It’s cool.  I love teaching for 5 1/2 hours after 4 hours of rehearsal.  My entire body aches.  I feel like I must be 90 years old.

I get to do it all over again tomorrow too!  My violin mark (on my neck) is a disaster and I think there is something seriously wrong with my shoulder.  Or there’s nothing wrong with my shoulder that a few weeks away from the violin (or maybe even days) won’t fix.  I don’t know.  I’ll find out soon.  Ice.  Ice is my friend.

But…Brahms.

Read today’s Chamber Project Blog entry!

(from the blog:)

Finally, our violinist Hannah answers a few questions about the program.

What is your favorite piece on the program and why or what do you love about the piece you are playing? I am torn between the Brahms Clarinet Quintet and the Martinu Duo.  Brahms is one of my absolute favorite composers, but (sorry Dana!) the [Brahms] Violin Sonatas are my first love.  Quintets are tough for a self centered violinist like me, because I have to share the spotlight more than I’d like.  Seriously though, the piece is absolutely genius, but I almost more prefer listening than playing (and yes, it’s been on in my car for the past several weeks!).  The Martinu on the other hand is so much fun to play.  I’ve already performed it in March with Laura, and I’m really looking forward to playing it again.

What is the most challenging aspect of this program?  Well, playing Brahms well is a weakness of mine.  Perhaps it’s a weakness for everyone…when he writes sotto voce I always freak out because I feel like a gorgeous soft sound is just hard to do.  I’m much better at loud and bombastic!  The other really challenging thing is this one run of octaves in the last movement of the Martinu.  It’s one of the most difficult technical passages I’ve had to play in a long time, and it happens twice.  I’ve been practicing it every day, but it just never sounds the way it should.  (Octaves, meaning two of the same notes, but one higher and one lower, and I have to use my first finger and my pinky finger while playing on two different strings and I have to move or shift my hand for EACH note.  Fast.)

Is there a ‘magical moment’ for you in this music? You’ll just have to watch my face to see.  There’s a place in the Hayden when the saxophone enters and it just cracks me up, the effect is so cool. Brahms is full of magical moments, though I have a couple favorites, like I said, watch my face and you’ll know…and I love the second movement of the Martinu–it’s so dark and icy, and reminds me a lot of some of my favorite Shostakovich Symphonies.

Read more here!

Look at the picture.  The far left corner.  Yes, that’s our lunch.  Jimmy John’s and a Diet Coke.

Oh, and there’s a lot of blog entries going around about life in the orchestral world and such.  This is mainly in light of the mess the Louisville Orchestra is in right now.  I wrote a lovely post around a year ago that you should read if you haven’t (alert, shameless self-promotion ahead!)

Orchestra auditions for non-musicians.

It’s a tough world out there, readers.  I can’t actually afford to live on the salary I make working my butt off.  Or at least, as my parents put it, in the manner to which I am accustomed.  I feel like I’m constantly underwater, failing my students, just barely getting by, but yet if I had more students to make more money…I’d just be doing worse.  And it’s not like these concerts are paying the bills.

They could be though.  Did you know that Chamber Project St Louis is a non-profit?  You can make a tax deductible contribution to us!  I’d recommend you do so, and if you do you get your name in the program, plus I will totally pretend to be your friend 😉

Okay, I made that last part up.  (Don’t worry!  I won’t pretend to be your friend.)  But if you are looking to support your local arts community you couldn’t find a better way.  We give a variety of concerts throughout the year, many free, most are very inexpensive, and do our best to educate and entertain our audiences.  If you are seriously interested go to the website and read up on it.  The other members aren’t as crazy as I am either.

Let me just quote from last year’s blog post:

You won’t love what you do most days, but sometimes you will love it so much that all the pain and suffering is worthwhile.

And then just for fun…

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” –J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

(I’m aware that April is the cruelest month for me…please don’t call in the men in white jackets.  I’m simply worn out.  June is just around the corner.)

How do I write about Titanic?  Very few movies and books have a significant impact on my life (I’m looking at you, Ender’s Game, and LOTR).

Remember when Avatar came out the other year?  I was reading an article in Entertainment Weekly, an interview with James Cameron, and he was asked, what if Avatar passed Titanic to become the highest grossing film of all time?  He said, well, I’ll just rerelease Titanic.   My heart stopped briefly.

And then last year.  I was driving, and I heard on the radio that it was happening.  They were rereleasing Titanic.  In 3D.  Which, honestly, I didn’t care about at all.  Up until the other day, I hadn’t seen a 3D movie, nor did I have a real desire to see one.

And if you are a follower of mine on twitter you’ll know that I rarely tweet in all caps.  Rarely.

Let me back up.  Titanic came out in 1997, in December.  This would have been my junior year in college.  I lived in a lovely apartment with 4 other people near my school.  I didn’t see Titanic until after Christmas break.  And then over a period of several months, I saw it 11 times.  I don’t remember specific details, for instance, did I ever see it twice in one day? More than once in a weekend?  I remember I went with my friend Scott most of the times, but not every time.  Not only did we see Titanic, we became experts at the history of the Titanic disaster.  We even went to the library and looked at microfilm of the newspapers around the time of the disaster.  We read books.  I listened to the soundtrack at night to fall asleep to.  I lived, breathed, and slept Titanic.  I don’t know how I managed to do anything else!  That movie is LONG.  And then I got  a bootleg copy on video, so then it was game over.  I basically have the entire movie memorized (please don’t judge me.)

11 times in the theater, and then who knows how many on video, DVD, and on Television?  Dozens more?  Hundreds?

And how am I no longer in touch with some of my friends from this time?  It’s a real shame facebook didn’t exist back in my college days.  Can you believe people used to lose touch, before email, cell phones, facebook, and twitter?

My sister Leslie has seen Titanic a couple or three times as well.  In fact, we quote Titanic more often than one might even realize—many of the words and phrases in our vernacular are indeed, from Titanic.  Either actual quotes, or quotes we made up. (many Airplane quotes fit into Titanic.)

So.  Last week as you know I was visiting my family and playing a concert in South Carolina.  And I stayed a day longer just to hang out.  A day, that just happened to be the day that Titanic came out in theaters.

I hate crowds.  I was worried there’d be crowds.  So we went to the 11:30 am show.  My father pointed out that some people do actually work during the day (no one in our house at that time) so it shouldn’t be busy.  We bought tickets in advance, just in case (it was an hour drive to the movie theater, and I figured I’d be too stressed out otherwise)…and that’s when I started getting, shall we say…

REALLY EXCITED

Like, I don’t get excited about stuff that often.  I am a bitter, cynical, jaded, optimist.  How does that work?  Well, basically it means I expect that stuff will work out and be fine in the end, but that getting there will be kind of a pain and not really go the way I want it to and nothing will be quite as fun or exciting as I thought it might be.  You know, I’m a typical adult.

But I was ready to go back to Titanic. 

And it did not disappoint. Oh, Kate and Leo.  You are both so beautiful.  And young.  When did we stop being young?

From the moment the movie actually started (after those awful awful previews)…I was completely engrossed.  I’ve seen the movie dozens (hundreds?) on times on my television since 1998…but really, nothing compares to the big screen.  What a wonderful movie.

Who wants to go see it again?

And yes, you’re welcome James Cameron.  I have helped you become a very wealthy man.