Performances!

Hello everyone!

A week or so ago, I had 3 huge concerts back to back; Mozart Violin Concerto #5 with Matt Scinto's orchestra, our Meadowlark Piano Trio Concert, and BU Symphony Orchestra concert for which I was the concertmaster.

I meditated regularly through it to help manage the stress levels, and mentally I felt pretty grounded through it all.  Systematically knocking them out one by one is what I found to be the best strategy!   haha  My body, however, couldn't keep up, and I ended up getting gastritis/ulcers from exhaustion. Thankfully, I have had a few days off from performing before I have to prepare for another 3 back to back performances, so it has gotten much better.  I've been enjoying eating healthy-like a rabbit-, and sleeping at least 7 hours a day.  =)

Anyway, I wanted to share a few photos from the performances taken mostly by David.  Bless his heart--his social calendar filled up dramatically once he started dating me because of all of my concerts!  =)  It's always nice seeing his smiling face during/after concerts though.

with some of my favorites! Matt, the awesome conductor and Grace, the fearless concert master  ;)

Another person who was there for all of the back to back concerts was Bayla, my amazing teacher.  I didn't expect her to come to all of them, or even any of them, since she is so busy, but she was there. For all of them.  But that wasn't all of it!  She also spent so many extra hours with me at dress rehearsals and coachings outside of the performances, and I am so grateful for her presence in my life.  She probably has no idea how much it meant to have her there, but she is one of the most supportive, encouraging, and wonderful mentors I could have ever asked for, and I feel incredibly blessed to be studying with her.  =)

This photo (April's face) perfectly captures Bayla's personality - she tickled us as we were standing there being all good for the photo  haha   Love. Her!

It can be easy to get into the complainy mode when you are sleep deprived, your body is sore from 10+ hours of playing the day before, and you're looking at another 10 hours today...  but there is really nothing better than making music with all of the people I love, constantly working on and improving myself in my craft, and getting to work with such amazing mentors that I have in my life. As cliche as it sounds, even though this was a hard path to choose 4 years ago, I would not change any of it (even the exhausting parts) for the world  =)  

It got a little sentimental there, but you know, sometimes, it's like that.  and that's ok.  Nothing wrong with being thankful for what we have, and what we have been called/chosen to do with our lives  =) (especially if you don't know how you are going to survive the hectic schedule for the next few weeks haha)

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful day!

--Janny

St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar

Hello everyone!

It has been awhile since the last post, and so many things have happened.  The Meadowlarks and I finished the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, I visited Boston for a bit to see my guy and have some adventures there, and now Tim and I are at Garth Newel Music Center again for another year of amazing music, people, and food!  My last year's posts from Garth Newel can be found here  =)

I'll be catching up on Boston adventures soon (and then Garth Newel adventures) but before that, I wanted to share some photos from our adventures at Stanford!

I really loved our time at Stanford.  The SLSQ program is so unique in that it brings so many different people from different walks of life together to create music together intensely for 10 days. There are professionals (chamber music legends), pre-professionals of different ages, and amateurs who are doctors, lawyers, professional photographers, and many others..  It was really simulating and refreshing, and I loved all of our interactions throughout the whole program.

Some of the highlights included a talk with John Adams,

sight reading sessions with a mixture of musicians that included the faculty,

exploring Palo Alto and seeing Tim join in on some belly dancing,

and of course, performing with the Meadowlarks in this beautiful space at Stanford!!

Photo cred: Warren Wu

After the concert, we celebrated with our amazing coaches while watching fireworks!  The fireworks were for the soccer games, but it seemed like it was for us, and we enjoyed it with our ear plugs in  ;)

One of my favorite parts of the night was seeing my baby bro!  He came with his girl, and it was so good to see them  =)

It was an incredible experience, and I feel so blessed to have gone to SLSQ this summer!

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Traveling Musician :: Meadowlarks and Phoenix

Hello everyone!

Since the last Charleston post, it's been crazy over here with music related activities!  I love that I get to do what I love, with people that I love, while traveling and seeing different parts of the world! 

After Charleston, I flew straight to Cleveland to reunite with my Meadowlarks.  This was our first season venturing into the world of chamber competitions, and we had 2 days to get ready for the biggest one in the United States, the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition!  

Those two days were absolutely crazy. We had 2-3 coachings per day, and played 12+ hours a day with one another to try to get ready for the performances...  After the 2 intense rehearsal days, we drove to South Bend, IN for the competition!

The absolute best part about Fischoff was the people we got to meet along the way.  Not only did we get to play for the judges, but we also got to meet all of them afterwards for some feedback (and these judges are like... gods of the chamber music world).  We also had the opportunity to share our love for each other, and for the music, with the incredibly receptive audience for the Fischoff soiree at the Sabato's house. The audience was so warm, and the hosts--the Sabato's--were seriously amazing! We are so glad to have met and have been 'adopted' by the humans, horses, dogs, and cat alike. We love our South Bend family!!  =)

Another incredible thing happened at Fischoff that really touched our hearts, and that was the fact that Maureen and Roger came all the way from Chicago to cheer us on!  We met them here in Boston because their nephew is Sam, the violist in my string trio, and I was so incredibly touched they came all the way out to Indiana to see us.  They were like our adoptive parents for the weekend, and I can't tell you how comforting that was for us -- so many warm fuzzies all around!  I can't wait to see them again in Boston when they come visit!  =)

After the competition, we drove back to Cleveland and celebrated with some awesome food at L'Albatros!  

wow.  

