Two Weeks of School

It's hard to believe that by Labor Day weekend this year we've already had two weeks of school. Typically we are gearing up for the first day of school and maybe have had one or two days with students by now so it's hard to believe that we're already been through two full weeks of classes. One thing about graduate school is that there are no orientations or convocations so you just kind of slip into the school year and before you know it you are doing piles of research.

We did miss the Minnesota State Fair this weekend, something we've been doing with Nicole and Dan for the past several years. In order to get our summer festival fix we went to the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival with Peter and Ena (my colleagues in the conducting studio) and their significant others. While this was no Minnesota State Fair, there was delicious sweetcorn (albeit slightly expensive), some live musical acts (including Soul Asylum), and lots of food. It basically takes up two blocks of Urbana's downtown area. All in all not too bad.


We are beginning to fall into the rhythm of the school year. My class schedule allows for a lot of downtime and time for study. Things will pick up later in the semester when I am traveling to do my observations but right now I have basically two full days per week to study. Conducting seminar has been great and it is exactly what I need from an educational standpoint. It's wonderful to get specific instruction on my needs as a conductor three times per week. Right now I'm focusing on making my gesture more compact and succinct which will allow for more fluid nonverbal communication with the orchestra. Economy of gesture is important, especially for yours truly with my ape-length arms.

I spent a good deal of time last week working on Beethoven 1st and 9th Symphonies. This week I will be spending some time with the Overture to Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss. All the while I need to begin to look ahead to next month when we tackle the Enigma Variations and a pair of Mozart Symphonies. It's nice to be focusing on this literature and to have a chance to really get in depth with the music. This really is the perfect learning environment for me right now.