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| HMMMM @ 2007 Texas All State.
There are so many negative things I could say, so many things I could
bitch about, so many people I could make fun of, and the truth
is...none of it really matters. I used to use this thing to vent about
stuff/people I was mad at/about, but then I discovered MySpace
bulletins (just kidding).
Ok well, I stressed about the audition process so much this year. I
felt so much pressure to just...get first, and I didn't feel like the
thought was unwarranted because I worked my ass off on the excerpts
this year...better yet I'll just go in chronological order:
Starting out on Valentine's Day kinda sucked. I woke up and realized I
had to avoid sugar to keep away nerves later that afternoon. I turned
down one of KateFace's beautiful cupcakes.
Ok so the ride to San Antonio was only meh; I slept in awkward
positions the entire time. There was a really flambouyant AZN kid from
Bellaire in front of me; he and this other girl from Bellaire didn't
stop talking about GPA for the entire ride. Also...there were 3 people
on our bus who had received perfect scores on the SAT- all from
Bellaire.
We got to San Antonio fairly quickly; once we got off the bus, I rushed
Jimmy and Diondre to put up their stuff so we could hurry to
registration. It didn't make that much of a difference because Jimmy
and I were in like roughly about 45 minutes. Jimmy and Diondre went
back to the room, and I went over to the Rivercenter mall to get a
quick bite to eat.
So I walk in to the mall, and I hear all this shouting. At first
assumption I thought it was choir kids from PVA, but then I went down
the escalator and saw that the PVA choir kids were staring in one
direction; actually, everyone in the food court was staring one
direction. So I walk towards Le Petit Bistro, and I all of a sudden see
this black girl and this Mexican girl on the verge of a nasty cat
fight. One security was trying to separate them, but she wasn't enough.
I walked all the way around the situation, as they were right in front
of Le Petit Bistro. I walk up the counter as if nothing is happening
behind me, but the clerk is too mesmerized by the drama occuring behind
me. Eventually, they stopped after about 4 security guards separated
them, but I was really irritated because I just wanted to buy my food
and leave. *I hate San Antonio.
Got my food, went back to my room, and sat down. Jimmy was intent on practicing Mackey for the next 3 hours.
: [
After I finished my food, I worked on my excerpts for a while, and then
I just ran through them all. Earlier I had talked to Sam who had told
me the cuts this year were going to be weird; he had found this out
through Elias who had to tape his audition because his performance on
"From the Top" would be during the audition. I didn't worry too much
about it; I mean this was all-state where the judges are supposed to be
more intelligent.
Kate called telling me her cork was falling off, so I met her in the
convention center about 30 minutes before our audition was going to
start. I just put some Scotch tape around it for the time being, and as
soon as I finished that, the meeting let out. We both headed towards
the audition room, but on the way I texted Isadore to bring his
clarinet to Kate just to be safe. Got to the room; sat down with Kate
and Sam. People were practicing and showing off as usual. Andrew from
Clear Creek (I guess?) noticed Sam and I and came up to us (ahhh at
good band camp times). Turned out that Sam and I were in the same room.
Julie Yun, Kevin Collins, and Eric Williams were also in that room.
The cuts were only given at the start of every room, but after the
first room, everyone knew where the other cuts were from listening to
the rooms on surrounding sides; that was kind of funny. My first Medea
cut was shaky; I knew it would be my weakest, so I tried to make up for
it with all the rest of my cuts.
Cut to the point, I don't know what the hell happened with the chairs.
Kevin Collins ended up in concert band, and he played waaay waaaay
better than that. Jimmy got 34th (the exact same chair as last year),
and I'm sure he played better than that. I ended up 10th, and although
that chair is decent, I
felt numb and royally screwed. Eric got like 4th or 5th and decided to
take first chair in Symphonic band; for some reason I was relieved
about that because I didn't know who the hell the kid was that got 9th.
After they finished passing out folders, Kate gave me a really
comforting hug, and I congratulated her because she did really really
really well at 8th.
