The First Post

Wow. I have been thinking of starting a blog for a while now, inspired by the book Julie & Julia (about a cooking blog), not a great book IMO, but it got me interested in blogging. Then I found a couple of blogs about the oboe which I have become ADDICTED to...and being just a bit of a diva I needed to have my own space!

Yesterday I played the third mvt of the Mozart oboe concerto for the faculty recital - this was my first "faculty" recital and I was very nervous! I would have picked something a little more fun, or easy! but since I'm playing the whole Mozart in April with the symphony I thought this would be a natural - play the hard part ahead of time, in the nice hall...not even thinking about how this is going to be the first time most of my collegues would have heard me, and all that.

But it went pretty well, not too many nerves and I actually got through all those runny passages intact! Reed was pretty good, soooo glad I chose the "lighter" of the two possibilities. I am not completely thrilled that we are doing the Mozart, it doesn't really show off my strong points (what are those again???) but this is definately a stretch for me! I have been thinking about John Mack a lot recently, and to paraphrase one of his quotes "Accept the challenges life gives you, then figure out out to meet them" I love that thought. So when the conductor approached me about playing this piece I figured, what the heck! Even though I am not likely to take any more auditions, it seems like really learning the Mozart is something every oboist should have to do. Then maybe next year (or so) I can play the Vaughn Williams!

Music things coming up for me:
Playing Quiet City at church in two weeks, we just did it on a chamber concert, so it seemed like a good thing for Lent;

Eh on La Mer with a community/college orchestra - first time I've gotten to play this! Tempos are a bit under what would be optimal, but that's probably just as well! Fun fun fun to play all that great music.

Then my orchestra (where I play first) is playing our Young Artist concert, first mvts of Tchaik vln, Rach pno, Weber clar, a bunch of popular arias and a piece by a local composer. It is kinda cool that we are doing a piece by Joan Tower that was commissioned by Ford called Made in America - they are having it performed in each state. Being the "Idaho orchestra" is probably less of an honor than being say, the Ohio orchestra (or pretty much anywhere else!) but we're excited. And they are paying us for that. More about getting paid later.

I play in a community band (warm body) with my husband (really cool trumpet guy), we have a concert in March, only piece of interest is one written by a student who was wise enough to plop in a big EH solo for me :^)

Bell choir (I am the exaulted director) is playing Were You There? in March, I'm still looking for an Easter piece.

Carousel end of March - not staged but with all pros; for a 40th anniversary of the Carousel Players. Should be great, but orch will be on stage so we have to dress up; just black but the pit in that hall is so great they let us wear ANYTHING (decent) during a regular run. The best thing is getting union scale (although I'm not in the union, just not worth it here - there aren't any union gigs)

And of course the Mozart is coming up fast (April 14)!!!

Well, I must go be a mom now. Hopefully having this blog will help me get organized! But at least I can write all my frustrations down for the ages.