First rehearsal with the Rice Symphony

Hello everyone!

After doing a week of injury prevention workshops and another week of auditions, 

the Rice Symphony Orchestra had its first rehearsal of the year today!

It was an incredibly exciting, yet nerve-racking day leading up to the rehearsal for me;

I had had so many 'Rice orchestra' talks with former Rice students who told me horror stories of what happened to students who were not prepared for the first rehearsal, 

and how intense Mr. Rachleff is.

(it was the strangest thing, everyone seemed to love him,
 yet be rather terrified of him at the same time)

and everyone always ended with,

"just make sure to be really prepared for the first rehearsal!"

I did my best to be 'really prepared' for the rehearsal, 

though I was a bit worried that my definition of 'really prepared' wouldn't be intense enough.

Once we started rehearsing, however, there wasn't really time to be having any misgivings.

Mr. Rachleff got on the podium, welcomed us, cracked a few jokes, 

and began running the piece right away!

I couldn't believe how good everyone sounded!

Definitely a jaw-dropping moment for me...

I mean, it was our very first time reading the piece together!

I think every section of the orchestra is really strong, 

but I was especially blown away by the bass section.

Perhaps because in the orchestras I've played in, there was always a bit of a bass-shortage.

But here, I think there were 9 (or 10) incredibly strong bassists!!

Consequently, the amount of the bass that resonated through the orchestra...

wow... it really makes a huge difference!  

And when they had their solo in the 2nd movement of the Sibelius Symphony?

There was much feet shuffling throughout the orchestra, showing our support of their rocking their solo.

And now I also see what all of my Rice friends have been trying to tell me about Mr. Rachleff.

I can't yet put words to his mannerisms yet, but there's definitely something really wonderful 

about the way he interacts with us;  

part joking, part stern (this part is a bit scary), part making fun, part complimentary...

It's difficult to see how one can NOT like the guy.

and it's really incredible what he can lead the orchestra to achieve in a single rehearsal.

Our next rehearsal is going to be on Bolcom's 9th symphony, which was written for us!

We'll be giving the world premiere performance of it in October, which is super exciting!

Oh, and our orchestra is giving 3 (THREE) performances of this program!

3?!   =O

I think this is pretty unheard of in terms of student orchestras...  no?

Well, I guess it definitely gives us enough chances to perform the repertoire  =)

With the orchestra rehearsals under way, it finally feels like school has really started here.

I'm excited for our next orchestra rehearsal (did I really just say that?  haha),

and I hope you are all enjoying your week as much as I am!  

=D

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Hello everyone!!

Happy Labor Day weekend!!

To celebrate this much needed 3 day weekend,

(even though we've only been in school for 2 weeks...)

Amulet and I decided to change up our Sunday Routine,

 and visit the Museum of Fine Arts here in Houston.

We didn't realize how many museums there were here, but boy...  do we have many!

In fact, there's a whole Museum District!

Before we got too carried away, we decided to limit just 1 museum visits per day,

and our first pick was obviously the Museum of Fine Arts!!

Welcome to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston!!  =D

There are two buildings as well as a sculpture garden, 

so it took us a couple of hours just to quickly browse through all of the exhibits.  

(we definitely plan on revisiting this museum over and over again)

I was surprised that they let us take photos at so many of the exhibits,

but hey, no complaints from me!

so here are a couple of our favorites from the day  =)

On the first floor of the Beck building there were many Roman and Greek themed sculptures,

and the overall theme for the building seemed to be 'majesty' and 'greatness'.

I mean, even the staircase leading up to the second floor was in line with the theme...

look at this staircase! 

so many stairs... 

it just never ends...  and continues and continues up to the heavens...  

well, that's what it felt like to us, anyway  haha

And of course, as soon as we got to the top, panting and already exhausted,

we learned that there were escalators on the other side...

It was so long that I couldn't capture the whole thing in the picture  haha

There were so many nooks and crannies in the museum that we soon lost track of where we were,

but we did run into this room where the above exhibit was the only display in the room.