I headed back to my room, and after a little bit visited the Hilton to
talk to Evans about results for the winds; Lizzy got into Symphony
which was badass because she barely worked on her cuts. When I got back
to the hotel room with Jimmy and Diondre, I just laid down on the floor
and tried to go to sleep, but the truth is...I didn't sleep very much
Wednesday night. I was mad about the results the entire night, but when
I got up Thursday morning I guess I had finally come to terms with
reality. Had a sectional downstairs with the lady from A&M
Kingsville; she was really nice, but not very helpful in general.
When that was over, I went took a while to pack up, and then I ran into
Dr. Shanley and Ms. Shanley. He congratulated me, and then basically
asked what happened at the audition. I told him what cuts they picked,
and he was confused by the whole thing. Then he told me some pretty
nice things including his thoughts on the results and what his
predictions and other people's predictions were, and then it made me
feel really good even though none of that was what really occured the
night before.
I went in and started practicing before the first full rehearsal, and
then Livingston walked in and started playing piano. After a while, he
looked up at me, and then realized...I was me. And he got up and gave
me a hug. He asked me how I was doing; he asked me how my parents were
doing. I told him, "well," and he was really happy. Hah, I guess just
check my entries from January-April 2005, and you'll figure out the
story behind all of this.
In general all of the rehearsals were really fun, and Livingston never gave us a dull moment.
Outside of rehearsals, I have to say this was the most uneventful TMEA
for me. The first TMEA without Ryan Morani proved to be a lame one for
Jared Hawkins. I walked around by myself the majority of the time; a
lot of the nights I just went back to the hotel room and waited to fall
asleep. And although Ryan said he was going to come on Saturday with
lots of booze; he never left UT the entire weekend. And I called so
many friends, but none ever seemed to doing anything interesting. Nick
and I were supposed to drink one night, but we got mixed up in a big
group of people. And when he made an exit, I missed my cue to leave
along with him because no matter how much I want to have fun I don't
like making people feel excluded. And then SAM, never had anytime to
hang out with me. Although he fucking lives in San Antonio and could
hang out with people from San Antonio any other time, he proceeded to
be busy the entire time we were at all state. This was by far the most
annoying thing to me, and I tried to show it by ignoring him and not
saying much whenever I walked past him, but whatever I generally don't
hold grudges very well.
Lots of people did come to visit me: Mr. and Mrs. Caston, John Butler,
Chris Prause, and Mr. Pruitt, but I felt more old and outdated at
all-state more than anything.
I met up with Lizzy and Kelsey on Saturday at Starbucks around 1. We
sat and talked about people that made it big straight out of high
school: David Gamble, Jonathan Cohen, Chris Guilfoyle. Then afterwards
I started hoping that I could end up like them soon.
I heard a little of the Philharmonic concert, and La Forza sounded
really good, but then I had to go to Symphonic Band's warm-up.
Our concert went pretty well; Livingston restarted the piece he
commissioned for us, and it was understandable being that it was the
world premiere and euphoniums had just cracked the first note of the
piece.
The symphony concert sounded really cool. The strings were really
really really impressive. The principal cellist played like a man; she
was waaay good.
The entire 3 days went by really fast. I spent soooo much money at Starbucks.
On Friday I realized my newest Backun barrel had a crack running the
entire vertical length of the barrel; that was disappointing. Now I
have to send it to Canada this week to either have it repaired or
replaced.
: [
I spent all my cash on wining and dining, and I'm scared to see how much is in my debit account.
Last night was kinda fun. Watched "Beethoven" with Nick, Matt, Adrienne, Diondre, and some other kids.
But then it got kinda lame, and I just wanted to fall asleep. So I went to one of the empty rooms and fell asleep.
