Check it out! This is a highlights reel of my November performance with the Metropolitan Orchestra of St Louis. I’m still pinching myself how much fun it was to play, and I only wish I could do it again. I’d be delighted if you took a few minutes (up to ten, actually) and watched the video. Many thanks to Wendy Lea for putting this together and making it ALL happen.

It was a real career highlight–hopefully the rest of my career isn’t downhill from here.

Can you tell how over excited I am? And my dress…I felt like a million bucks.

Some action shots!

I had a bit of trouble with my hair but I guess it looks cool…

And I was just SO happy to be done, but particularly happy that the performance went really well. I’m still just so thrilled about all of it, especially all the people that helped make it a night to remember. (Thanks to Wendy and all the members of the orchestra, and to Louie for putting up with me being so stressed out…)

I made it! I made it through several weeks of craziness, and I had a fantastic concert!

I worked hard, I spent months and months learning and perfecting the piece I was to perform, and the work paid off. I felt that the concert was one of my best performances ever, and that I was very happy with how it went.

Me and Wendy Lea, conductor. I’m so glad she gave me this opportunity and had a blast working with her!

I want to play the piece again! I felt like so much of my violin playing until now was just leading up to me learning and performing Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons! And I want to wear that dress again…it was amazingly flattering!

My parents came out to see it, several friends and quite a few students did too. It was really a blast, even though it was also very stressful and I know that I had a hard time dealing with the stress leading up to it. I couldn’t have done this nearly as well without Louie’s support, and I’m so grateful for him.

But now it’s DONE and it went great, and I’m happy, and there will be a video and more photos, and now…now what? What’s the next big thing?

Right now, it’s just a few days getting back into the normal life, and getting ready for a Perseid Quartet concert next weekend, and going to visit April in Atlanta this weekend. And being more relaxed. The next few months (until Christmas) are still very busy, but the stress level is WAY down.

And yay for many of the election results last night. Perhaps our country can turn some things around. Perhaps we aren’t too far gone. Perhaps all the hard work people have put in will pay off even more.

Other photos from the past few weeks:

We went on the radio with Jim Doyle to promote our concert. Mostly we talked about my love of the color purple…

Playing with the Illinois Symphony. I’ve learned and relearned quite a lot between playing in a quartet, in an orchestra, doing some improv in a group, and playing as a soloist with an orchestra, all in the past 30 days! Each group requires different skills, different sound, different WAYS to play the violin, and I’m so glad I’ve been saying yes so much! (I say this TODAY, since I had the morning off to run errands and all the stress is currently behind me or in the distant future…) In any case, I didn’t realize how much I missed playing in orchestra, and I’m glad I signed on for a few concerts this year. I always have a lot of teacher guilt when I have to miss or reschedule lessons, but I have to admit: performing is my first love. And more performing makes me a better teacher, and a happier person.

I want to do some more things now: I want to blog more, I want to get back to running (I’ve taken two weeks off, and now I’m taking a little more time off because I had to get a weird thing removed from the back of my leg, but I should be good early next week), I want to focus on some broader technique ideas on the violin in order to help my students more, and I’m thinking of doing 100 days of practice on the viola when I finish up my current challenge. (Follow me on Instagram!) I’m not making it 100 days in a row, but I’m allowing for travel in between—I took off for our Smoky Mountain trip, for a day when I cut my thumb, and I’ll miss this weekend because I’m not bringing my fiddle with me, but it’s been a great challenge nonetheless. I keep meaning to work on the viola more (I’m technically the viola instructor at one of the colleges I teach at) and I think the 100 days challenge will be a fun way to push myself. It’ll be harder because I won’t be bringing the viola with me as much, but it doesn’t require much time, only consistency.

I also want to reconnect with friends that I’ve left behind over the past few months. It’s been a hard fall! And I want to get back into more involvement with the resistance movement. I’ve been too busy and too stressed to show up.

Who am I kidding, it’s not over yet. Atlanta, quartet concert, lots of gigs, lots of teaching, recitals, juries…I don’t suddenly have loads of time. But this is the life I’ve chosen, and I’ve realized over the past few weeks, this is the life I want! At least a lot of the aspects of it

I thought I’d pop in and say a quick hello! I won’t even look to see how long it’s been because it doesn’t matter, nobody reads this except my mom anyway. BUT I still like having a blog.

What have I been up to? Practicing, rehearsing, teaching, stressing out, running…there’s been more going on this fall than ever since I moved to St Louis 9 years ago! I haven’t had a day off since September 11 and won’t until November 11, but I am nearer the end than the beginning and I will make it.