I wouldn't mind having that in my future room  =)

and we had to take a picture by this painting because...

well, I'm sure you can see why  haha

If I ever have a hunting lodge, which is very unlikely 

since you need to hunt in order to have something like that, 

this chair would be awesome to have in there  =)

One of my favorite exhibits was this one, but unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos..

I guess you'll just have to visit it in person  ;)

Amulet being sucked into the painting  haha

This painting was our absolute favorite!!

The Corn Poppy.

It is by Kees van Dongen, a Dutch painter who lived from 1877-1968.

I had never seen it before, but as soon as I laid my eyes on it, I knew I was in love.

Maybe it's something about the vibrancy of the colors,

(the red hat!!!)

or perhaps her facial expression..

I'm not sure what it is, but we stared at this painting for the longest time.

And it came home with us in post card form.

Such a lovely painting!

There were also some familiar artists like Picasso, Van Gogh, and Monet.

And they also came home with us in post card form!

In the other building, we stumbled upon this light exhibit, and had a pretty trippy experience..

I mean, the illusions it created, and the way we perceived different things as the colors and lights changed was really interesting.

I came away a bit dizzy, but it was pretty cool nonetheless!

We also got to see paintings and sculptures from different civilizations,

including the ones from my mother country!

This building also contained many of the sculptural pieces,

like this work of pots and pans,

by which Amulet tried to find her inner peace   haha

By this point, we were pretty famished from walking around so much,

(did you know visiting museums is really tiring?  I mean, I love it, but so much walking...)

so we went out and visited the Fine Art Food Trucks,

crossing this wonderfully colorful crosswalk on our way

And finally, we found 'The Rice Bowl' truck and enjoyed a lovely lunch in the Sculpture Garden.

 

We definitely plan on going back to MFAH again soon,

especially since it's going to be having a Frida Kahlo de Rivera exhibit soon!!

So excited!!!

Well, here are all of the post cards that came home with us.

So now we can stare at our favorites from the museum anytime we feel like it!

but do you see what I mean about the Red Hat?  

She just kind of got renamed as the Red Hat,,  original, I know.. 

but we can't stop staring at her!

If you are ever in Houston, this is definitely a must-see.

And if you are a Rice student, you have no excuse to not visit, because it's free for us!

Or, if you go on Thursdays, it's also free  ;)

I hope you are enjoying your weekend so far!

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Auditions...

Hello everyone,

It seems that as a musician, my life has revolved around taking auditions these past couple of years.

I mean, for most of us, that seems to be the norm in trying to make a career in this field.

Auditions and I...  well, we have an odd relationship.  I don't particularly hate or love taking auditions,, I guess the strongest feeling I have for auditions is something akin to annoyance than anything else because I feel like I'm perpetually preparing for one audition or another.. and I'm not even trying to land a job yet!

For example, all last fall, I worked my butt off trying to get ready for the pre-screening auditions for graduate programs.  When that was done, I had to audition for summer programs that winter.  When that was done, I had another round of auditions for graduate programs in late winter/spring!  Then, we go to summer programs all summer where we have other auditions for orchestral seating and chamber group placements.  When we come back to school, it's "welcome back! let's audition for orchestra seating and chamber music placements!" and then we have to get ready to apply for summer festivals all over again!  It's never ending!!!!

Of course, this petty annoyance turns into a much more frightening psychological battle in the real world for many musicians.

For example, my friend Rachel posted this article for me to read a couple of months back, and well,, that's what's waiting for us as musicians in the real world, especially if we are trying to be orchestral musicians; so many of us, and so few job openings!

