Chile, Febuary 2008

Like the calm before the storm, my first month in Santiago, Chile has been tranquillo, with the engery of lightning about to strike. I have finished a month long spanish course which helped me move on to the tenses that I have diligently ignored and now am furiously trying to digest and prepared me for, what looks like, a very challenging two semesters ahead. I have been living with the Family of Paulina Muñoz, her two daughters Pandi and Karen, and her two sons are in and out, Andres and Christian. I have my own practice room, of which Pandi frequently visits to make fun of me and to try to play my bass, and I live on the third floor of the house with the best view of the sunset.

I have been on a three day trekking trip across the Mountains right out side of Santiago. We summited Provincia Peak on day one, slept in a refugio and summited two more Cumbres the next day, slept in a Huaso (Chilean Cowboy) Camp the next night, and finished off in Cajon del Maipo. The enitre trip we were with in view of El Plomo, a huge peak covered in Glaciers.

I also took a trip with a group of exchange students to La Serena, a town 5 hours north of Santiago. We spent three days there, traveling to Isla Damas and Isla Chorro, where there are Penguins and Dolphins, Lobo del Mar, and white sandy beaches.
I also learned to surf on the beaches of La Serena.

So far it has been very relaxed here as I practice many hours a day and prepare for my entrance into the Conservatory. I have learned alot of spanish and understand more every day. I have made a few close friends and look forward to traveling more. This country has a lot to offer, the distances are just long and the school load is pretty heavy. I have yet to know my schedule, but Patigonia, Torres del Pine, Valle Elqui, Valivia, y mas, are in the back of my mind calling my name. With every break I take from the bass, I try to plan a way to fit in these places. Hasta Pronto.

on the brink of the journey

I sit here in front of the fire praying for a safe flight and a journey to South America that is a simple and easy one. I am thankful for all of those who have helped me to achieve my dreams of travel and adventure. I am thankful for my friend Jade, that she is alive and on dry land, that she just danced with the africans on african soil, and how inspired I am to live like she does, with pure love for her art and life.

I leave for Santiago day after tomorrow. For one month I will live with a family I have never met before. After that, my hopes are to find a group of friends who are of good company to live with. For the first month I will study spanish in a class from 8:30am to 1:30pm, then I will come home and eat lunch with my family and retire to my room to practice until dinner. Then I will hopefully do some exercise and enjoy the summer nights until school starts in March. Then, a full semester of all music classes taught in native chilean tounge. All semester.

The winter starts in June. I will probably not ski till then, but I hope to get to Patagonia before that. In fact, I will have to, because rumor has it that they close its borders for winter. The coast seems amazing, with every region containing completely different natural features. The mountains are huge outside of Santiago, with no trees. This changes as you go south.
My holiday vacation from school has prepared me for this time in my life. I spent two weeks skiing in Southern Colorado with my friends. I was trapped in Matt Moon's house for three days as six feet of snow fell all around us. We skied Colbank Pass outside of Durango in waist deep powder. I sat for hours in hot springs and snowshoed, felt the mountains become buried in immense amounts of moisture. It was true peace. I met the next generation. I met my two youngest friends, Luka Sonam Fowler and Jehrico Carl O'Friel. they will both ski. or snowboard..

Now I look for what I have worked and focused on for so long and accept what I have to leave behind. Like a giant force on nature, like magma, I go to chile, nothing can stop it now.

So many times I have left from my mothers house on tours and to festivals, on trips all over the place. Each time I find a new corner to leave my things where I know they will be when I return. This time, I leave only things I feel are me, no excess. In this exotic place I hope to live simply, and return simply. My dog sesame will grow a year older without too much romping through the mountains, though I hope he gets enough. And my brother and sister will grow one year older as well. We will see who besides my mother will actually visit. And my father, I pray for him, that he stays healthy and active, and doesn't hurt himself in the process.

Feliz Cumpleaños Carlitos!

January 26th

Here it is, the Final Blog of Summer 2007, a little late

This is the final comment I made in Europe to end our summer festival tour. When we arrived back in Italy from Spain, we went straight to Viterbo from Rome, only we took the wrong train. It went to Viterbo, but it took six hours. Any way, my bass never made it from Rome on the bus that the festival sent to get it. It stayed for many days in Rome before Melissa threatened Claudio Ferri, the organizer, and my bass showed up that day, with out its case and in the back of the smallest car I've ever seen, with two guys in it. And claudio looks at me and says: "Va bene, Robin?" little did I know, this was to be the beginning of a very long month.......
For any of you interested, the Festival in Italy is Named "Tusia Opera Fesival." It takes place in Viterbo, Italy. Home of the Pelengrino. I do not recomend the fesival, but the city is nice. I only wrote this one post...

Viterbo Italy, Tuscia Opera Festival.

