I'm (getting) Back!

Hello! So I completely forgot that Google and all Google-related companies (like Blogger) are banned in China and I therefore couldn't blog during my stay then. I was also too tired most evenings to do anything coherent, and I still am kinda tired (jet lag times 2) so once I get back (I'm still in New York at the moment, visiting colleges) I will give as thorough of a description of our tour as I possibly can. So, goodbye for now, and see you then!

Celebrities and Other Stuff

At this point in residency I can comfortably say that all of our celebrities have come in, and to say the least I'm excited af. Tan Dun came in first, and we rehearsed his piece for him and then with him while he gave us details about the piece and how to play it. Tan Dun strikes me as very spiritual and wise, because he describes his music in a way that makes me feel the meaning behind his piece. His piece, entitled Secret of Wind and Birds, is supposed to reflect nature and unity between it and us as humans. It actually reflects a lot about the concept of unity, including unity between ancient technology/instruments and modern technology/instruments, and between things in nature itself, like birds and wind and wind and water and birds and water. Tan Dun is much better at explaining it than me, so definitely go ask him about it! His piece is also astoundingly written, with a clear melody (the passacaglia) yet with interesting harmonies and effects I can't believe he came up with himself. If you go to one of our concerts or see any videos, you'll know what I mean.

Charles Dutoit came in next, and he's absolutely phenomenal. I could see immediately how much attention he paid to the details, and how good he was at conveying the meanings behind the pieces, especially for the Berlioz. He spent the first 30 minutes with us focusing solely on the first violins in the first movement of the Berlioz, for example, and did the same with each section when we weren't playing it exactly as the music was intended to be. It was rather draining, and it also meant that as individuals no one played a lot, (especially brass) but it was worth seeing how we worked together after his modifications. Maestro Dutoit is also very French. (He'll sometimes randomly shout out thongs like numbers in French, and it'll be too quick for most of us to understand. Tan Dun did the same with Chinese.)

And then Yundi came! Or rather, YUNDI. He is of course a phenomenal player, but we didn't get to see his personality much because he didn't speak and denied us the chance of taking selfies with him. 😄

So that's about it for celebs. I'm still pretty starstruck from being the same room as them; I pretend I'm not though for the cameras. 😝 Once we're done with our Carnegie concert tonight I'll be blogging about that. So stay tuned for more, and as always post questions below!

Getting in the Groove

Hello again, and welcome to my first post about days and rehearsals in general! Which I can finally do because we've had more than one full day here! So we actually started out with seating auditions and then a sectional for violins in general, because we didn't get our seating by then. Sectionals was really good because our coaches are Robert Chen and Jennifer Ross, both of which are stunning musicians as well as people in general and gave really insightful information on the pieces we were playing. They did the same when we had our master class (which I didn't play in but everyone was required to attend) and the level at which the musicians here play at is absolutely astounding. Being here really makes me think about what it means to be a good musician, not just talent-wise but also musicianship-wise, as in taking yourself seriously but being humble, giving and receiving constructive feedback, and other things to that extent. So almost immediately I had a pretty big eye-opener in terms of the wide array of musical talent in the music world.
We didn't have our first full rehearsal until the 30th, which I think was the third day, and it was astounding. Of course everyone practiced the pieces beforehand, and we had sectionals beforehand, but just the way the music sounded, you could sense quite well that each person was an incredible musician themselves. I'm going to be very honest right now and say that I literally did not expect such an amount of talent, concentrated in one person, to exist at all. And to have an orchestra full of these people, all extremely humble and down-to-earth too, is really quite confusing. I really didn't know what to do with these people, these teens of which I apparently am one, when I heard them play. For example, after rehearsal, I went up and congratulated the wind players on their solos, because they of course nailed it. But then I remembered the brass parts later on in the same piece, and how amazing they sounded, and congratulated them too. And then I remembered the percussion and then the strings, and how they're just stellar all the time, and congratulated them and you can see of course that in the end my laud ended up being pretty useless because everything I heard was mind-blowingly amazing. And yet, we still have so far to go in our music careers.
Besides playing, we had some pretty interesting workshops. For example, we had one with Liz Lerman, who gave us exercises that encourage us to consider our bodies in rhythms and music and be creative. (I don't really know how to summarize it.) We did things like get in groups and make impromptu poses with our instruments, or get with partners and mold each other into shapes we decide randomly, or lead partners around the room blindly and then desert them, for another person to "pick up" and lead again. On a different day, we did different workshops (which we had signed up for beforehand) including yoga, arts administration intro, and lab orchestra. The lab orchestra was basically a collection of us for the two conducting apprentices to practice conducting with, and the arts admin was a lecture given by Doug Beck about the different jobs on the admin side of arts organizations like Weill Music Institute and the Met, for example. I did yoga and arts admin (everyone did two) and I must say yoga was fantastic. Jennifer Ross (one of our violin coaches) led it, and she made it so relaxing and pleasant while at the same time making it educational about anything from inner peace to Sanskrit derivatives to how yoga ties into music performance.
For the days since I've been here, we've been basically doing sectionals and then full rehearsal, with one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The meals are and hour and a half long, so it offers us time to relax and socialize, and we usually end around 10 PM, so we have another hour and a half until 11 30 curfew to socialize more. So the last thing that we've been doing that's in Guidebook is Video Projects.
!!!!
So I'm sure you've seen by now all of the video projects from 2014 on Youtube and other social media pages; if not there's probably a link to them somewhere in one of my posts but I'll put another one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9k4SqNnb9A&list=PLtXdmX-0gsN8gjcAuoe07uBQhELwCOyso. We're doing them again this year but in five larger groups by US region rather than many smaller groups by section. By now we've already seen a rough cut of our videos, and the final ones will be presented to us sometime next week. I have no idea when they release the videos for the general public. As to what the videos are about, I can't speak for the other groups but ours involves a steamy relationship with a bass and OD-ing on ice cream. So, stay tuned for that. :)
Today is July 4th, so that means we have a free day, in which I will be blogging and practicing to my heart's content. In the afternoon they have some activities and games set up, and then there'll be a barbeque followed by a dance, #NYOprahm. I'm super excited but I can guarantee you I won't be able to tell you what I did tonight because there's a midnight curfew tonight instead of 11 30 so I'll probably stay up til 2 and be really tired and not be a living thing tomorrow. So, see you then, and as always, post any and all questions below!

