Joshua Bell

Yesterday, Tuesday, May 19th, I had the wonderful opportunity of listening to Joshua Bell with the Oregon Symphony in the Smith auditorium (at Willamette). He was playing the Mendelssohn violin concerto in E minor (the concerto I played a couple of weeks ago...obviously not the same though, haha). I was amazed at how seamless and easy he made it seem. Obviously, the concerto is not a walk in the park, but I think that his innate ability to make beautiful music come out of his instrument (18th century strad) is what truly draws so many people to him and his music (he sold out the house in Salem. in SALEM! nothing ever gets sold out in salem, OR!). The concerto seemed perfect and I am so happy that I was able to witness his work of art that night. The picture below (compliments to Evan) is of Joshua playing his encore variation of a children's tune, which was truly mind-blowing. 

STATE CHAMPS

A long time ago, in a land far, far away...

The Sprague Camerata Orchestra was struggling to survive. After being under the direction of Mr. Nelson for so long, the students had a hard time accepting any other ideas or ways of teaching. As a freshman, I never really understood this, and now feel terrible for the things that the Sprague Camerata imposed upon the new director. Ultimately, the new director of the year 06-07 was forced to resign at the end of the semester. This is something that I truly regret, but it happened (due to many malicious letters and groups of students/parents). We then began a conductor-hot-potato if you will. By the end of the year we had had 3 directors. The next year (07-08) the Sprague Camerata welcomed a new conductor from the Oregon Symphony. Unfortunately, this conductor also left at the end of the year. At this point, the Sprague Camerata has switched many different conductors and (although we still sounded good) had never been able to corral a 1st place back to Sprague.

All of this changed this year. Sprague Camerata 08-09.

We finally met a stable conductor who is here to stay (hopefully). Last year, the orchestra lost a significant amount of seniors to a point that many people did not believe that we would ever sound as good again. Well, it happened. The group came together and gave one of the best performances I've ever been apart of. It was an amazing feeling to finally climb back to the top and to get a (my first) state championship at the OSAA Orchestra State Championships at OSU. More than the first place, I really just appreciate the amazing connection that the Camerata has. It's a lot of fun to make music with all of my good friends.

P.S. I made it in the paper. Except I look kind of scary? I don't know. Concentration, maybe?

Update

I'm currently blogging from my very own, new (handed-down from Tom) PowerBook. 

I'm currently reading The Old Man and the Sea (thanks Ernest).

I'm currently waiting for Andrew and Jenny to come over for our chemistry marathon.

I'm currently eating asian pears.

I'm currently super excited for the State Orchestra Competition this Friday (expect a post).

And the Lakers are up 3-2 against the Rockets. One more game (hopefully) in Houston tomorrow.

APUSH

APUSH: a seemingly harmless acronym for something quite terrible and frightening.

As many of you know (everytime I write "many" or address an audience...I die a little inside because I'm obviously the only one that sees my blog ever. haha. oh well) I've been suffering through a history class all year. AP US History if you will. I hate it. It's not because I have a monotone-y, crap teacher (because the teacher is actually quite engaging and enthusiastic) and it's not because I'm failing. I just can't get myself excited about history. It doesn't interest me, so I never remember things or find them inspiring and historically "breath-taking." So I hate history. On Friday, May 8th, I took the APUSH test at school. 55 minutes of multiple choice questions followed by 2 hours and 10 minutes to write 1 dbq (document based question) and to answer 2 free response questions. I found the multiple choice to be more difficult than the practice tests that I'd done, and the prompt too strange and paradoxical to be able to construct a really coherent essay (Af-Am's gained freedom AND slavery expanded? wtf...). Half way through the free response questions, my aching blister popped. I hated everything to say the least. And now all I have to show for it is this blog, my never-ending hatred of history, and the completion of the AP test (a "be nice to me, i took the APUSH test today" sticker if you will).

I was going to end this entry, but I just couldn't let myself not write about my violin recital.
ON THE SAME DAY!

After the test, I crashed/slept on the couch until it was time to leave for my recital at 7:30. I got there at 7:29...it was great. I played the 2nd and 3rd movements of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor at Hudson Hall. It actually went quite well. I then went home to watch the Lakers beat the Rockets. Atleast the day ended on a good note.

toodles.