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.