Thankful for Thanksgiving Break

It is good to have a few days off for Thanksgiving break.  Besides eating Thanksgiving food and relaxing, it is an opportunity for me to catch up on my homework, my practicing, and my sleep. 

After this weekend, there are two more weeks of classes, and then juries and final exams.  I will have three juries this semester because I am taking applied lessons in organ, piano, and voice.  A jury is a performance of selected music from the current semester for the faculty of that instrument.  This semester for organ I learned music by Balbastre, Vierne, Walther, and Buxtehude.  In piano, I studied music by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Moszkowski with a special focus on building the strength and dexterity of my left hand.  In voice lessons, I learned music of Faurè, Reger, and Handel.  To perform the vocal music for the jury, I memorized the Faurè “Pie Jesu” and the Reger “Mariä Wiegenlied.”

For my harmony class, we were assigned to write musical variations on a theme by either Mozart or Beethoven.  I chose Mozart’s theme, “Das Kinderspiel,” and I wrote two variations a few weeks ago, and one more yesterday.  All of these were written when it was snowing heavily here in Maine.  The professor, Dr. Beth Wieman, gave us an opportunity to send her drafts of the first variation so she could give us feedback.  This helped me a lot, and I made several improvements to my first draft.

For my Basic Conducting class, I am learning how to keep regular time with my right hand while cueing with both my left and right hands.  The final exam for that course will be conducting an excerpt of a Palestrina (1525-1594) motet.  The other class members will sing the music, and each of us will take a turn conducting our classmates.

My Performances

The Oratorio Society performed Handel’s “Dixit Dominus” and “Zadak the Priest” coronation anthem on November 16 and we will sing Christmas music, along with the other University of Maine choirs, at the Yuletide Concert, December 7, 2 pm, at the Collins Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus.

The St. John's Chamber Choir, Kevin Birch, Director and Organist, will perform chants, motets, and organ works for Advent with music of H. Andriessen, J. Beicht, N. Bruhns, W. Byrd, and H. Strategier on Saturday evening, December 6, at 7:30 pm at St. John's Catholic Church, 207 York St., Bangor.  Admission is free, and donations are appreciated and will benefit food aid in the community.

The St. John's Adult and Youth Choirs will perform our Christmas Concert on Sunday, December 21 at 4 pm at St. John's Catholic Church.  The Adult Choir will sing for Christmas Midnight Mass, with the music prelude beginning about 11 pm on Christmas Eve.

Next Semester

I registered for the spring semester 2015.  I decided to take one less course and focus more on practicing and working with my applied lesson teachers.  To date, I have had 30-minute piano and voice lessons each week.  Next semester I will increase that to hour-long lessons.  My organ lessons have already been an hour and that will continue.

Classes for the spring semester begin on January 12.  I will be taking 13 credits:

Advanced Harmony II

Advanced Sight Singing/Ear Training II

Choral Conducting and Literature

Applied Music Lessons - Organ

Applied Music Lessons - Piano

Applied Music Lessons - Voice

Collegiate Chorale

I plan to graduate in May of 2016 and I plan to perform a senior recital as my senior project.  This organ recital will be sometime during the spring semester of 2016.

Attending Performances

One of the advantages of being a student is the student discounts on music performances, especially at the University of Maine.  All the faculty and student performances are free with my student ID and also some guest artist performances are free.  There are many student group performances this late in the semester.  I attend as many as I can fit into my schedule.  There are also faculty performances spread throughout each semester and I usually attend those.  All of these are opportunities to be exposed to and enjoy a wide variety of music. 

One example is that in September John and I attended a concert by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at the Collins Center.  We enjoyed their music that is reminiscent of the jazz swing music of the 1940s and 1950s.  We had previously heard this band play at the House of Blues in New Orleans several years ago.

As another example, just last week, we had the opportunity to hear duo pianists, Connie Scanlon and Lia de Bruyn, play a varied concert of music by Mozart, Brahms, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff composed for two pianos.  Their playing was confident, energetic, animated, precise, inspiring, and often playful.  Much of the music took a lot of physical energy to play, especially the Rachmaninoff.  They were facing each other, and they communicated frequently through sight.  The lid was removed from the piano on the right, so that the sound from that right piano bounced off of the lid of the piano on the left.

I attend the “Live in HD” broadcasts from the New York Metropolitan Opera whenever I can.  The tickets are $8 with the student discount at the Collins Center for the Arts.  So far this fall, I saw Verdi’s Macbeth and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.  These are magnificent productions and the “Live in HD” has the added attraction that you get to see the scene changes backstage and interviews with the major opera singers.