So far, I haven't had the kind of debilitating self doubt or audition-fright that's mentioned in the article, but I have also never auditioned for the Boston Symphony.  Perhaps when the stakes are that high, I may also develop such unfortunate side effects, but hopefully not.  It's a very serious problem many musicians have though, and I think one of the courses I am taking here at Rice is specifically designed to help us budding musicians to stunt the growth of such debilitating conditions. Of course, it's not necessarily termed in such a way, [How to Overcome Your Stage Fright! 101], but from looking at the syllabus and seeing how the class is being run, there's definitely that thread, just under the surface.  But hey, no complaints from me here!  I'll take all the tools and help I can get,,,  I'll need it once I am forcibly kicked out of the nest (of the academia). because apparently I have to graduate,, and enter the real world sooner than later..  =(  haha

So this week has been the "Hey! welcome back! let's audition!" week at Rice, and during my walks to and from school, I've just been musing about how different my life is now that I have chosen to do only music.

Being the nerd that I am, I have always loved school.  Though I never really thought about it all that much when I was in the midst of studying for subjects like math, history, or science, now that I'm removed from that atmosphere, I am realizing that there's something really comforting about studying subjects like these (at least up until the college level.  I can't speak for what they are like at the graduate level because I haven't experienced it) that is just not present in studying music.  

One of the biggest comforts for me in studying these subjects was the fact that I could predict what the outcome will be like based on the amount of effort I had put into preparing for them.  This is true for music, but only to a certain degree. There are just so many outside forces that can affect your performance that wouldn't even matter in an academic setting.  For example, during the most recent audition I took, it started pouring rain and flooding as I started my way to walk over to the audition building from the rehearsal building.  Thank you, Houston for being incredibly sunny with blue skies all day up until that moment... If you are ever auditioning in Houston, remember to bring an umbrella, no matter how ridiculously sunny it is outside.  So I played my audition soaking wet and shivering.  So this outside force (pretty petty, if you think about it... I just got rained on, no big deal, right?) that I had no control over ended up affecting my playing quite a bit.  

Now, let us take a look at my AP Calculus test day.  That morning, I woke up to my phone ringing in the most obnoxious way possible.  I rolled over, thinking 'uggg why is someone calling me this early?!', and picked up the phone.  It was my friend, Peter.  "Janny! where are you? We're about to start our exam!"  Thankfully, the test center was right next to my dorm, so I was able to roll out of bed and get there in a couple of minutes; just in time to sit down, fill out my information, and start.  Granted, at first my brain was still asleep and I couldn't even remember how to solve something ridiculously simple like 'what is the derivative of X^2', I was prepared for the test and was able to ace the test by the end of the allotted time. 

The second scenario had so many more awful things happening (no breakfast, brain still asleep, no snacks--I was most upset about this one haha--, freaking out about missing the test...) yet the outcome was such that I can laugh about it now. If I had inserted 'audition' for 'AP Calculus Test' in that scenario...  I would probably be too scarred by the outcome (no matter how prepared I was) to even be speaking about it right now.

Also, in studying the academics, there's a sense of 'ok, I learned that, now let's move on'.  For example, the alphabet.  We all learned it. We mastered it. We moved on, and have never looked back.  How absurd would it be if a college student said there's a class dedicated to learning the English alphabet at his university?  Well, that's exactly what happens with music  haha.  I learned the scales when I first began playing the violin; I am still working on them now, and I shall be working on them until the day I die. yup yup. 

But these absurdly difficult and volatile aspects of music does mean that every day will be 'interesting'... and no two days will be the same.  One day, I nail these uber difficult passages, and the next day, I can't even play the scales 50% in tune...  Once I sort of fix a crooked bow problem, I all of a sudden develop what my teacher Mr. Lin called a 'frog-phobia'...  when did this happen?!  sigh... it's never ending  haha.   Ok, so maybe it doesn't sound all that exciting when put in these terms... but there's something about the fact that I will always be striving to achieve something that I never will be able to achieve that is incredibly stimulating.  That plus the beauty and the power of music,,, how can you say no?  right? --let us just be idealists for a little while here  ;)

Anyway, if you do have a bad audition, or just have a moment of 'man... how am I going to make it as a musician?' which all of us have at one time or another, Amulet and I suggest treating yourself to some frozen yogurt.  =)

it worked for us!  haha

The only downside to this is that we may be spending way too much time here,,, instead of, say, practicing  haha  ;)

Yay ice cream!!!

