Mercifully Cool

Well it's finally a nice day today. Cloudy, rainy, and mercifully cool here in Zlin. We've been suffering through the last three days with temperatures in the mid-30s celcius (it's been in the 90s) with no air conditioning anywhere. Last night there were some powerful storms that came through, woke me up, and brought in the cool air. What a relief. Everyone seems to be in better spirits although a bit on the tired side.


It's been a busy past couple of days for us at the workshop. Two days ago I got to conduct the first six minutes of Tableaux One of Petrushka. It's a tough piece with lots of meter changes and lots of rhythmic problems for the orchestra and the conductor. Overall it went really well and I got some great feedback from the teachers. Yesterday morning I got the chance to conduct a part of Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony, the exposition of the first movement. I'm really trying to do what the Mr. Rachleff and Mr. Schleicher are telling me to do physically and it's helping a lot. It went really well this morning and I felt more comfortable in front of the orchestra. I still have a lot of ingrained habits that it will take many months to fix but things are starting to happen already. Other than that it's been a lot of watching the other conductors, listening to and observing everything that's happening, and lots of score study.

Also, two nights ago Kaia and I went out for our anniversary dinner after my sessions were finished. We went to a restaurant called "Husa" on the main square in Zlin. The food was delicious although when I ordered I wasn't quite sure what I was getting. Scrag, which is basically a cut of meat from a lamb - I think it comes from the neck, is actually pretty tasty. I had no idea what it was but apparently it's pretty popular in central Europe. After our meal we ran into some conductors and orchestra musicians on the square so we stopped to have a drink with them. Overall it was a very nice evening.

Yesterday afternoon we had some free time. A group of us went for ice cream and then coffee and then we all took a bus to Luhakovice, a spa town just to the North of here, to watch a chamber concert of Brahms cello sonatas and lieder. It was nice to have a bit of a break so I could do some laundry. I've actually washed a bunch of clothes in the sink in the hotel room. Today's schedule is a little bit easier schedule for us too. We had a chamber session this morning and then we head back to Luha for a discussion, then dinner, then another concert. We start back up on Monday with full orchestra.


Right now I'm just thankful for the cool weather!