People have always told me that Cleveland is a foodie city, and if more places like this exist, then I can totally get on board with what they mean!  The burger, duck, and the pork belly salad were all. incredible.

After the whirlwind of a trip in the midwest, I flew back to Boston for a few days for the Phoenix Flight!  I've mentioned before how I've been a part of this team getting the orchestra off of the ground for the past year, and it was so incredible to see this last concert of our first season come to fruition.  

Of course, I love the concept, and I feel that I'm playing with some of the best musicians of our generation in this orchestra.  The Boston Globe gave us a pretty rad review as well, and I'm excited to see where the next seasons will take us!

But again, my favorite part of the group is the people in the orchestra.  I know, I know, I'm starting to sound like a broken record over here with my love for the peeps in my life, but what can I say, I'm surrounded by pretty awesome humans!  I've known a few of the members in the orchestra for many years (like Matt, the conductor, and Christina, the bassoonist. We go waaayy back to our high school years).  However, I've gotten to know even the folks I've met either at this concert or at the last one a little better, and I am just so happy to have the chance to play with all of them in Phoenix!  Such amazing musicians with such big hearts  =)   

My favorite photo from the night with my stand partners, Zenas and Abby!   

A few hours after the Phoenix Flight concert, I flew out to Houston for strictly personal reasons, and I left my violin behind for 2 days.  I know, I know, it felt really weird to not touch my violin for the full 2 days I was in Houston, but the break was needed I think  haha.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you're having a wonderful beginning of the week so far!  I'll be back with a few Houston adventure posts soon! =)

--Janny

Meadowlark Travels :: Pittsburgh!

Hello everyone!

It’s hard to believe that 2 weeks ago, I was in Pittsburgh rehearsing and performing more than 10 hours a day with the Meadowlarks. 

Since then, we’ve gotten our first competition under our belts as finalists of the Arriaga Chamber Music Competition, and will be competing at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition next weekend!  I'm currently sitting in the airport for my 3 hours layover en route to Cleveland to meet up with these crazies, and I just can't believe that we’ve been going at this long distance trio relationship for 3 years! I feel so blessed to get to do what I love with these two goofs I call my soulmates/soul siblings/my larks, etc.

Whenever we are together, it always ends up being a frantic rehearsal/performance marathon since we usually only have a day or two to prepare for performances - the lot of the long distance marriag… i mean, chamber group…  It was no different in Pittsburgh, but we still got to fit in a lot of our favorite extra curricular activity - eating.  work hard, eat hard.  mhmm

We had amazing dumplings at Everyday Noodle,

Experienced our first Waffallonia, 

swung by Conflict Kitchen for some awesome Palestinian food,

and also had a bit of an unfortunate Indian food experience right before our performance….  but let’s not talk about that...

Instead, let’s talk about Pamela’s Diner. 

We still can’t believe what happened here.

It was our last day in Pittsburgh, so it seemed fitting that we end our visit with Pamela’s Diner experience.  We don’t now anyone who has visited and didn’t like the place!  So we went and sat down and started drooling over the menu, only to discover that the place was cash only…  Among the three of us we only had $17 in cash, so we debated leaving, but Tim insisted that we stay.  Then began the money Tetris of trying to figure out how much food we could buy with the $17 that would include tip and tax.  We were literally debating over $.80 and I remember laughing at how petty we were being, but you know, when you only have a small, fixed amount of money to spend to feed three people, that’s what happens!  

We almost had everything figured out except for the tax, so when the server came around, we asked what the tax would be.  This was when a lady suddenly came up and said that she would cover our tax! She dropped a $10 bill on our table and returned to the table behind ours.  We started protesting, and that was when the server informed us that the lady was Pamela herself!!  We couldn't believe it! We thanked her profusely, hugged her, kissed her, took a photo with her, you know. everything that you do when you're overwhelmed.

We got the two things we were going to get--an amazing Chorizo omelet and their signature crepe style pancakes (which are..  I can't even put into words how INCREDIBLE these are).

When we finished those, we had some extra change for another dish, so we asked Pamela (who was still sitting behind us) what we should order.  After asking us what we liked (Janny likes the sweets and Abers likes the salty), instead of just telling us, she disappeared into the kitchen, and told us that she would send us something.

We couldn't believe it.  She sent us a croissant french toast and corn beef hash, and... we were just speechless!

As we were going through this amazingness, Pamela came back with another dish, and told us that it was from a restaurant next door (that she also owned), and it was the best cured meet we have ever tasted!

Pamela, I highly doubt that you will be reading this, but we just wanted to thank you from the bottom of our hearts!  If we didn't have the photos, we would have a hard time believing that day actually happened--your warmth and generosity really made our trip to Pittsburgh, and we hope to see you again sometime soon!  As we've mentioned, if you ever want us to come play for anything, we would be so happy to perform for you!  =D

If you have never been to Pamela's Diner, all we can say is to go straight there right now and try their hotcakes.  Really, you can't go wrong with any of the dishes there, but if you can only try one, hot cakes is our pick!  and if you have the good fortune of meeting Pamela, tell her the Meadowlarks sent you!  ;)

Happy eating, and thanks for stopping by!

--Janny