Monday, February 20, 2012

I had two free days... enough time to cook and catch up and to work on reeds.  The meals were good but I am constantly experimenting with reeds, with the result that I now have more ideas but not yet a comforting supply of reeds!  Doing everything freehand (well, except gouging) is very interesting yet the knowledge grows more slowly than my need for reeds!

Getting ready to have a student concert at Christ Church Deer Park during spring break.   This concert was planned almost a year ago for our Double Reed class, yet the reality of spring break has reduced our numbers.  We will present a one-of-a-kind programme with 2 oboists, 4 bassoonists and a pianist on Thursday, February 23 with music ranging from Dresden-school baroque (Fasch) to pattern-music modern (Black by Marc Mellits.  The enthusiastic double reed players include students from U of T and the Glenn Gould School and a fine young visiting bassoonist from Taiwan.   All are willing to do something different on spring break and meet in my living room for the rehearsals!

On the same day as our double reed concert, Guy and I will have our first rehearsal with a new community orchestra.  We will be playing some of our favourite concerti with the Rose Orchestra in Brampton on March 10,  and this week we will read through the Lachner Concertino for corno and bassoon along with the Hummel trumpet concerto and Weber's Andante & Rondo for bassoon.

And next week will be a marathon of judging for the woodwind division of the Kiwanis Competition... I will be hearing hundreds (it seems) of young woodwind players and during the week of eight hour days, there will be one lone bassoonist!

I spent part of today filing the recital programmes for our duo (Guy + Nadina) in the archives... the cat (Diva) promptly got involved, rolling on the glossy programme covers, sitting on the newspaper clippings and licking (yes, licking) the snapshots.  Freaky little brat.

For the first time, I am getting lots of video from our concerts... here is a snippet of Paganini from a friendly "fan cam".

Time to pitch headfirst into bed, then back to the reed table at dawn.

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