Hi all, I have to apologize to all of you for not writing more this past month as Melissa and I have been in Viterbo, Italy. The truth is that we have had one of the most challenging times of our musical careers here. This festival has tested our professionalism and tact far beyond the limits I have ever experienced. I made the decision early on not to write a daily blog because I believed then, and have felt even stronger since, that it would have been counter productive and would have given all of you a very negative view of our experience here in Italy. My daily journals would have portrayed a feeling of betrayal by the festival from the moment we arrived to the present (as I sit in our hotel room waiting for the night to pass so we can board our bus to Rome and catch our plane home). Without going into extensive nagging details, our original contracts were only honored when we strongly stood up for ourselves, and were constantly treated like unwanted step children. The organizers of this festival wore their priorities on their sleeves, as they drove their fancy Mercedes Benz’s while the musicians were made to walk close to 4 miles a day with their instruments to sit through five hour rehearsals, some lasting until 2am. Ben Willow and I have hauled our basses on our shoulders for close to a hundred miles in this month. When we asked for help, we were asked why we were not wearing the correct clothes and then lied to about the availability of transportation. I shortly solved this problem by befriending the driver of the “equipment van” who had to smuggle us out of the venue every night with our instruments so the staff wouldn’t know. I have to say that I am confused as to the level of neglect that we have been treated with, especially from a festival which not only encourages students to participate, but also charges them money to come. Those of us who were on scholarship had the terms of our scholarship changed at one point or another and had to stand up for ourselves.
Musically, I have grown so much since the last time I played this festival (summer 2005) that the first time I may have not been aware of the injustices as clearly, or the division of musician/administrator as they were so crystal clear to all of us this time. Maybe things were different last time. Musically, I played on the same level as the orchestra, if not above, and I used this time to reinforce all of my lessons learned in Canada and improve while playing a lot of music with little or no preparation. I will not return again.





A list of things we played while we were here: Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony, Mozart Piano Concerto #21, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Mozart’s Exultante Jubulie, Mozart’s Mariage of Figaro, Donezetti’s Elixure of Love, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and a midnight performance of the Symphonie Concertante for Double Bass and Viola (performed by the rebellious UNM string and oboe ensemble including two horn players from NY.)

Viterbo Notte Bianca 2007 - Carmina Burana

The video originally posted in this post has strangely disappeared of of youtube. too bad, it was great video of us rocking out to Carl Orff. This was a smash hit in the square in front of the main church in town. we played many concerts here. this night was a huge party in viterbo, the notte bianca, or white night. they had "spectaculos" on every corner and in every plaza. it was a high point for sure. there is a pope burried in the plaza below the orchesta, and carmina burana is an orchestration of the songs of the renagade monks who had been excomunicated from the church for partying to much!

Valencia

After Granada, Robin and I took the overnight train to Valencia (where the amercia's cup just took place!). Upon arrival at 5am, we waited unitll 9am for the oboist Juan Ferriol to pick us up. Juan snuck up on us at a moment when Robin was using my oboe for a pillow in the train station and asked Robin: "why don't you use her?" pointing to Mel. Juan brought us to the location where a music festival was happening, a small elementary school just for music. I got to participate in Juan’s day long masterclasses, complete with an at least 2 hour lunch with Juan and the other oboists (all from spain!). We learned that in Valencia, the language is Valencian and not Spanish. Therefore, there were three languages going on all day (English, Spanish and Valencian.) Juan was a wonderful host, and reminded me very much of my oboe teacher Kevin. At the end of the day, Juan drove us back to the airport for our flight to Rome, concluding our week in Spain.

Madrid/Granada

On the Morning of Friday July 6th, we arrived in Mardird by train. This was the largest city we would visti in spain. We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of Salmon and cheese, and then toured El Prado for hours upon hours. Seeing every painting in the place. Then we ventured over to the botanical gardens where we spent the rest of our day finding all kinds of plants from around the world including New Mexico. In fact, it seems that the only plants they have from the US are from NM.
That night we jumped on our train to Granada. We it was a great ride as we were in First Class drinking wine and eating all the way. Mel and I witnessed a heated argument between two passengers about luggage that soon turned intto a philisophical discusion about luggage etiquette. The latins are so funny. When we arrived in Granada, Joaquin was of course over a half an hour late. We stayed with him the first night we were there, in a great apartment looking up at the Alhambra. I can see why he loves it so much there. Hippies and gypsies everywhere. The next day we toured the Alhambra, seeing the ancient gardens that I have heard so much about. I could see Carl and Joaquin playing in the Gardens and sneeking around at night finding old hidden secrets. That night I hung with Joaquin in the gypsy caves, meeting some of his flamenco friends and playing a little bit. The next day I took mel back there and she impressed them all with her oboe skills! Joaquin is doing great there, getting ready for a flamenco competition and living the life. I would love to return there some day.