I learned a few lessons from All-State. Especially about treating
people nice. Now, I won't hesitate to say that I met some weird people,
but I started realizing that weird people...are people too. And some of
the people I've made fun of in the past were people that were just
trying to be friendly towards me. I mean I have made a lot of
improvement; 34th freshman year, 20th sophomore year, 3rd junior year,
and 10th this year. And sure, it seemed like I took a huge step
backward making 10th this year, but all it really made me do was
realize no one's entitled to anything whether it's a chair, or the
right to feel superior to other people. Lots of people in the section
this year asked me questions and tried to made conversation with me,
and at first I was reluctant to talk back because I thought, "eww, he
or she is weird...just keep practicing and he or she will go
away"...like the harp player, or Andrew, or the trumpet player from
concert band, or a few other people. But
the sad thing is that initially the only thing that kept me from doing
that was that a few times Livingston was within earshot of a
conversation, and I didn't want to come off as rude or snobby in front
of him. And eventually, I just started talking to whoever approached me
because it was the nice thing to do. Hopefully, this lesson transfers
over more things in my life because it wasn't until Friday night that I
stopped complaining about not having anyone to hang out with and went
out with Carrell to go get ice cream. I'm starting to believe that
things that we ask for are never to far from being right in front of
our faces the entire time.
I'm glad I'm done with the entire, region, area, all state process. It
was waaaaay stressful; it was rewarding. Now, I'm faced with being a
music performance major where hopefully I'll get the skills to win a
major job somewhere...and there's no patch for that.
: ]
| | |
| Woah...it's been a while. 3 auditions down: Baylor, CIM, and SFCM. 3 to go: Rice, Oberlin, and U of H. The auditions so far have all been decent/ok. Auditioning for Round Top and probably TMF on Monday. HYS concert tomorrow; apparently, Vani's sick, so Dr. Webster called yesterday asking me to play 1st on Pines of Rome. Leaving for All-State on Wednesday- my 4th/last time. : [ Lesson with Rowell @ 2 today. Maybe a lesson with Conger or Legrand on Monday or Tuesday. I'm tired of Isadore, so I'm almost certain I'll try to start studying full time with Mr. Legrand. Side By Side went ok I guess; I got lots of compliments, so I guess that means it went well. Not playing in Schubert 8 at school; Evans is giving me time to focus on all-state, college auditions, and senior recital; which, by the way is still on March 30th. For sure for my recital I'm doing the Weber Quintet, but I'm also contemplating the Nielsen Concerto...not sooo sure. Deleted my MySpace. Hah. Laterz. | | |
| It's been a while. Finished my SFCM application. Less than a month until my Oberlin audition. Only a few weeks until area. The Fountains of Rome, Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini, and Scheherazade concert went ok. I convinced Evans to write my recommendation for CIM which is good considering I gave it to him basically a day before he had to send it off. Friends are great. Well, at least, the ones that don't bail on me are great. Crawford called my house to tell me to audition for "From the Top". Meh. | | |
| All of my Oberlin recommendations are going in on time!!!!!
Ms. Earls finished my recommendation today. Dr. Evans finished my music
one this morning. Now...hopeful Isadore does the other music one
tonight.
Now just for my audition in January.
>.<
Also I think I'm gonna apply to SanFran.
Why the hell not?
I missed Bryan Conger's senior recital last night. He played Messian!!! Apparently it was amazing, but I had Virtuosi rehearsal.
GAY
I feel really grown up applying to college and whatnot.
My final list is this:
1.CIM 2.Oberlin 3.Rice 4.Baylor 5.San Francisco Conservatory.
| | |
| Thank God this break has started.
Beethoven Septet is over.
The concert on Friday went really well considering we were all at each other's throats seconds before.
Evans is letting me do the Weber Quintet next semester which is...w00t!!!
I had a lesson with Mr. Rowell yesterday.
I wanted to play Debussy and Martino for him- neither of which I had
worked on since my Baylor audition two weeks ago, but he had me play
region etudes which I hadn't worked on in nearly 3 weeks.
It was a great lesson.
Christine gets here on Tuesday!!!
I'm excited.
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