jill.musick

As a musician, Christmas time = concert time. In the past 2 weeks, I’ve been involved in 7 concerts. Instead of 7 Swans a-swimming, it’s my head that’s swimming after organizing rehearsals and getting myself to concerts!

1. Wednesday, Dec. 1 – Nursing Home – This was a practice Christmas concert for all the BFA orchestras. There was beautiful winter weather outside, which provided the right atmosphere for Christmas music inside. It was the first time the Beginners had ever performed!

2. Saturday, Dec. 4 – Stadtmusik Kandern Jahreskonzert – My second Christmas concert with the community band. We had an excellent piano soloist in the first part of our concert. Typical German concerts have long intermissions with drinks and food. I’m starting to get used to this idea of getting a real break in the middle of a concert! Another cultural item of note – German audiences expect at least one ‘Zugabe,’ or encore, so we gave them 2!

If you can read German, here’s an article on the concert.

3. Sunday, Dec. 5 – BFCF prelude – A few students and I played Christmas carols before the Black Forest Christian Fellowship church service.

4. Saturday, Dec. 11. – Markgräfler Symphonieorchester #1 – My first concert with the Müllheim orchestra! We opened with a Cherubini overture. The soloist did a great job on the Brahms concerto (and Elgar Salut d’Amour as a Zugabe/encore), and we played Beethoven’s 7th symphony on the 2nd half (with 2 encores – Elgar’s Nimrod and Mendelssohn’s chorale ‘Now Thank We All Our God’).

5. Sunday, Dec. 12 – BFA Christmas Concert – All the music groups at BFA performed in this colossal concert. Many thanks to Hans Fung for videotaping the performances and putting them on YouTube!

A flute trio performed, then interim director Phil Peters gave a welcome in both English and German. Principal Laird Leavitt prayed, and then the concert was off to a start with the Music Appreciation class performing ‘Chomp, the Christmas Stomp.’

The high school choir led a sing-along as the stage was set up for ensembles. The piano classes and guitar class performed. Then Beginning Band and Orchestra had their respective debuts on the BFA stage!

Beginning Orchestra:

Jingle Bells, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Silent Night (notice that when I had them stand up after Silent Night, the boy on the left scurried off the stage. He skipped with joy, making the whole audience laugh!)

Intermediate Orchestra:

The First Noel, What Child is This, We Wish You a Merry Christmas

High School Orchestra:

Andante from Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, Shepherd’s Hymn from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, and Fandango Asturiano from Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Capriccio Espagnole

Intermediate and HS combined: African Bell Carol

The Middle School and High School choirs sang, and Phil Peters closed out the night with a prayer. Before the concert was over, I had left for the next one!

6. Sunday, Dec. 12 – Markgräfler Symphonieorchester #2 – Same as the first concert, except this one was my second concert of the day!

Click here to see an article (in German) with more pictures!

7. Tuesday, Dec. 14 – Nursing Home Party – The folks at Luise Klaiber Haus invited us to play at their party. As it is finals week, I asked some staff members to play instead of trying to pull kids away from packing and studying.

Here’s my Zugabe for you (you thought you were done with the concerts, right? Wrong!)

I almost had an 8th concert last Thursday, but I missed the Wednesday rehearsal due to an orchestra rehearsal in Müllheim. The brass players from Stadtmusik Kandern played at the official opening of the Weihnachtstraße (‘Christmas street’).

This Thursday I should be joining them on tuba.

This weekend was the high school orchestra’s trip to Paris! Six string players (4 violins, 2 cellos) and 3 chaperones (myself plus RAs Chris and Jon) drove to Massy, a suburb of Paris, on Friday and returned to Kandern on Sunday. It was a weekend full of laughs, music, and amazing French chocolate and pastries!

Quick overview of the trip (in 3 run-on sentences):

Friday – We left school around 7:30am, drove to Massy (If anyone ever drives to Paris, watch out – tolls are expensive, especially if you’re riding in the Kahuna!), arrived around 1:30, relaxed & did homework at Les Cedres, rehearsed, made dinner, watched a movie (Toy Story 3), had devotions, went to sleep.