Santander/Austurias

We arrived this morning in Santander, Spain (7/4) after a great ride on RyanAir, europes cheapest airline (more like a cattle shipping buisness). When the plane landed everyone applauded in amazement that the plane actually made it. Santander is a beautiful city on the coast of Northern Spain. We took a boat ride and enjoyed our day walking around the small metropolitan area waiting for our train to Gijon. It was an overnight ride and we got our first taste of sleeping on the train. Both being jetlagged, sleeping was no problem for the most part. We arrived in Gijon in the morning and ate breakfast and walked on the beach before getting on another train to Aviles, just a 1/2 hour ride inland. The mountains here are amazing and the town of Aviles is very old. We met the Bass Professor (Andrey Feygin) of the Univeristy of Oviedo here and I had a 2 hour lesson with him. I played Koussavisky's Concerto for him and seeing as though he is Russian he had some interesting things to say. He is a good player, though doesn't quite stand up to the amazing teachers I am used to. I learned that Austurias would be a great place for a begining professional, but not the best for study. After a good lunch we parted for Oviedo and spent some hours exploring. We both liked the town very much. Tonight we are sleeping on the train to Madrid.

A Day in Rome

Hi all, we have arrived in Roma. My bass made it fine through the trans-atlantic flight and melissa has been introduced to the latin passion for Argument, as just about every journey we have enbarked on thus far we have witnessed a heated disscusion between the locals. We arrived in the airport and scared off 5 taxi's before one would dare to put my bass in. We then drove into Roma and dropped my bass off at the Hotel, where the festival will pick it up and take it to Viterbo while we are in Spain. We leave tomorrow for Spain (7/4/07) and tonight we toured a little of Roma, eating by the Fontana di Trevi and spending some time walking around the Vatican. We got lost in the streets and passed through some midnight street markets and movie filming before passing by the Castello di Saint Angelo.

Albuquerque, for 11 hours.

We have arrived in albuquerque where we will stay for 11 hours. My bass has caused minimal problems on this leg, not fitting on the first flight from Powell River-Vancouver and arriving in Vancouver three hours later than us. We arrived in Albuquerque to find our bags are comming in an hour later. As we sit here and watch the rest of our movie, I thought it would be a good time to give some transition thoughts.

The last concert went great, we played Mahler 4th (which Mel played the final English Horn solo for closing the entire symphony beatifully!) and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (Hard Rock!!!!!) SOAP was a challenging experience for both of us and I feel like I have learned so much and it was good to study with Mark Morton again. He is a great player, teacher, and a whole lot of fun.

We now start the hot part of our summer. The director of SOAP told me he heard that it is so hot in Rome that they had to turn off all of the fountains. Joaquin has warned me that spain is hot too. We will fly tomorrow to Rome, meet Marcio at the airport, go in a taxi to the Hotel Dehon (right behind the Vatican) and spend the day there. On tuesday we fly to Santander, Spain, where we take a train to Gijon. I will meet Andrey Feygin there and take an audition. He is the Bass professor at the conservatory there. Then we will take a train to Madrid, hang there for a day. Then to Granada for a few days with Joaquin, and finally to Valencia where mel will meet Juan Ferriol, the oboe professor. All of our nights, except for Granada, will be spent on the trains. So we may smell a little. but no hostels needed! Then we fly back to Rome to meet the group and start our second festival of the summer.

A note on DAD: he is doing fine. Josh and Lana have both visited for a week each and Mom is on her way for a week as well. He has been able to work a few hours at a time and is in high spirits! As for my dog, he is out of jail and loves his monkey.

Mel Sums up Canada

Robin and I just completed our adventure in Powell River. Our final concert yesterday was spectacuar! It is such a thrill to make music with such a good orchestra. Since the last blog entry, we checked into a haunted hotel. I thought that my bug adventure just wasn't scary enough, so we packed up and moved to a hotel where there are dead bodies in the basement, and mafia history haunting the closed off corridors of the third floor. (actually we left our happy campsite because I got sick, but now I'm better.) Powell River is a beautiful place, and it is fun to be outside at 11:30 pm and see the sun still setting!

Melissa

Mel Tales. Part 1.

I woke up in the middle of the night to a loud "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaGGGGGGGGGGGGGUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" I jumped out of my sleeping bag and grabbed Mel, who was sitting up right waving her hands wildly around in front of her. Looking for a bear or drunk canadian out side of our tent, I asked her, "What happened?" Mel has been suffering from a little head cold the last couple of days and had been up blowing her nose every couple hours. She was on her way out of the tent when a GINORMOUS HUGEMOUNGOUS tiny little bug with wings flew into the tent. I went out to find this midnight intruder who was trapped inbetween the tent and the rain canopy. I came face to face with a long legged large moth type creature. Letting him go into the dark canada night, Mel appeared out of the tent and pointed down the the picnic table and "GASP!!!", there was a racoon prowling the perimiter of our campsite. This has been tales from the Mel.

