3 october

Sorry that my last post ended out of nowhere. I kind of fell asleep on my keyboard and woke up with about 4 pages of “kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk…” I must have been a little tired…

It’s about 4:30 pm here in Hastingsliegh, which makes it 10:30 am back in Tennessee. We just got back to the Dairy from our first official day of class. Class is fairly relaxed right now. Trevor stops quite often to address individual issues a person might have or tell a story or to discuss whether or not we should kill the wasp in the room or to capture him and send him on “vacation” outside. No one has died yet, which is a good thing. ;)

Today’s class was a technique/studies (etudes) class, as every Tuesday class will be. We start the day off at 9 with a warm-up led by a different student each time. First, the leader plays a tune or relatively short melody, preferably with an octave leap somewhere in it, and the rest of us listen and then repeat it. Then we play it in all twelve keys or until Trevor says, “Ok! That’s enough! What’s next?” (It can be hard.) Then we do some Reichert, Boehm, and other finger exercises like Practice Book 6 (flute players know what I’m talking about.) Then we have tea, a few minutes break, then back to class. After warm up, we did Moyse 24 Little Melodies and Anderson Op. 15. We all have lunch together around 1 and relax for a little while before starting back. Today we watched YouTube videos of Denis Bouriakov, who is absolutely amazing. Go to YouTube right now and watch him play the Bach Chaconne, the Saint-Saens, and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Right now. Go. Watch. Be amazed.

After lunch we discussed repertoire for the six months. Each week, all six of us learn the same piece and play it on Thursday’s repertoire class. Here’s the list, in order, if some of you flute players care to know:

Week 1… REINECKE Ballade (Yay! Starting off with something familiar!)

2. HANDEL Sonatas – g minor, G major, F major

3. FAURE Morceau de Concours

BLAVET Sonata in g minor

4. GRIFFES Poem

5. BERKELEY Sonatine

6. TAKTAKISHVILI Sonata

7. MUTHEL Sonata in D

8. BONIS Sonata (LOVE this piece. Can’t wait to learn it… it’s hard though!)

9. MUCZYNSKI Sonata

10. BACH b minor sonata

11. DOPPLER Airs Valaques

12. MOZART Concerto in G & Andante

13. ROUSSEL Joueurs de Flute

14. DAMASE Sonate in Concert

15. TELEMANN All 12 Fantaisies, F major Sonata, F minor Sonata

16. ENESCO Cantabile and Presto

17. BOZZA Image

18. NIELSEN Concerto

19. LECLAIR Sonata in G

20. PROKOFIEV Sonata

21. JOLIVET Chant de Linos

22. SCHUBERT Introduction and Variations

So a few things about where I’m living, the students, and other things…

Let’s see… a little about where I’m living…

I am in the Old Dairy, which is about a half mile farther from Trevor’s than the New Dairy. The walk to Trevor’s from the Old Dairy takes about 45 minutes, so I’m guessing it’s almost a 2-mile walk. When it gets really cold, it’s going to be anything but fun I am sure. Right now it’s a little warm still, so by the time we’re at Trevor’s, we’ve all broken a little bit of a sweat (ew).

It’s true. There are sheep everywhere. And pheasants. I’ve never seen a real pheasant, but they’re everywhere here. Right next to our dairy there are a bunch of chickens (I can hear them ‘clucking’ right now – ha). There are also a lot of spiders. A whole lot. I’m not too happy about that, but I’m getting used to it. I woke up this morning at 3 am for some reason, looked at my wall, and saw a HUGE spider. NOT cool. But I put a cup over him and dealt with him in the morning… but anyway…

My roommates are Adrian (Australia) and Jhen Wei (Taiwan). I’m not sure how old Adrian is, but he is a little older than I am, and Jhen Wei is 21. In the New Dairy is Kristin (Seattle), Ko-Yu (Taiwan), and So Yun (Korea). Ko-Yu and So Yun are returning students from last year.

What else?... Every night, at 7:42 (yes), we all go with Trevor for a walk. It’s beautiful here at night. It’s completely black except for the lights coming from Ashford. Trevor has been teaching us a little bit about Astronomy and soon we’re going to get to go into his observatory in his garden. (They call backyards ‘gardens’ here.) It has a telescope with a 16-inch aperature, which apparently is about as big as domestic telescopes get.

Tomorrow we are going shopping at Tesco again, this time to buy enough food and supplies for the whole week. We went on Saturday evening, but only bought enough for three days. Apparently, as the weeks go on, the weekly trip to Tesco becomes THE highlight of the week. Tesco is pretty much like Walmart, only a little smaller. And everything is in pounds (obviously), which is really weird and confusing.

Thursday we are all going to London to go to WIBB’s (William Bennett’s) recital at Wigmore Hall. Some of us are going earlier in the afternoon to go to Just Flutes and to do some shopping and sight seeing. So excited! : ) And on Sunday, we’re going back to London for Jacques Zoon’s recital (and maybe class?) at the Royal Academy.

Well, I guess that’s about it for this post. I know I wrote a lot, but I had some catching up to do. I’m about to go take a walk and take some pictures and I’ll post a few. Here is my address at the Old Dairy, just in case you want to send me a letter or something (that would be awesome, just saying)……… AND I’ve put the phone number in case you have an international calling card and want to use up some minutes :P

The Old Dairy

Whatsole Street Farm

Elmsted, Near Ashford, Kent

TN25 5JN UK

Phone: 01233 750044

Bye! :)