Ooh boy, this has been a week. Winter Opera is in full swing with Carmen (rehearsals are finally DONE) and I’ll tell, opera is physically taxing. I find I am unable to do any other real practicing during opera weeks, so that I’m both busier and oddly less busy.

The weather got chilly again, even though today it is quite clear and sunny. Very nice day for a run! I don’t know how to feel about the weather. The warmer winter has been really nice, but then I worry about what it means for the world, and I also worry about the summer and the bugs. Sigh. No way to win, right?

New thing for me: I went with a group to meet with a member of my Senator’s staff yesterday to express our concerns about various things. It was really interesting. I didn’t feel I had a whole lot to offer, but I felt I learned quite a bit, both about how the Senator’s office works, but also just generally about how meetings work and how other people do things. Music can be such a lonely and insulating world and it’s good to get out of it sometimes and see how other people function. That’s an obvious statement, I think, but it’s important. Very often musicians want to live in their own world and pretend that how things are done there is how everything is done, and the fact is: sometimes it’s nice to not worry about music or who’s hiring who or who’s got what thing going on, and worry about the state of our democracy and meet some other people who are also worried. So it’s really all the same, but it’s different.

That probably didn’t make a whole lot of sense…but I don’t know how to clarify! Just that basically, I’m glad I’m doing what I’m doing, both with music and with being politically active.  And that those worlds are separate, but I guess people are all the same.

There’s a lot going on this month. There aren’t too many performances after the opera, but April is FULL of stuff and that means this is the month to learn and rehearse. I’ve got several quartet performances, ranging from a Good Friday service to a day working with student composers…a solo performance to prepare for, several other Holy Week performances, Metro Orchestra of St Louis concert and Music Club Federation Festival (same weekend!)…there’s a lot going on. I’m taking a short spring break for myself—Louie and I talked about traveling, but it worked out that he is going to visit his day on his own because I didn’t want to miss too much teaching. Basically between now and mid-May, things are in full swing other than that short break, and so far it’s all under control. I need to get a bow rehair and change my strings after this weekend though!

So there you have it, a very boring blog entry.

I’m daydreaming about more fun activities…do you ever feel like work just overshadows everything else? Sure, I love playing the violin but doing it for a living is a lot of work! Yes, I do work. It’s work, even when I enjoy it