Day 2: Icebreakers

Hi, apologies for blogging a day late.
So yesterday we started the day off with "icebreakers," activities and games designed to help us meet each other better and connect as RA groups while also having fun. We first went on a scavenger hunt, trying to find most of the buildings and places we'd be spending a lot of our time, as well as meeting the RAs at each station. Basically we had to do things at each station (like, one was invent a cool handshake, another say random words at an increasingly fast tempo without repeating words) that would allow the RA there to give us a number that ended up being a phone number. A lot of the stuff we did ended up on Instagram because that was also part of the activities. So you can see if you can find any there. (They're probably also on the NYO page.)
After that we played a game of Pruie (my take on the spelling--it's pronounced

We're Here!

We go live in 3, 2, 1...
Hi! So I'm officially at NYO right now. I meant to post yesterday but couldn't find the charger for my laptop; so I apologize. But yes. I am here!
It's been a really chill, really cool day so far; I've gone around meeting everyone I see, and while that's definitely been fun, it's also exhausting. I can only be social and outgoing for about 1-2 hours at a time; after that I just crash wherever I am and stick with whomever I happen to be next to. But I've met people across all the sections and instruments; I met all four bassoonists, most of the rest of the wind section, and of course tons of strings. I actually don't think I met any brass players today. But I also did meet plenty of percussionists and apprentices. I was really surprised actually at the speed at which I got along with so many of the people I met. The ones who came early (apparently I was early, but I arrived around 1-1:30 ish) wandered around welcoming others as they came in, while figuring out where everyone was from at the same time. There was a camera crew there, and it was pretty funny because they actually made some of the people who arrived on the shuttle get back on and off so that they could record it.

Audition Prep Season: Part 3--Essay(s) and Misc.

So this is my third and last post of the series I made to talk about my NYO audition process. If you missed the last two, you can check out Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Before I wrap things up, I just want to say that all of this is my personal opinion and experience, so what I say isn't definitive by any means, nor is it all-inclusive. You can read what I've written to see my take on it, but every single person who made it (and those who didn't make it) had a different experience, so to get a holistic impression of the audition process that I'm describing, you'd have to ask many different people. Alright, let's start the end!
So in the "miscellaneous" portion of the audition process, miscellaneous here referring to anything where I didn't have to perform, there was:
one (1) written essay of 300-500 words
one (1) video essay of undefined length
three (3) recommendations from teachers who know you as a musician as well as an academic student / person in general.
NYO actually only requires you to have two, but I gave them an extra because my out-of-school conductor and my in-school conductor both know me well enough to write me a rec, yet I felt that each one would give a different description of me. And with my private teacher as the other rec, I felt that they would cover most aspects of me as both a musician and as a student. I didn't actually get to see what they wrote about me (do people usually do that? I've never known what people write about me in recs for anything!) partially because I didn't ask and also because recs are sent by the writers directly to DecisionDesk through email. You know how in my first post in this series I talked about how I submitted five days early or so? Yeah, I did that specifically so I could give my recommenders at least a month to write a rec. I wasn't sure when DecisionDesk would send them an email, an hour later or a day later or only when the application window closed, so I did it early just in case.
For my video essay, I talked for about two minutes in response to this question:

Who inspires you musically and why?