Well, I hadn't meant for it to become such a long post!  haha.  I was just more or less writing out my train of thought that began on my walk home on this incredibly hot and humid day.

I hope you had a wonderful day, and thanks for reading!

--Janny

Sunday Routine

Hello everyone!

Remember how I said I had soo much free time in this post?

hmmm...

I should have known that was not going to be the case...  haha

how did my schedule fill up so quickly?!

sigh...

But I actually think I secretly enjoy being incredibly busy.

or perhaps it's not really a secret...

There's just something really exciting about having so much to do that you almost feel like you wont' make it.

But of course, you know you CAN do it,,  

well, you are 90% sure that you can manage the work load.

It's perhaps this presence of the other 10% that gets your blood pumping and pushes you to your max.

adrenaline...?

in the most un-adventurous sense?  haha

Though I seem to work best under pressure, I do enjoy a chill day now and again.

actually, I really love them.

just chilling,,, eating, reading, cooking, eating, exercising, listening to music, eating, watching tv shows...

and that's exactly the kind of a day Amulet and I had today!

You see, we kind of have a Sunday routine.

We wake up, eat breakfast, and then do some exercise videos.

Then, we [try to] practice [a lot].

sometimes we are successful in this endeavor,, sometimes we are not..  

today, we were not...  haha

After practicing awhile, we both came out of our [practice] rooms, looked at each other,

(it was clear neither of us wanted to practice any longer)

and proceeded to the kitchen to make some chocolate chip cookies!!!!

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!!!

We were planning on practicing while these were baking, but we soon realized that was not going to happen.

 it just smelled too heavenly in our house!!  

There's nothing like the smell of chocolate chip cookies wafting through the house 

to distract you from your practicing..

We basically ended up just chilling impatiently by the oven the whole time  haha

and in a couple of minutes, we were rewarded with warm, gooey, and incredibly delicious cookies!

After we had our 5-year-old moment with our cookies, we went back to work.

It should have been more productive, but at least for me, it wasn't.

Usually, thise sort of unproductivity can be fixed by refocusing,

(mind over matter!!)

but today, I didn't even feel like refocusing! 

(mind over,,, mind??)

These are the moments when I just have to say,

'ok, maybe I just need a chill day'

It's actually a lot more difficult to say this to yourself than you might think.

In fact, it's taken me a very long time for me to say this to myself,

but I think it's healthy.  =p

I'm pretty sure many of my musician friends are gasping in horror at this, but TRY it!

It's good for you  ;)

(just don't have a chill day every day   haha)

After deciding to have a chill day,

Amulet and I went back to the kitchen to concoct some Dakdoritang!!!

Yay!!!

I love Dakdoritang!

We used my Grandma's recipe, and it tasted pretty great!

It's always very perplexing to me though that no matter how much I try, 

it never tastes as great as my Grandma's...

Is this another matter of practicing..?  haha

Our dinner!!!

With our dinner in hand, we enjoyed a couple episodes of Tudors.

Such a scandalous show!

I was so shocked when we first started watching them!  haha

I don't really watch TV, and the only show I've seen in its entirety so far is 

How I Met Your Mother (thank you Netflix and summer vacation).

However, if we continue this Sunday routine, 

Tudors may become the 2nd TV show I've seen in its entirety!

Oh, can I go off a tangent and point out our [fake] fireplace?

We are so proud of it, mainly because the top candles were SO difficult to find.

We found the candle holder at Goodwill, and there were many store visits and returns 

before we found the candles that would work actually work with it...

Perhaps because it's antique? 

I'm not sure,,  but boy am I glad we are no longer on the hunt for those candles!

But I think it turned out pretty beautifully, don't you think?

We love candles at the Blueberry household.  ;)

 Thanks for reading, and I hope you had a wonderful weekend as well!

