Hi, I'm Alex.

And you can’t move to see at all, unless you want to completely take all of your stand partner’s playing space.

And then they turn around and say “Sorry, I can’t see.”

Well, I’m glad YOU can see, since you’re the most important person in the world!!!!

So I haven’t posted a recording of myself playing until yesterday, and I’m being a little uppity by posting the same recording two days in a row, but I’m kind of proud of this.

Don Juan’s a crazy orchestral excerpt.  And there’s one shift in there that really sucks… but I kind of made it my bitch.  I’m REALLY proud of that few seconds of this recording.  Yeah. 

What would/could be an Italian equivalent to sans rigueur (without rigidity, precision)?

Would senza misura work?

I recorded most of the first page of Don Juan by Richard Strauss.

It’s not perfect, but I’m pretty proud of it, considering it’s kind of a beast of an orchestral excerpt.

Especially student recitals.  At my school a good portion of the music majors are education majors, and their recitals are often the only solo recital they will ever perform.  They put about a year of effort into preparing their music, and people will skip their recitals because they were “too tired,” had “too much homework,” had to go shopping…  the list goes on.  Really?  These recitals rarely take up more than an hour of your time, you can’t spare an hour out of your entire weekend?  Whatever you have to do can’t wait that long?  Even if you’re really that busy, you can’t show up to hear even one piece and show your support for your peers after years of hard work?  I can understand when people have legitimate obligations for missing a performance, like something important that is going on at the same time.  One of my good friends had to miss my recital last year because of work; it was their only shift during the week, and they were really hurting for money.  I think that’s legitimate.  But if you can’t take an hour break from the crap you have to do during the weekend, when you probably could have planned ahead and made the time to go to a recital, then I really don’t give a shit about your excuse, and you should probably be prepared to hear some form of an uppity lecture from me.

One more thing…  We are extremely lucky that, as students, we have the opportunity to hear live music performed for free on a weekly basis.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say that many of my fellow students will graduate and realize that they took that for granted when they have to start paying to see performances. 

Also, Super Bowl parties are NOT a legitimate excuse either. 

Are students at other music schools like this?  Am I right in getting extremely frustrated when I see this happen so often?

ihatemusic1943:

Music for Skeletons and Witches

• 1. Rachmaninoff: Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 (1908): Russian National Orchestra; Mikhail Pletnev, conductor (Released in 2008)
• 2. Liszt: Totentanz (Dance of Death), S.126 (1849): György Oravecz, piano; Budapest Symphony Orchestra; Balázs Kocsár, conductor (Recorded in 1992)
• 3. Berlioz: Dreams of a Witches’ Sabbath from Symphonie fantastique, Op. 41 (1830): Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Claudio Abbado, conductor (Released in 1984)
• 4. Ives: Hallowe’en (1906): New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor (Recorded in 1988)

Happy Halloween!

Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens is missing.

(Source: topofobia)