Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Recording countdown
First recording session is June 1. Today I practiced and recorded myself. Quite revealing. Some good some bad. My suite 6 gavottes were way too slow! It was weird that when I practiced them faster they seemed so fast! Then when I rerecorded and listened again, they sounded just right and not at all fast. Tonight I will tackle the prelude. Recording myself really saves so much time. Why don't I do it more often??
Friday, May 21, 2010
Blog change
Hey everybody. I've changed my blog's name, in case you didn't notice. The old one was a little pretentious. I haven't posted in a LONG time. It was a LONG year. But a good one. We survived year 2 of post-flood at my job. My new office is pretty nice and the students have been great about everything. The new building site has been found, and if the land deals go smoothly maybe I'll have a new office and concert hall before I retire!!
I finally applied for a promotion to full professor, and got it. The entire process was way too difficult than it should have been. Some people are just poopy heads. Luckily these people do not include my department chair, my dean, the provost, and the board of regents. I won't say more than that... Gotcha' suckers!
Had a great year getting lots of grant money, too. I'm able to purchase 3 new baroque bows for the school's collection (one for me!) and travel and have an undergrad research assistant. And I will hopefully be able to have the sequel to last year's Bach Festival next spring: the Iowa Festival of Baroque Music and Dance. It will be a week of dance and performance masterclasses, lectures, and performances. April 4-8, 2011. Be there!
In 2 weeks I'll start recording the Bach cello suites on baroque viola. This is something I've been fantasizing about for a long time and finally feel like I kind of know what I doing with the baroque instrument. So I jump into the deep end now. I'll finish up the recording in the fall.
This summer Jake and I head up to Michigan for 8 weeks at the Bay View Festival. We've only gone for 4 weeks for the past 2 summers, but my colleagues in the faculty quartet and I decided last summer that we'd like to stay all summer. That kind of commitment is not easy at my stage in life! But I love the place and I really enjoy the festival and my colleagues a lot. Mark is being "forced" to spend at least one week up there with us. We are prying him away from his homebody existence. I think he'll love it, though. He was up for a few days last summer and told me that he understood why I liked it so much up there.
Sad news that my folks are putting the Highlands on the market. It is a place I have loved for over 20 years and have so many memories of. The saddest part is that they will not have a place in Leland at all. So when I go there it will be as an ordinary tourist. Just kind of weird. I understand why they want to sell the place, but it's a bummer.
I will try to blog more this summer. I act like anyone cares about this!
I finally applied for a promotion to full professor, and got it. The entire process was way too difficult than it should have been. Some people are just poopy heads. Luckily these people do not include my department chair, my dean, the provost, and the board of regents. I won't say more than that... Gotcha' suckers!
Had a great year getting lots of grant money, too. I'm able to purchase 3 new baroque bows for the school's collection (one for me!) and travel and have an undergrad research assistant. And I will hopefully be able to have the sequel to last year's Bach Festival next spring: the Iowa Festival of Baroque Music and Dance. It will be a week of dance and performance masterclasses, lectures, and performances. April 4-8, 2011. Be there!
In 2 weeks I'll start recording the Bach cello suites on baroque viola. This is something I've been fantasizing about for a long time and finally feel like I kind of know what I doing with the baroque instrument. So I jump into the deep end now. I'll finish up the recording in the fall.
This summer Jake and I head up to Michigan for 8 weeks at the Bay View Festival. We've only gone for 4 weeks for the past 2 summers, but my colleagues in the faculty quartet and I decided last summer that we'd like to stay all summer. That kind of commitment is not easy at my stage in life! But I love the place and I really enjoy the festival and my colleagues a lot. Mark is being "forced" to spend at least one week up there with us. We are prying him away from his homebody existence. I think he'll love it, though. He was up for a few days last summer and told me that he understood why I liked it so much up there.
Sad news that my folks are putting the Highlands on the market. It is a place I have loved for over 20 years and have so many memories of. The saddest part is that they will not have a place in Leland at all. So when I go there it will be as an ordinary tourist. Just kind of weird. I understand why they want to sell the place, but it's a bummer.
I will try to blog more this summer. I act like anyone cares about this!
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