Here's to the start of a productive week!  =D

--Janny

Roommate bonding

Hello everyone!

When Amulet contacted me via Facebook last semester to be potential roommates, 

I could've never guessed just how much bonding adventures/times we would have together this year.

I mean, it's only been 2 weeks, and the fact that I already have so much to write about says something...

First, let us start with the air mattresses.

When we first got to our apartment, it was completely bare.

Being the amazing roomy she is, she blew up 2 air mattresses-one for herself and one for me- to sleep on the first night.  aww so sweet!  =)

In a couple of hours, however, both of them had deflated...

No matter what we did, we just couldn't seem to keep air in these air mattresses!

After a couple of mornings of waking up on the floor surrounded by the air mattress material,

we each got our own beds, and she bought a new air mattress for guest use.

That night, we blew that one up so my daddy could sleep on it for a night.

Much to our delight, this one kept its air for a long time!

Much to our chagrin, the mattress kept its air much too well...  

This time, no matter what we did, we just couldn't get the air mattress to deflate!

.................................

We left the cap unscrewed for a full day.  nothing.

We rolled around on it with the cap unscrewed.  nothing.

We got the automatic pump and set it on the deflate mode. nothing.

WWHHHAATTT!!!!

we were so perplexed.

Purely by chance, I happened to insert my pinky into the cap, and we heard a gush of air.

I couldn't figure out what was causing the mattress to deflate, but as long as I kept my finger there, it seemed to do the trick.

So, for the next 15 or so minutes, Amulet and I rolled around on the air mattress while my pinky was still stuck in the cap, trying to deflate this too-well-made air mattress.

and there was much laughter shared at the ridiculosity of the situation.

That has got to be the most eventful air mattress deflating I have ever experienced in my life...

.......................................................

Another major bonding moment happened when we decided to do our laundry together.

Usually doing laundry for me gets as exciting as how great the clothes smell,

but this time, we were so excited to do laundry because Amulet's dad had fixed our broken laundry machine for us the day before!

Little did we know that it would break down once again... 

this time, right before the spin cycle.

This meant that all of our clothes were still completely submerged in soapy water when the machine broke.

So...  we went fishing for our clothes in our own washer!

Amulet individually wrung them out, and I transferred them in a laundry basket to our neighbor's washer.

(soaking wet clothes are incredibly heavy, by the way)

That would have been bonding enough, but then we realized that we probably needed to get rid of all of the water just sitting in our washer...

Now, I'm sure there are ways to get the washer to drain by itself, but how are we to know that?

So we did the only thing we could think of;

we employed cups and trash cans to manually pump out ALL of that water out of our washer...

talk about roommate bonding...

 We made so many trips to the sink with the trash cans...

But!!  We did get a killer arm workout that day!  =)  haha

So, as you can see, our lives at the Fighting Blueberries Apt has been quite eventful.

What I love about living here with Amulet is that we always seem to be laughing;

we are both pretty 'chirpy' people.  haha

I mean, if we can laugh while we are manually pumping the water from the washer, I think it's safe to say that we laugh through almost anything  ;)

I have a feeling we're going to be having more of these bonding moments,

so stay tuned!  haha!

Thanks for reading, and happy weekend!!!!!!!

--Janny

My New [Practice] Room!

Hello everyone!

This was the first time I have had to furnish an apartment from scratch,

and let me tell you, furnishing a home is no small task!

I just never realized how many things were required to make an apartment functional,

and to make it feel 'homey' required that many more things...

Amulet and I have been making so many Goodwill and Target runs,

and I think our apartment is really beginning to feel like home.

The living room and the little side room (maybe it'll become a library..?) still needs a lot of work,

but our rooms are all done!  

So here's the first look at my room!

It also doubles as my practice room because I like the idea of being able to lay down on my bed when I get tired of practicing...  

I can foresee this becoming a very dangerous habit (naps?), and I may stop practicing in my room in near future, but for now, I am loving it!  haha

So, welcome to my [practice] room!!

