Between academics, museum projects, music, and adventuring March has been a manic month!

The first few days of March kicked off the month with a course trip to 19 Princelet Street, a sporadically open historic building in Spitalfields, more time in Greenwich, and involvement in the BBC Symphony Orchestra's "Come and Play" event, a day long workshop held at Maida Vale Studios to celebrate the beginning of their programme Baroque Spring. Music was sent to instrumentalists beforehand and during the workshop particpants had the opportunity to play side-by-side a symphony member. A selection of pieces played throughout the day were broadcast on live radio. I have posted a video of the music played for the live broadcast of BBC Radio 3. I heard about the workshop from a few friends at Blackfriars Sinfonia, who were also there that day. Afterwards we wandered to a partitioned pub, meaning that there were wooden walls with hobbit-sized doors dividing the spaces around the bar.
Pub quizzing in the UCLU Phineas Bar came to a close this month. The core team, clearly champions, will be making the difficult decision of whether or not to retire from such a competitive night life.
I continue to work at the Petrie Muesum and as a research assistant. Both have proven to provide interesting developments as well as performance opportunities. My UCL Orchestra desk partner and I were hired to play for a Petrie Museum event on International Women's Day. We played a variety of Duos by Mazas and Pleyel. Check out the video!
I also continue to work two days a week in the storerooms of the Horniman Museum, constantly entertained by the conversations I overhear in this"paraloid" universe. A few weeks ago there was a discussion about what to name the microwave. We had to forgo the name Bert due to the fact that the printer already had that name. However, this made it easy to settle on the name Ernie. Also at the Horniman, I have been able to take part in training workshops at the museum in safety, object handling, and storytelling!

Wanting to give the North Americans of the MA course a taste of British-American cuisine, two of my course members, Amy and Jess, arranged dinner at a diner called Ed's. While the American style food was decent, there were some awfully high-end hot dogs and fries had to be ordered separately.

St. Patrick's Day wouldn't have been the same without some Irish fiddle. Luckily for me and my coursemate Mich, who plays guitar, a get together at an Irish friend's flat provided the perfect venue. At mass that Sunday, St. Patricks Catholic Church in Soho celebrated their patron saint by distributing blessed shamrocks.
This month concluded the musical season of the UCL Symhony Orchestra which was marked by performances of Verdi's I Lombardi, an opera originally about the crusades. While our production retained the original libretto, it modernized the setting to London in the 1970s. Thus, a devout hermit became a hobo/hippie with a trolley and pole dancers represented the wayward religious.

In celebration of the end of term and the final lecture of our academic year, members of the MA course decided to have a night on the town. My night began with the final performance of the opera, migrated to a Canadian hockey pub, and concluded with late night shenanigans alongside MA coursemates. We learned quite alot about each other...
With coursework out of mind for a few days the past week has been spent exploring London Easter festivities in Covent Garden, discovering famous graves in Highgate Cemetery, and getting out and about after Easter Sunday lunch for an afternoon in Putney trying to see the Cambridge-Oxford Boat Race. Covent Garden hosted a massive egg hunt of 101 eggs. Equipped with a booklet depicting all artistic eggs, we used our sluething skills to track down as many as we could find. At the end of their display in the square, the eggs will be auctioned for charity. Located in north London, Highgate Cemetery contains the graves of famous figures such as Anna Mahler, Herbert Spenser, and Karl Marx. Strolling around the graveyard was a great way to get outdoors for a while. Easter Sunday I enjoyed an egg hunt contrived by the collaborative efforts of my flatmate Stephanie and my family, who supplied the Lego-filled plastic eggs. The day was spent with a few members of my London family (Sarah, Libby, Amy, and Jenn). I made some traditional ham and home-away-from home Paska bread while everyone invovled contributed mashed cauliflower, corn, crisps, wine, and lemon sponge cake. Following an after-lunch egg hunt we made our way to Putney Bridge for the annual Cambridge-Oxford Boat Race. We arrived in time to witness the boats drifting towards the starting line, but underestimated the race's popularity. When the boats began, all we saw was a sea of heads cheering and waving blue flags! Still, taking a walk and exploring the Putney area was enjoyable and it was a lovely, blessed Easter.

Flying into Dublin at the end of this week to visit the Mercyhurst connection in Dungarvan, Ireland!