France, day 5

I'm writing this while listening to people react to what's going on in the Italy/Germany soccer game. Listening to the reactions is really more entertaining than watching the game!! Today was a pretty easy day. Either that or it wasa normal day, and I'm just used to crazy rehearsals, I'm not sure. Msre sectionals, and then full rehearsals, and then a few hours with the singers... But everyone is tired enough that we only have 4.5 hours scheduled for tomorrow. Some things mom thinks I should write about. This summer program is a training orchestra, but many people here are already semi-professional. Most are either working on a masters or already done with one (or several), which makes me young, if not the youngest. Most of the people here have chosen old music as a specialty. This program, from what I can tell, is one of the better summer programs for old music. The people here are from all over, but I think everyone has a european residence. Old music schools like Basel and the Hague have a larger presence than normal schools like Zurich. Some people here are starting to feel a little trapped in this small village. I guess the two years I spent at Interlochen trained me out of feeling cooped up in small towns. I'm completely happy with just my book, a cute area to run in, a little playground, and limited internet. It's turning out to be a nice break from the outside world. The food: is made by a few really good cooks. They haven't repeated anything. It's always two courses--a salad course, which is usually a leaf salad and some other kind of salad plus a little appetizer like toast or stuffed grape leaves, and a main course, which is generally a grain, a veggie, and a protein. They always have a vegetarian option, and by the second day all the cooks knew all the vegetarians, and serve us accordingly. I'm not as tired my last post sounded, I promise, I just don't always know what to write about!

France, day 4

Today was mostly for sectionals. We did winds in the morning, chamber music in the afternoon, and full orchestra in the early evening... Now everyone is watching the soccer match, which was somehow important enough to get our evening lecture canceled. In the meantime, I really want a massage... Too much horn!!! That's all for today, sorry i don't feel like writing more, or have more to write about!!!

France, day 3

Another full day of rehearsals has me pretty tired. I guess the good news is that the schedule was wrong: we only had 6.5 hours of rehearsal again today, not the 8 that were planned. That was a bit of a relief. Tomorrow we are supposed to go up until dinner, but we get an hour break, so it will be okay. That said, there may be no time to blog tomorrow because of the schedule. We'll see. Apologies in advance if that happens. So, as promised, I shall write boringly about how many keys the horns are in. Since we're playing natural horns, we have to change part of our instrument to match the key of the orchestra... We have six keys in this piece, but a lot more changes. The conductor is quite bad at waiting for us to change if he jumps. We also end up having to re-tune for every key, which we forget a lot, and then it sounds bad... But we're learning... For anyone keeping a list, we need c basso, d, e flat, f, g and a for this opera. But not in that order. That's all for today i guess.. Middle of nowhere France does not give me a lot to talk about. I'll write more if people ask questions. :)

France, day 2

Rehearsals officially started today, which was fun. We're working on a little opera by Rosinni. It's the usual comedy about arranged marriage going wrong. The music is sweet, and fun to play. This morning a few of us decided to go for a run after breakfast. We ended up pooping out pretty fast, but it was fun anyway. We had 6.5 hours of rehearsal today, with a good amount of time for lunch. The food here is quite good. The town of Ambronay is very small. There is a bar, a pizza place, a tobacco store, and a pharmacy. The church and cloister where we are seem to be the same size as the rest of the town, but that's okay. The area here is very pretty: green and hilly. My roommate is really nice. She's an oboist from Holland... :) Tomorrow we are in for more of the same... I'll probably run out of things to write about here pretty quickly. Maybe tomorrow I'll explain what keys the horns are in during the opera or something else riveting. I still don't know how to post picture from my iPad on my blog... Sorry!!

France, day 1

Hi everyone!! I'm going to do my bestest to keep my blog relatively up to date while I'm in France and on tour. Right now the Internet situation is such that for the next two weeks, regular updates should be easy if I have time. I got to Ambronay today. It's about five hours from Zurich, but the train ride is pretty, so the trip was quite easy. I think I packed too much, getting my stuff up and down stairs has not been fun. But I have no idea when I'll next see a washing machine!! Today is an easy day. Just hang and unpack and meet people. Tomorrow is when rehearsals start. I can't wait, really!! We're staying in part of an old convent. Very cute rooms, I'll try to post pictures later... Except I don't know how to post pictures from my iPad. That's all for now. Stay tuned!!