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.
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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!