In the immediate past: two weekends ago I had a variety of concerts with my friend Amy, playing in our violin-viola duo called Duo Sirena. My students also participated in a fun event called the Arch Cup and a few of them got to bring home trophies for superior plus performances.

I’ve now had two rehearsals for my upcoming performance of Piazzolla’s Four Seasons with the Metropolitan Orchestra of St Louis. They both went really well. I’m having so much fun playing with the group, even though this has been an incredibly stressful opportunity! Last night was the second rehearsal and I recorded the whole thing. I haven’t had a chance to listen to more than a few minutes of it, but I will do so today.

Over the past weekend I played a wedding at the Four Seasons. This is mostly interesting because later than night Katy Perry crashed a wedding party at the Four Seasons, and it was the one that I’d played the ceremony for earlier! But I was at Jazz at the Bistro enjoying a nice show of the Harold Lopez-Nussa trio.

That night Louie did the four times rescheduled Moonlight Ramble but I had committed to running the Go Halloween 10k in the morning so I did that instead. I was so slow but I finished! I have been trying to run 3 times a week for the past several months and I’ve kept it up. My next plan to try to run faster, hah! And the race was nice—I’d been concerned by the forecast which was…storms and rain, but it mostly only drizzled on us, which was pleasant in the temperatures we had that day.

So this week is flying by, as things tend to do when one is completely busy all the time. I did have during the day off on Monday since it’s Lindenwood fall break and I was able to go dress shopping for the concert. Tonight starts the Illinois Symphony rehearsals—I haven’t played in a full orchestra in YEARS and I’ve missed it, and apparently I’ve missed it enough to drive 3 hours round trip several days in a row (and one day nearly 6 hours), but I’m looking forward to it. Friday morning I’ll be on the radio (107.3 Radio Arts Foundation) with the conductor of the MOSL, Wendy, talking about our concert, and then the weekend will be another wedding, ISO concerts, rehearsal for a show with Third Millennium World’s Fair (violin, clarinet, guitar, and didgeridoo) on Halloween. We also have a quartet performance next Friday. Yes, I’ve taken on too much! But I’m making it through, with lots of scheduling, careful planning, waking up in the middle of the night stressed out, and COFFEE.

I’d better get back to it! Have a wonderful week, blog readers, and don’t worry, I’ve got this. Mostly.

Sometimes I worry I go overboard trying to make concerts happen. But I love playing, and in today’s freelance world, you gotta be your own manager, booker, agent, etc. So that means working hard to book concerts, promoting them, not making much money, but having a great time while tearing your hair out with stress. Oh, and somewhere in there, you practice and rehearse in the midst of it all. Beats working 9-5 in a dark cubicle somewhere, or at least, that’s what I tell myself.

We had our last quartet concert of the season the other week. My friend April (who has since moved away, NOOOOOOOOO) took some pictures of me. Evidently I play despite having a broken neck.

We had a nice crowd and enjoyed the concert immensely. I attempted to bake a gluten free treat (Eliana, our violist, can’t eat gluten) and it was somewhat tasty even though it fell apart. I guess gluten free baking is HARD. After the show a few of us went to Schlafly Bottleworks for more food than we had at the reception. It was a nice night!

(We played Haydn “Joke” Quartet and Ravel’s Quartet.)

(I had a really hard time typing the quotations. Not sure what that means.)

Anyway, then Louie and I headed out of town camping. I think I’ll focus today’s blog post on concerts though, since I hear blog posts should have topics. Today’s topic: how I look when playing. (Spoiler alert, great hair, weird neck angles.)

Louie took some pictures of Amy and I rehearsing for tonight’s House Concert. (If you look carefully you can see him as well. )This I also where I teach, so there’s a small keyboard, a dog, and off to the side, more music than anyone should own, all as disorganized as possible after a few years of working nonstop, or at least, a few years of working OR being out of town getting attacked by bears in Colorado. I plan to try to organize my music a bit this summer—it’s past time, and the house needs help too.

Help.

Anyway! After tonight’s concert, I have no serious chamber music concerts on the schedule for months. There’s a few more on my flute trio’s retirement community series, but those are repeats. We’re recording saxophone and string quartet music, but the concert isn’t on the calendar, so I can say what I said. I plan to relax more, organize, and spend some quality time with Piazzolla’s the Four Seasons for November’s performance. I also plan to work out more often, ride my bike more, and try to actually relax. I’d love to be able to sleep past 8 am as well. It’s been a stressful year, but there isn’t much I’d change, so that either means I’m a sucker for punishment or I’m doing okay! Or that I’ve forgotten what happiness is? (Just kidding, I’m mostly thinking of our political situation.) I also have a list of grand ideas, such as starting a chamber music series, but I’m probably too tired and busy for that. Aren’t we all? Are you even still reading this post?