Bach Double, Opera, and Choir

Well, well, well.

So much to say.

The orchestra concert went pretty well. It was great to see my family yet again, and they were wonderful and helped me find and buy a dress, which my Mom then helped fix up to be just perfect. So I played the Bach Double and quite a few people came and it was fun. Some of the best compliments I received were actually directed at FavoriteBoy: "Your woman was really tearin' it up." "Your woman can sure play the violin." "Your woman is a lean, mean, violin-ating machine!"

That weekend I also saw Opera Scenes here at Gordon, which were marvelous. The scene from Il Barbiere di Siviglia was absolutely fantastic; I laughed, I cried... it moved me. (Okay, minus the crying part.) Zauberflote was funny too, and The Mother of Us All was weird but rather hilarious. Patience was humorous, Albert Herring was funny, The Pilgrim's Progress was beautiful (and the Three Shining Ones were amazing and gorgeous and everything wonderful), and all the scenes were well done.

Speaking of the Shining Ones, Irene Idicheria is amazing, and I like her a lot. A few nights before juries she came into the recital hall while Nathan and I were there and asked if she could run through a song or two. Nathan ended up playing for her for a while, and she can sound SO good. It's like the voice of an angel. A big, black, manly angel. (Not that Irene is big or black, but that her voice sounds like the stereotypical big black lady voice. Not that she is manly either, but that she makes me understand what Brooks means when he says, "I want my men to sound like men, and I want my women to sound like...men.") At one point when she was singing it made me cry, and I'm not sure I've ever heard a singer who made me feel quite that way before.

Speaking of singing, I had my choir audition and it went something like this:

Prof. Brooks: sing
Sarah: I've been sick for a while and lost my voice, and my talking voice is back but I still can't really sing.
Prof. Brooks: sing a note
Sarah: "la" *grin*
Prof. Brooks: Amazing. The subtlety and nuance astounds me. Your musicality is wonderful. Want to sing first alto again?
Sarah: Sure. But actually I don't really know yet if I can do choir again next year, but I wanted to audition in case.
Prof. Brooks: why couldn't you?
Sarah: Well, Mr. B. and Dr. O. think it takes a lot of time, and they want me to prioritize better.
Prof. Brooks: Priorities, sure. I understand. Well, if Nathan's not a priority... if you don't want to be with Nathan... if you don't want to go to Italy on tour with Nathan... I understand...
Sarah: *laughing* I know... but they don't see it that way. But, well, okay.

and that was about it.

In other news, it rained and was amazingly blustery for a few days, I wrote a paper on Intelligent Design and did really well on it, I had to conduct Symphonic Band in part of a rehearsal and one of the clarinetists was really mean and nasty (not a student here, but a community member), my family is awesome, my apartment is awesome some of the time, packing is going to be a huge hassle, I went to the BSO with FavoriteBoy and it was amazing and all kinds of fun, I am arranging How Great Thou Art for band, Instrumental Methods is finally over, Writing and Rhetoric is practically over too, Holland is super cool and I'm sad that she's leaving us, and Cara is also super cool and I'm excited to be living with her next year. I think that pretty much covers everything.