Summer, part 2

My summer was so crazy and full of different activities! I'll cover what I did in 4 separate posts.
Part 1 - Oregon
Part 2 - Colorado
Part 3 - Germany
Part 4 - France and Germany again
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I was in Colorado to participate in a summer music festival called the National Repertory Orchestra (NRO).  It was probably the most intense one I've ever done.  We played an average of 2.5 concerts per week, all with different repertoire.  I definitely grew a lot musically, but of course I made time to have some fun as well.

One of my favorite things about being in Colorado was being surrounded by such amazing natural beauty, once I got used to the 9,000 foot elevation.  At the beginning the elevation and dryness made playing difficult, but I soon got used to it.  In fact, afterwards, when I was in Germany, it was amazing how well I could play! Sadly, though, the effects of the elevation only lasted a few days after my return to sea level.

Here I am playing my horn outside - one of my favorite things, but sadly something I can't do often because of bothering neighbors, extreme temperatures, or other reasons.

This is at Lake Dillon, where we played an Independence Day concert.

I also got to do some hiking.  I'm most proud of one hike, Mt. Elbert, which is a 14-er (a Colorado term for a summit with elevation over 14,000 feet).  I felt bad from the beginning of the hike, due to the elevation and being fairly out of shape, but nevertheless, I kept going, without distractions of other people or music to keep me going.  I even ran out of water partway through, but I forced myself to continue.  And I made it to the top!

I also went on a few solo hikes near the town where we were located.





I had some fabulous colleagues that also made it a summer to remember.  This is another member of the horn section.
































I really really loved my roommates.  Excuse the dark and blurry picture full of red-eye - this is the only photo we took all together!


Maybe this is the reason we all got along so well:




































Our house hosted a party for the final match of the world cup.  It was so intense when it went into overtime!
One of my other colleagues and I made this video during a rehearsal for a pops concert.


It was really musically inspiring to play with such great people!  We played Strauss' Ein Heldenleben with members of the Breckenridge Music Festival.  It was really cool because one of my friends from undergrad plays in BMF, so it was a mini-reunion of sorts! Here are the combined horn sections:


Thanks to the generosity of friends with cars, I was able to take a few little side trips as well.  I went to Fairplay, the town the TV show South Park is based on!  As a super-fan, it was a life-altering experience.




A few friends and I also went to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra at Vail,

Altogether, I had a wonderful time at NRO this summer.  I would love to return if possible, but the festival has a one-summer-only policy for all wind players.

After a very late night and a very early morning, I was en route to Germany!

Summer, part 1

My summer was so crazy and full of different activities! I'll cover what I did in 4 separate posts.
Part 1  - Oregon
Part 2 - Colorado
Part 3 - Germany
Part 4 - France and Germany again
----
My first activity of the summer was out in Portland, Oregon, helping out with a youth orchestra there.  This was part of my work as a global leaders fellow, where one travels to various youth music programs to help out by teaching and offering suggestions for more effective operation.  Despite the fact that we were there to work, we did have enough free time to also do a bit of sight-seeing!









I was traveling for three full months, but I was only able to bring one suitcase with me, plus of course my instrument.  Here is everything I took on my trip.

In Portland, we were able to do a lot of hiking.  Here we are in a typical park.  It is such a luscious, green city!

With my colleagues on a hike.

We went to the starlight parade, where were were given lots of light-up things.  So festive!

Of course, no trip to Portland is complete without a trip to Voodoo Donuts! My doughnut was delicious, but I have to say, it wasn't anything THAT special or different from what you can get at another specialty doughnut shop.

This is a picture from another hike.  We climbed up a huge rock that had been there since the ice age, and the views from the top were incredible!

We had to climb so many switchbacks to get up there!

My colleague on this hike.  The trees were so huge!

On another day, we went to this waterfall.  You can hike up to the top.  It was gorgeous, but we were having a lot of trouble capturing it on "film".  Finally I got this perfect shot!

At the top of the waterfall.

On our last day, we had some free time downtown before the concert.  We took a long walk along the waterfront and relaxed with some sangria!

Of course these photos only show a small part of my activities there, but I can't include photos with the students for privacy reasons.  We played in three concerts with the kids, gave some lessons and master classes, and helped out on two days of auditions.  We also offered suggestions for the directors of the program.

I really loved Portland, and I'm really thankful for the opportunity to visit and work there, even though it was for such a short time.  I hope someday I can go back and have more time to explore the city!

Next: Summer, part 2: Colorado!

Saturday in New York

I spent the whole day yesterday in New York.

I went there on the train with a friend from Yale, M, who happened to be going in at the same time.  We had planned on meeting at the station at 7:30 but I accidentally set my alarm for 6pm instead of 6am.  I threw together an interview-appropriate outfit and rushed to grab a cab to the train station.

After a quite pleasant ride on the commuter rail and then the subway, we arrived in Lincoln Center.  M picked up his opera ticket, and I went to my lesson.  I'm currently figuring out what I'm doing next year, so I needed to meet with a long-term substitute musician in the New York Philharmonic, who teaches at one of the schools I'm looking at.  It was an amazing lesson.  I really learned a lot from just a short meeting with him!

Then I rushed across the plaza to the Metropolitan Opera, where I had a ticket to see Wagner's epic religiously allegorical opera Parsifal.

I don't often get a chance to go to the opera because of the expense of the tickets, but a professor who I get along with very well couldn't make it yesterday, so he had an extra ticket that he passed along to me.  I was way up in the highest row, but the sound was still amazing.  Sometimes it was a bit hard to see what was happening, but I think that's mostly because of the simplistic costume design for this production, in which most of the singers were wearing identical things, so it became pretty difficult to tell them apart.

Despite the length of this opera, I really enjoyed it! The show started at noon, and we only got out of there just before 6pm.  There were two intermissions.  The first act was good, but a bit long at two hours.  I started getting a bit uncomfortable when we still had about 20-30 minutes left.  The second act went by really fast - it was so enthralling that I didn't even notice how long it was! By the third act, however, I was getting ready for it to be over, and I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Wagner's music, you MUST give the overture to this opera a try.  It is some of the most beautiful music ever composed, and it isn't as aggressively chromatic as some of his other music.  You can really hear the religiosity of this gorgeous music.

If you're interested in a more in-depth exploration of this opera, there is at least one full production available on YouTube, here:

After the opera, M and I reunited to go out to dinner with D, a friend of mine from high school and undergrad who goes to Juilliard now.  We had some delicious Chinese food and reminisced about all the crazy things we did back in the day.

I got back to New Haven pretty late at night, and then I had an exciting day today as well, which you will be hearing about in a separate post soon.

Until next time!

Lauren