Here is the infamous, dangerously comfortable, bed.

And Audrey. 

She was a Goodwill find!  =)   

I discovered her discarded among dozens of tacky flowers at the store, and knew she was coming home with me right there and then.

Definitely a love at first sight moment  ;)

She's in great company among my Interlochen bear, some lovely candles, some Hemingway, 

and the book, Elegant Universe.  

If you are interested in metaphysics, it's definitely a very interesting read!

This corner is my 'study' corner.

Dad and I found this little corner desk at another Goodwill store along with the chair.

The lights are a gift from my very first roommate ever, Alina, and I've carried it around everywhere.

It makes me smile every time I see it.   

Such fond memories of Interlochen with that lady  =)

There are so many meaningful things on this desk that remind me of everywhere I've been.

Love this corner!

Well, so my favorite color used to be blue.

I say 'used' to be because I'm not sure it'll remain my favorite color for very long...

I mean, look at this room.

So. much. blue.

Blue walls, blue curtains...

This presents so many problems because when I go shop for things, the default color I go for is blue.

However, with my room being what it is, I can no longer acquire anything else that is blue!

(my car was initially going to be blue, but thankfully, that did not happen. whew!)

I need a new favorite color!!

any suggestions?  haha

Anyway, this corner has the dresser my Daddy and I put together.

That was definitely an adventure.

Neither of us are very used to using our hands to build things, and we were not prepared for how complicated a dresser building turned out to be.

I mean, the manual was as think as a book!  

so many steps...

However, after like 5 hours, and one redo (we put a part of it together backwards...)

TADA!!

I love this dresser!   =)

This corner also has the star I got in Seattle--home sweet home!

and other memorabilia from different chapters of my life thus far.

Well, that's my [practice] room!

see?  my violin and my bear spending some quality time together.

As we start getting different parts of our house decorated, I'll post more pictures  =)

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

First Day of School!

Hello everyone!

Today was the first day of school at Rice, and the inhabitants of the 'Fighting Blueberries' apt 

were SO excited for school to start!!

(the reason we are the Fighting Blueberries apt is because both Amulet and I attended Interlochen!)

It worked out really wonderfully because Amulet and I are both in the first class together,

the Early Music History, so we got to get ready, practice a bit at home, then leave for school together!

It's a bit of a blessing, really, because I am always running late to things,

but because Amulet was there, we arrived at school way before the classroom even opened!  ;)

And because we left so early, we even had time to document our excitement as we walked to school! 

I swear, we probably looked like children on their first day of kindergarten.  haha 

Here is Amulet!  So ready for this history class!

"Amulet, how do you feel about the first day of school??"

yay school!

Later on in the day, my friend Christiano and I roamed the campus together.

We met 3 summers ago at Roundtop Music Festival, and it is so great to be reunited here!!

more excitement...  I think this was at the fact that school was over for the day!  haha

We only had one class today (I think I'm going to like this whole graduate student schedule-ness!), 

so we leisurely took care of some paperwork at the Registrar's, 

ran into Amulet at the Shepherd School of Music,

then all three of us walked (skipped) back to the Fighting Blueberries Apt for some lunch.

skipping to....

our apartment!!!!

I was a little bit shocked at first by how empty my schedule looked compared to how it has looked for the past...  well, like 16 years.

I mean, I'm only in 2 'academic' courses!

That has happened... never!

I went through a phase of "ohmygosh... where are my history courses?" because I am a big history nerd,

and have always had 1 or 2 history classes during my undergraduate degree.

 However, that lasted for a surprisingly short while,

and after that, I thoroughly enjoyed having time to practice alllllll day.  =D

This luxury, however, will be gone as soon as the Rice orchestra starts rehearsing,,,

Rice orchestra meets 3 times a week for 2 1/2 hours at a time!

That's a lot more orchestra than I have ever experienced,

but I am SO excited to be a part of such an incredible ensemble!

Well, off I go to practice some more  =)

I hope you had a wonderful Monday!

--Janny