplified viola

Brahms Sonate in E-flat, Op. 120 No. 2 (whole thing)

Vieuxtemps Elegie, op. 130

I am really excited for my recital. I am very prepared and it will be fun to just perform rather than being nervous about how things will go because I am not prepared as I could be...aka last year and the Walton.

So let's talk about graduate auditions in order.

San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) was a really nice place. I flew in on a Saturday and stayed with Joe McCall (Chris's grandmother). We just watched the olympics all night. It is fun to watch intense programings with her!! I had a lesson with Paul Hersch on Sunday. It was a great experience. Even though he teaches both piano and viola I think that he would be a great teacher to study under. His ideas are not aimed towards technique and the like, it is all about the musical language of a piece and what it is trying to say to the performer/listener. This sounds like the easy way out, but there is no other way to explain it. We meshed pretty well I think. The facilities at SFCM are quite new and very nice. The practice rooms have wonderful windows and a thermostat control in each one (these are two things that BYU is lacking in very heavily). My audition was on Monday (Feb 15). While Sandra and I were driving there, we saw an accident happen two cars in front of us. It was really intense I must say. A linen truck ran the red light going who knows how fast, smashed into this small silver honda and the car would have flown into the building had it not been for the car next to that. When we drove by, all I saw was the lady sitting with her head tilted to the side and her hair covering the face. I still do not know if she was hurt or not or even if she died! I must say, I am glad this was at 8:30A with my audition at noon. I was shaken pretty bad. The audition went well. I played Walton II, the Sarabande and the first mvt of Brahms. Pretty standard. The weather was really nice. Fog in the morning and sunshine in the afternoon. I love the area that SFCM is in as well.

University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). I absolutely loved this school. So much. From when Anna picked me up in Kentucky at the airport (yes Kentucky...) I knew that this place felt right. The school is marvelous and everyone is so nice. So so nice. I went to Transmigration at CCM which is a series of eight student produced, written and directed plays. They were all good, of course. Some better then others, but I really enjoyed seeing all 8 of them over the course of three days. My audition went well here too. I played the Fuchs, Walton II, Sarabande and Pulse Aria. Cathy Caroll is such a nice lady, very similar to Dr. Bigelow in a way. The program that they have at CCM, especially in Viola, seems rather stellar and right up my alley. I wish I could have had a lesson with her, but I generally do not like lessons when I have an audition because then it makes me nervous in the audition because I try to incorporate things they say etc etc... oh well. We shall see what happens. I could on and on and rave about this school, the heated parking garage, the cheaper living, the nice layout etc...but I will spare you. It was also nice to run into Jessica as well form SOAP as well to see Anna again and make new friends!Mannes was an interesting experience. I do not want to say to much because the school is still on my list of where to go. Let me just say that I was surprised by the reception, especially after coming from SFCM and CCM. What can I expect it is NYC? I brought Chris with me because these auditions had piano accompanient. I am glad that he was there with me, let me just say that. It was also nice to visit Austyn, Dustin and Brody. Brody is an interesting kid...CRAZY at times for sure. Chris and I went to the New York Phil when Andras Schiff played Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 (man there is a lot of Brahms in my life...). It was spectacular. I learned a lot from the performance and the "flawless" orchestral playing. I will never forget hearing those violins so together and so perfectly refined. Such a stark difference to what I am used to.

We shall see what comes of these auditions. Hopefully it is positive!! Now I just get to move onto my recital, graduation then working at Disney World. Hoorah! Should be very exciting. I am sad that I cannot do CLOC as well for a second summer (especially with the season they have), but beggars cannot be choosers. I will enjoy my time at Disney World, especially since I have wanted to work there since I was four and first stepped foot onto the boat that travels across the lagoon. Never forget it!