#Weekend Coffee Share

I haven’t done this in a while because things have been really busy for me, but now that I have a moment it seems like a great time to catch up with some coffee!

If we were having coffee I’d be on my 4th cup today… and I’d like to tell you about my crazy schedule for the last week.

On Tuesday, there was a concert from a Hartt alumni and my friend was the performer and my boyfriend is the one who made the arrangements. The tour is called “I hit things and I call it art.” I wish I took pictures, but let’s just say there was a piece that involved him going through the pages of a “book”, but every page was a different texture of paper or instrument. Things like tissue paper, wrapping paper, plastic, tin foil, and wire strung on boards made up the different pages. It was a great concert though and I’m glad I got to see my friend again, it had been two years!

On Wednesday, I had my orchestra rehearsal for the community symphony orchestra I play percussion in. Our pops concert is coming up next weekend so it’s crunch time! I get to play with two of my best friends in the percussion section. We all met at Hartt in the percussion section AND we all ended up living together through college so orchestra rehearsal is always fun to go to. 🙂

On Thursday, I went to the “Marimba Wheel” concert and was a “ride attendant”. Basically one of the professors of composition at Hartt had the idea to compose a piece where the audience would lay under the marimbas to experience the “ride”. My job was to guide the audience members to their respective marimbas. It was actually a really cool experience and I hope they do something like it again!

And then after the concert I had some fun with Kevin’s mallets and the marimba improvising my new piece: “Wolverine”.

It’s standard to play with four mallets, but eight mallets….not so much.

On Friday, I got to go to Kevin’s last Calendar Concert Series concert of the year. The piece he composed and performed with another friend is called An End. It’s composed as a meditative piece for the problems in the world with interludes that serve as possible solutions. For example, some of the problems were illness, war, racism, famine, and pollution. Some of the interludes were hope, forgiveness, and togetherness. It ran about an hour long, but it was a great time to reflect and I was even inspired for some new writing ideas, including writing text to join in his piece. (By the way, if you’re a composer and this interests you drop me a comment because he is looking to add sections from any composer or performer.)

On Saturday it was my sister’s Masters Graduation Ceremony. She received her Masters in Health Sciences with a focus on nutrition from Russell Sage. We got to go to a wonderful Mexican restaurant called El Mariachi in Albany, NY and followed it up with some chocolate cake, chocolate peanut butter cup gelato, and Mario Party/Kart when we got back to her apartment.

When we got home  there was a thunderstorm, but the sky was glowing at the same time so it looked pretty cool.

And today, Sunday, was Kevin’s Graduation where he received a double Bachelor’s Degree for Music in Percussion Performance and Composition. We got to go to J. Timothy’s afterwards which is really cool because before it was J. Timothy’s it was my grandfather’s restaurant and was called Cooke’s Tavern. The menus even have a tribute to the old restaurant on their covers. We wondered if Mom would recognize it since that was her first job, but it was really hard to tell whether or not she did.

Tomorrow is my Spring Concert at the elementary school I teach at where my chorus and recorder students will be performing. I am a bit nervous, but have been assured repeatedly it will go fine… I hope that’s true!

So yea, it’s been pretty busy for me and I haven’t gotten to post and read as much as I would like to, but I’m hoping after my concert I will have much more free time to work on some writing ideas I’ve been developing. 🙂

Feel free to leave me a comment if you haven’t heard from me in awhile, I’d love to catch up with you!

And here’s a picture of my kitties because why not, they’re adorable! 🙂