I talked about Misty Copeland, and how her story inspires me to achieve things regardless of haters. Course, I didn't actually say "haters." :) I didn't prepare my response ahead of time, I just kinda outlined in my head beforehand what I wanted to say, with a sentence or two that I really wanted to use (because I liked the wording) exactly as scripted. I actually did that for all three of the questions they gave us, and then a day before I picked which answer I had best developed and went with that.
In actually recording the video, I had planned to have a friend do it so that I'd feel more comfortable talking and "my real personality would show," whatever that means, but because the friend who I'd wanted to do the recording couldn't make it, I did it with my dad and my sister (manning the extra camera), which I think made my response a bit more stiff but also more structured. Stylistically, I chose to use the video captured from an angle, as that made it seem a bit more natural than using the one where I looked at the camera straight on. That was a personal choice, and I know lots of people prefer to record head-on, but I think that the angle one seems more like an interview and so is a bit more friendly. Also, as a viewer, I know I find it a tiny bit awkward having to stare at the speaker as s/he stares right back at me, talking, so in case the judges felt the same way, I went with the angled one.
For videos in general, it's definitely not necessary to go out and buy high-tech equipment and go all fancy, as I went with a simple personal hand-held camera, but like an iPhone recording might be a bit too informal. (Personal thought here, please ignore my statement if you disagree!) I mean, I'm sure some of the people who got accepted did their recordings on iPhones and Androids, so it's probably not that big of a factor, but if you're unsure, just go with the higher-quality one. Just to be safe.
Another thing about videos, and just life in general, when you're stating your name to someone/an audience who doesn't know you, just isn't familiar with your name at all, SLOW DOWN. This is a super big problem because everyone is so used to saying their own name that they just go "adamsmith" without stopping and if you have a name like Cindhu Parateeja (made up) and you don't slow down it may sound like "sind ooparatee-ja" for all people know and nobody will actually grasp your name. Same for stating anything that has some sort of name, like city, state, school, etc. This was a problem in my video, which is why I put the captions, it's a problem in nearly every audition video I've come across on Youtube, and it will be a problem in your video if you don't enunciate and pause between words.
I did the video essay in one take, in case you were wondering; I didn't really have enough energy to stress out too much about that video. (Probably because I knew I wasn't going to be assessed on the intonation of my voice or anything.)
And for the very last, yet most important, part, the written essay. So what they gave us to work with for 2015 (I think it's the same for the 2016 season) was as follows:

Approximately 200-300 words that describe your background and musical/educational experience and addresses how participation in NYO-USA would help you achieve personal or artistic goals.

This was really tough for me to write as I found it difficult to incorporate a really brief resume, a brief musical bio, and my interest in NYO all in 200-300 words. In fact, my first draft was I think at least 700 words and it was painful trying to whittle it down word by word, deciding in desperation that maybe I didn't actually need that paragraph there, or this paragraph here, or ANYTHING ANYWHERE GOD WHY IS THIS SO HARD?!? In the end I think I went over by 20-30 words (I don't remember anymore; I might have actually hit 300 exactly) and I just submitted what I had.
I also didn't actually know what they meant by "background" initially; like, do they mean race, or upbringing, or musical education, or academic legitimacy, or what? I just kinda ignored that part and hoped they would infer some sort of response for that from the rest of my essay, which is tbh what I usually do with most of my essays in school :)
So I spent a lot of time writing many drafts, and then picking one and working on that one, right up until the time came for me to submit it. I'm a very indecisive person, so I was deciding on minute things like wording, or placement of the paragraphs, for a long time.
So I submitted that, and with the spoken essay also submitted, my application was complete! *Commence long torturous wait for results* I think the best part of the audition/application process as a whole was preparing the excerpts. I know that seems kinda weird to enjoy, but I really did because it forced me to listen to pieces I never would have otherwise, and in actually practicing them I was able to put my own spin on the pieces, which although of course allowed in the solo piece, was particularly important to me in the excerpts because everyone was going to be playing the same thing, as a standardization technique (like I said before). NYO also picked really nice excerpts themselves so it was pleasant playing the pieces once I finally learned them :D
This year NYO has given us excerpts that they've used before; however because I've never auditioned before, I'm super excited to learn them! So yeah I'm diving straight into those, and polishing my new solo piece, just getting ready in general for the new application cycle for 2016! So I can't wait to see you at one of our concerts, if you can make it, and good luck if you're auditioning for next summer! As always, post any and all questions below, anonymous if you'd like, and stay tuned for more!

Audition Prep Season: Part 2--Solo Piece

So for those of you who have been keeping up with my blog, you know that my last post was about how I went about preparing NYO's given excerpts for the application to the 2015 season. That post started out as a general post about how I prepared for NYO apps in general, but then because I realized it would be waaay too long I broke it into a series of posts, of which this one is (obviously) number 2. So if you missed my last post, check out the sidebar on the right or click here to read the whole thing. (Again, I warn you--it's a lot. I have a bit too much free time--or I'm just really bad at prioritizing.)

Audition Prep Season: Part 1--Excerpts

Because I have almost finished my end-of-year violin recital process (another long and arduous preparation period that honestly could merit its own blog--but alas I lack the time) I get to--no, not rest, are you kidding?! Oh, you were, of course, I knew that. Yes, so now I get to start on new pieces for all the auditions for orchestras and programs in the fall, and competitions in the winter and spring, NYO's 2016 season lying not-so-low among these of course. *If you're a musician and you're crying clap your hands CLAPCLAP* So I thought I'd take the chance today to share with you how I went through the audition process for NYO this past year. Who knows, maybe you'll find something useful out of this basically useless post. Anyways. We continue!