Long Concert Weekend

What is up my peeps, my bros, my very cool dudes, my...

ok sorry :P I've gone off of caffeine today after surviving on Dr. Pepper for the past month, so I have been in a very random, bipolar mood for a while now. I started out very phased out, went to being kinda grumpy and mad for no reason, to being really pumped up listening to exciting music in my car, to being really tired and phased out again. So ya, maybe male menopause?? no don't even get me started on that...long story :P

Anyways, hopefully tomorrow I'll be feeling better and more focused, because I have a looong weekend of rehearsals and concerts. Tomorrow I've got a dress rehearsal in the afternoon followed by a quartet performance (there are 9 groups performing. My quartet is playing the 3rd then 1st movements of Mendelssohn Quartet Op. 80), and it is EPIC! If you've heard the piece, you know the ending of the first movement has a hella difficult first violin part (yay more fun for me! haha), and we are taking it FAST!!! But it makes it all the more awesome-sounding and fun to play (as long as I actually can play it).

After that, on Sunday, several of my music friends and I are meeting up for a 3-hr sight-reading party, specifically to read the Mendelssohn viola quintets (if you haven't heard them, look them up!), but we'll also read many other things of course :). Following this, I have an hr-long orchestra dress rehearsal, followed by the performance of Wagner's Dei Meistersinger and Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique. The most interesting part of the concert will the by Wagner, simply because we have about an hour of rehearsal on it 2 months ago and an hour of rehearsal on it in this past week and we're opening the concert with it! Although this Youth Symphony does have the tendency to pull these things together at the last minute, so I'm not too incredibly worried. And Berlioz sounds really good as far as Youth Symphony level goes, in my opinion. I am constantly amazed at how Berlioz can use certain orchestration skills to create such unique and beautiful sounds that you simply cannot find anywhere else in musical history. This will certainly be one of my favorite concerts to play in all semester...

...and just as a final note: Happy Holidays!

-Phil