05/23/2023

Something something not abandoning this site this year... Words I'm sure I typed somewhere on this site a few months ago before I proceeded to abandon it. I'll be honest, updating has been kind of difficult as I just don't really feel like this site has a lot of direction anymore, but a lot of things have been going on in my life! To save your time, here are some bullet points.

• I may be getting a new job in a few months! The position for my boss' assistant is open, and I think I have a good chance for it. He's a really cool guy, and he's seen how helpful I've been in the position I'm currently in, since whenever the technology we use goes ass up he's been emailing me asking for my opinions and ideas on how to fix whatever the issues are.
• Opera! Opera was pretty tough this year, as we did a reduced orchestration of Hansel and Gretel that resulted in me being one of two undergraduates in a principal position. The other guy was a 5th year though so he barely even counts. It was a lot of fun except the concert master was kind of a dick. He kept showing up late and was just super staunch about everything. He gave me dirty looks every time I gave the A and got really upset because I couldn't hold the note for 2 minutes. Whhich like, suck my dick dude, all you need is to tune your A string, if I stop playing and you aren't done just keep going off the A you are already tuned too, throwing your arms up in the air isn't going to fix that. Speaking of which, the show for the woodwinds was a face killer, and as most face-killing performances go, our section was starting to climb in pitch as the acts went on. Of course, being the only student in a group of professionals (and also me being the one who gives the A and all), the dude decided to pick on me about the pitch problems the entire time when the principal clarinetest (who's a great person btw! - I think she was only speaking up about this because she saw how he was blaming me for everything) was openly saying that it was her section's fault the pitch was rising. And truth is that it was every wind player's fault, it's just one of those things that happen. But of course, I'm the youngest and I'm the least likely to fight back so I get the brunt of his attitude. Other than that it was a great time (despite whatever made up problems with my tuning pitch the concert master had with me, I kept up just fine despite being an undergrad) and the show was a big hit with the audience.
• Double Reed Recital! I took some audio of the show but I have yet to edit it, it's just sort of floating around on my to-do list. This year's recital was interesting in the fact that it was basically my sophmore recital. Out of the five piecees we played, I was on four, with the only one not including me being a solo piece by our senior bassoonist. Funnily enough, there was actually a mistake in the programs that lead them to list my name as a performer instead of her, making it look like I did play on every piece in the show. It was a good practice run for my actual junior and senior recitals coming up in the last two years of my degree.
• Massive audition at the end of this summer!!! So big in fact that I'm not even really allowed to talk about it. But let's just say the next three months are going to be VERY english horn intesive for me, purely by coincidence.
• I started working some new music recently! I still have the Paroles on the back-burner. I'm in the process of figuring out a situation to record vocals over the summer so I can maybe have it out by next year, but in the mean time I've been having fun messing with some new sounds while I wait.