Saturday – We took the train to downtown Paris, saw Notre Dame, ate breakfast in a cafe, walked by the Louvre, went to the Musee d’Orsay and saw a performance by a harpist and a violinist (it was part of a solo competition of the Paris Conservatoire), ate lunch at McDonald’s, walked to the Paris Opera House (but it was closed due to some event happening that night), walked to Starbucks, took the metro to the Paris Conservatoire, saw the Cite de la Musique (although we didn’t get there in time to go inside the Music Museum), discussed some history of the Paris Opera, composers in Paris, requirements to get into the Paris Conservatory, etc., then took the metro to Champs-Elyssees, perused the Christmas Market (most people ate delicious Crepes), went to a grocery store and bought food for dinner, took the train back, ate dinner around 9:30pm, played “Never Have I Ever,” had devotions, and went to sleep exhausted!

Sunday – We woke up, ate breakfast at the local boulangerie, packed up, played in the church service, attempted to politely get away from all the people who wanted to meet us, took the train to the Eiffel Tower, wandered around for an hour and a half (a few of us ate at an amazing bakery!), took the train back to Massy, found a gift (dark chocolate) in the local convenience store for our hostess, ate dinner at the local places (Turkish food or a bakery), loaded up the van, swept the floor in the room, and said goodbye to our hostess who let us stay at the school, drove back to Germany, and arrived back in Kandern around 12:45.

Paris in Pictures:

Enjoying French pastries and dark chocolate ice cream bars…S.S. enjoyed the rare opportunity to braid a guy’s hair. Jon was a good sport about it. Here’s her creation the first night:And the second night (I requested that she do a princess braid):

Notre Dame:

Louvre:

Garnier Opera House (opera house upon which Phantom of the Opera was based):

Eiffel Tower at nightOn Sunday we visited the Eiffel tower and had free time.

Our meeting point after the free time was the Metro station; we entertained ourselves with the posters on the wall:

Injuries and mishaps on the trip (and other good stories):

– One of the funniest conversations from the drive to Paris revolved around the large covered bales of hay in the fields.
Chris – “G.K, look, it’s a field of giant marshmallows!”
G.K – “Really?! Cool!”
Jon – “You do know they’re not really marshmallows, right?”
G.K. – “Yeah, of course I know that! Duh!”
Jon – “Do you know what they really are?”
G.K. – “Uh, they’re full of lots of little marshmallows? No, I’m just kidding. Oh, I know! It’s food for the cows so the farmers don’t have to feed them. Yeah – the cows can just break into them and eat when the farmers are on vacation!”

– H.L. slipped on the stairs and twisted her ankle on Friday night. S.S., who wants to be a doctor one day, rubbed cream onto her ankle and bandaged her up. She was able to walk fine by Saturday morning!

– On Saturday we accidentally bought train tickets to Ville d’Orsay instead of Musee d’Orsay. We ended up going the wrong direction for a few stops before realizing what we had done. 🙁

– S.B. burned his left index finger Sunday morning while frying eggs. This was right before he had to play cello! :-0

– I found out that my cousins studied French at the very same language school we stayed in, and my uncle and aunt have visited there several times. It’s a small world after all….

– An African guy at church was very interested in the Korean girls in the orchestra; he talked to G.K. afterwards and tried to get her phone number!

– G.K. almost was pick-pocketed at the Eiffel Tower, but her bag was zipped. When the person realized it was zipped and apologized for attempting to steal from her, she said, “Oh, that’s ok.”

– While going shopping during their free time at the Eiffel Tower, H.J., G.K., and S.B. got lost and met us over a half hour late.

– While waiting for them, the rest of us had the unique experience of a random person walking up to us in the metro station and offering to sell us weed at a very affordable rate. Sorry, we don’t smoke weed.

– We considered taking the back roads home from Paris, but we realized we wouldn’t get back until 2am (due in part to the setbacks earlier in the day), so we chose to suffer through the tolls again and returned home around 12:45am!

“I prefer going shopping for avocados because they look prettier than clothing.” – A.P.

“If people in movies listened to me, a lot more of them would still be alive!” – D. P.

“I thought everyone else was in the wrong place!” – A.P.

One day the homework for beginning orchestra was to practice pg 7 (meaning page 7). E.P. asked, “Is our homework rated PG?”

M.F. walks into orchestra. The first words out of his mouth: “I ate whiskey.”

“Miss Musick, you look like a blond tomato!” – A.P.

Saturday I had a fun little party with my intermediate orchestra.

We made cookies together . . .

attacked each other with wooden spoons . . .

. . . ate pizza, watched Prince Caspian, and enjoyed the cookies with some ice cream!