Snowed in!

As I type this, there is a foot of snow on the ground outside, and it’s still falling.  While this was normal up in Rochester, it is practically Armageddon down here in Virginia.  Ben even got the day off, and it must be bad if the Navy Exchange is closed.  Anyway, I thought I would use the time to write a little update…

I was supposed to have a concert at Old Dominion University with my work WWQ a week ago, but it ended up getting cancelled because of snow (!), which was a bummer.  We worked really hard to prepare for it…one of the pieces on our program was the Ibert, which a super-standard WWQ work, and one of my faves!  There were some other tricky pieces on the program, and I had to practice a lot.

One of my resolutions was to to commit to practice more, and so far, so good.  I got this new scale book  which has been pretty fun, and a challenge.  Let’s see what else am I working on…oh yes, I am working on the Artie Shaw concerto.  My boss is hoping to put it on the summer concerts, he actually approached all of us clarinets about it, but I think I may be the only one seriously working on it.  It’s quite out of my comfort zone, lots of pitch bends and vibrato.  Oyyyy!  But its very fun, and the pressure is off to be perfect.  I have found that it can’t be approached like a classical concerto, where everything has to be perfect.  I’m finding that its better to not to be!  It’s still very hard in other ways.  Its going to be an interesting experience if I get to play it with the band.

So that’s it for now, hopefully I won’t be snowed in for too long.  If I am, might as well get some good practicing in, right?