Work work work work work! We do a lot of it!

Class class class class class! I'd like to say we have a lot of that too :)

but, yes, Its pretty overwhelming to sit through 3 1.5 hour lectures in a row, two days in a row! By the end of the day i want to just go crazy! ha so I practice...not such a great idea.

So classes are taking off now and I'm learning a bit of German, even though the teacher never calls on me to speak...? My other classes are quite cool. Today we couldn't do the field trip we had planned for music history (to Haydn's house) so we talked about cataloging systems and analyzed a Beethoven piano sonata. Fun!

Our performance class is still...interesting...to attend. All we do is perform and watch other people perform and then talk about what they can change. I'm not sure that im comfortable suggesting to a clarinet player how to breathe, but hey, i give it a shot, because thats what they want us to do. I'm finding that my voice lessons are helping me an awful lot in thinking about critiquing people, and helping them fix problems that are usually associated with how they use their air anyway. Air is so important!

Tonight was a really fun, but kinda rainy concert at Schonbrunn. The rain came down pretty consistently about 30 minutes before the concert, so we thought they would cancel, but the troopers came out and played underneath their clear orchestra shell anyway. The whole thing was so cool to look at. We looked away from the palace toward the Gloriette, which was lit and beautiful, but was nothing next to the stage, which was lit with four huge sky beams that moved to the music, colored lights that changed the appearance of the shell and candles around the fountain were lit. There were really large screens that let those of us without front row seating see what was going on. There were people covering the entire garden area around each of the six gardens, and speakers were set up...you'll see if you look at my pictures!

It was my first taste of the Vienna Philharmonic! Its a given that they were awesome, and how they stayed with their conductor, 83 year old Georges Pretre, I do not know. The music was live with the video that showed him, and sometimes he just stood there, and the orchestra was a half second behind. The miracle of the Phil is that they were a half second behind together. Apparently conducting is like driving a Rolls Royce :) I can't imagine. They played a colorful program: The Ravel Valse, some Strauss, Rosenkavalier, and a few other things that i dont remember because there werent programs.

As I stood there in the middle of the rain watching one of the best orchestras in the world, I turned around and there was Schonbrunn. I had forgotten where I was! That was the moment I realized, wow Im in VIENNA. I have been missing that "wow" kind of moment where you walk into a palace or approach a huge building and you just have to stop and think about what it means to be there. This fulfilled my need for "wow" It was probably the music that made it. Finally everything I heard about Vienna was in one place: Germans, the Phil, a beautiful palace, beer. okay that sounds simple, but it really meant something. go to vienna. it waits for you until it smacks you in the face :)

Happy June!