Elgar at the Presbyterian Church

So, oddly enough, the one performance I didn't put up on my myspace is probably my most accomplished...


On one hand, I felt like I could have done much better, and I've come to the conclusion that I need to:

1. Practice arpeggios regularly
2. Come up with strategies for dealing with performance nerves (anyone have any suggestions here)
3. Put something on my case to remind me to tighten my bow, because I think that I've begun *every* major performance I've ever had with my bow too loose (and it really killed the beginning of it...)

So now that the bad's out of the way, it went pretty well overall ... I wish I wasn't up there worrying about stupid technical things when I was performing, but that will come with time ... on a brighter note, people were incredibly enthusiastic about it ... somebody told me that I brought tears to their eye, and a few people commented on the strength of my hands ... the first comment was/is incredibly surreal ... I'm just a kid who plays cello ... the idea that I have that kind of power is weird... In general, I was surprised by the enthusiasm afterwards and the number of people who seemed to be affected by it ... I feel like I need to go practice more and do even better...

I also seem to have lost my rock-stop, which is quite un-encouraging...

The rest of the program was pretty interesting, and a lot of the music was incredibly cool .. the one that sticks out most in my mind is The Blue Bird by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (it was a program of all-English music) ... also impressive was Madeleine Slade (Richard Slade's daughter - he conducted it) singing a couple of solos - very impressive, b/c I think she's just in middle school or something of that nature ... cool to see that the musical talent continues in the family

I also ran into Kathy Weigand, who apparently sings with the group (the Sound Shore Chorale) - what doesn't she do??? ... was very cool (also ran into her at Danny Gray's recital), as she conducted the very first musical I ever played cello in ... she also mentioned maybe playing at Iona sometime ...that would be quite cool ... also ran into Natalie, which was cool ... wish I could play with the NRHS orchestra on wednesday :( ... I'm going to see Dream Theater though.

Diane Guernsey (the accompanist) mentioned maybe working on some more music together, so I'm gonna try and get the Beethoven Op. 69 sonata into shape and maybe work with her on that (and on some of Bach's Gamba Sonatas!!)

Very exciting! And incredibly special since this was my first solo performance in my hometown (New Rochelle)

All in all very exciting ... now time to clean and practice!