SOAP, Concert #1 and some Sea Kayaking

On Satruday night, we played two concerts of the same material. Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, and Tchiakovisky's 6th Symphony. A huge undertaking, and I played principle bass with Dr. Mark Morton in the Section along with three other fine bass players from Boulder, Colorado. It was amazing to play Beethoven, I have never had so much fun playing a symphony before. The entire night was introduced by the Mayor of Powell River, a rather Fairy Tale Political type, speaking in three languages and wearing a gold sash. Melissa and I retired to the tent after the concert and woke up early the next morning to catch a bus to Lund, BC (maybe 20min North of Powell River). We rented Kayaks there and happened to meet the conductor of our symphony, Aurthor Arnold. He took us out on the bay for a nice three hour tour. We saw Bald Eagles, ducks, crabs, lots of beautiful inlets and rock formations. This place is worthy of some more exploring. Then we returned to our instruments and practiced for our auditons this morning. All for now.

Powell River Peak Front Page: Taking a Bow

Robin Abeles [left] from New Mexico is joining the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific (SOAP) for his second year, while Thomas Mayes from Seattle is returning to Powell River for his third time at the festival. Both musicians play the double bass and are participating in rehearsals throughout the next two weeks, while learning about playing in a symphonic orchestra plus putting on classical music performances.


I can't keep my face out of the news. This is from the Powell River News Paper for the week.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.asp?brd=1998

Thursday

Well, we have survived four days of our Canada adventures thus far. Tonight was a mock audition (a staged "fake" orchestra audition) planned to give us experience in the most grueling part of our profession. To me, auditions are like trying to portray your entire life story in just a few words. And those words must be completely articulated, with exact execution and intention, with no stumbling or restating, while standing on one foot in the rain with someone yelling at you the whole time: "Hey YOU, OVER HERE! NO HERE!!!!!!" And then you have to play. (Mel's audition was accompanied a band rehearsing "Oh Canada" in another room). Both of our auditions went well and comments were positive. My big strength seems to be my enourmous sound. Now if I could only play the right notes with the right dynamic at the right tempo with the right bow stroke and the right style and INTUNE, maybe I could win an orchestra job. Sounds easy no?

So, things to look forward to: Sea Kayaking on sunday, two concerts on Saturday. Its raining right now and we are sleeping in a tent. Our walk home consists of a trail thru the woods and a couple of blocks along the beach. And mel asks, "are you done?" good night.

Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific, Powell River, BC

Hey all, we have finally arrived in Canada. After being turned down at the airport because the bass was too big to fit on the plane, fighting our way onto another plane(with the bass of course), riding a ferry and a bus, we are here. Many thanks to Tanya who helped us out with our crazy airport drama! We are camping on the beach and playing everyday in an orchestra. I auditioned into the principle bass position for the first concert (Beethoven 5, Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, and Tchaikovsky's 6th). Quite a move up for me since I was dead last chair last year at the same festival.(not that seating has anything to do with how much fun I have!) It is a breath of fresh air to be back here again, loving the humidity and beautiful surroundings. Not mention the un-distracted hours of playing. Now that we have an Internet connection, I will post more about the concerts as they happen. Melissa seems to love the place and says here oboe teacher is not bad, yet can hardly stand up the the "coolness" of one Kevin V. Well gotta go practice. Will write more soon.

AND THEY'RE OFF!!!!

"Music is enough for a lifetime; but a lifetime is not enough for music." --Rachmaninov

Christain McBride, a moment of Inspiration

"Nobody's ever going to groove harder playing straight ahead than Ray Brown, no one's going to groove any funkier ever than Bootsy Collins or Larry Graham (Sly & the Family Stone). You start thinking,' Man, what's left?' But if I'm going to make some kind of contribution to the world of music, I have a feeling it's going to be rooted in the groove underneath, from the bottom." -CM

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5328890

Sesame Goes to Jail

In keeping in form with his counterpart blond celebrities, my dog Sesame has landed himself in jail for 10 days. As we all know, Ses has a little biting problem, which got away from him on Saturday as he went after a neighborhood kid and put a nice gash in his leg. Being the responsible dog owner I am, I had let his rabbies vaccination expire by a couple of months. After much consultation with his doggy lawyers, Ses turned himself in to the Eldorado Animal Clinic. He will spend the next ten days smoking and lifting weights and promised to tattoo Melissa's name on his front leg. Upon his release a nice new muzzle will be waiting for him along with a stint at doggy rehab. Live from santa fe, this is robin abeles.