oh, how time flies...!

It's the end of week one!  Finally!  It's been a wipe out week of first classes, organizing, scheduling,  weather changes, and of course... PRACTICING!

Here's a long one :)

School:

Classes seem like they're going to be great.  I'm a little exhausted with my Deutsch class because my teacher, Frau Johnson, still expects us to just know things already and have the "Deutsche feeling" for some things that don't have grammatical rules; you can just feel that it's right or wrong.  Philosophy is great, and it's only Monday and Tuesday, so not a whole lot to worry about there and it's incredibly engaging.  Music history has a lot of reading and listening and writing, etc. but I'm learning.. and hopefully we will move beyond Gregorian chant soon.. ? 

Ensemble:

Performance workshop.  This is the most unorganized class I've ever been a part of.  I understand that it's difficult to organize a bunch of musical groups with random instrumentation with 4 different coaches, however, the whole this is such a mess.  The brass is working with Bill McElheney, former 2nd trombonist of the Wiener Philharmoniker.  He's a really nice guy, from Tennessee I believe.  For the first 3 or 4 weeks, we are having a masterclass setting on Wednesday evenings where we have a couple people play a solo and he and we give comments.  It's just an opportunity for us to get more performance experience.  We are also starting rehearsals for the groups that we've been put in.  I'm playing a piece by Franz Lachner, for soprano, horn, and piano, a Mozart trio for 2 horns and Flute, and the Finale from the Brahms trio.  I'm going to lobby for the 3rd movement as well.  What's the 4th without the 3rd?!  (or the rest...)  I'm not sure when I'm rehearsing these or performing them.  All I know is that it will happen sometime, so I should start to learn the music.  I'm so used to having the entire schedule at the beginning of the semester (thanks IU! <3), so this is a little perturbing, but I'll make it out alive.  I think. 

Horn:

I'm really glad I'm not going to Oktoberfest so that I can practice diligently without a break.  It's also very expensive and I have so many other places that I really know I want to go!  Anyway, I had my 2nd lesson with Manuel a few hours ago and it went really well again.  He's a really funny guy.  I asked him if he does a warm-up or exercises (übungen) because he's so good and he told me, "No, not really, I play lots of staccato scales.  I think this is good."  I said, "You must do something more, how are you so good?"  He replied, "I don't know, I'm not good!" Nein.  Das ist falsch.  He's bringing übungen for me next week.  lol.   Today I played for him the 3nd and 4th movements of the Brahms trio.  I will write about this in my horn blog so as not to bore the non-music readers ;)  He's also going to let me go to more rehearsals, and even said my parents could come when they're visiting!   I'm so excited because that rehearsal was by far the best part of my week.  Overall, he says I sound very good.  Next week, he will be in Altösterreich, another region, so I asked if I could get a lesson with Wolfgang Vladar, the horn play that Jenny Smoak and Darcie Kozlowski (i think?) studied with when they were here!!  Very exciting!!  Manuel said Wolfgang's english is better than his. haha.  By the end of this semester, I'll find out how he's so good though, I'm determined. :)

Etc:

A guy smiled at me while he walked by me the other day.  He was the first one the entire semester!  It threw me off so much, I gave him a confused "oh wait, smile" look in return. haha.  As I said in earlier posts, it's not really normal to smile at people and I've had a lot of trouble not smiling as I pass people.  I've gotten used to people just kind of staring.  It was a nice change of pace.  :)


My new favorite food is officially.... eggplant!  nöm!  :D   I put some in my stir fry tonight!

I met my language buddy!  Her name is Marion and she is really cool.  I definitely picked a good one.  She's studying english, education, and music.  She plays blockflöte (recorder!) and wants to be an english teacher.  Her english is very good.  We met at Stephansdom (the biggest/most famous church in Vienna that my school is 5 minutes from) and we had pizza (she is vegetarian) and gelato.  She taught me how to order correctly. yay!  Then she took me to see the Naturhistorisches Museum, which we will go to sometime and the Kunsthistorisches Museum.  We walked around a little bit, I showed her my school, and she told me some places that I could get some cheaper clothes.  She's coming with to the Musikverein this sunday to see Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and Shostakovich 5th!  So excited!

It's getting colder here!!!!!  It's crazy how suddenly the temperature changed, but here comes fall!  :D

So, ahead of me waits this concert on Sunday, another concert on Thursday (Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and Mozart's Haffner Symphony) with Claudio Abbado!!!!!  In real life!!!!! OMG!!!!!!  I love the music scene in the city... Vienna is amazing. 

As I finished my first week of classes here in Vienna, I suddenly realized that I've been here for over a month.  This realization generated another realization that I never thought I'd actually have:  this semester abroad is going by incredibly fast.  My time here is over 25% complete and I feel like it's just begun still.  Normally this is the time where the abroad student says, "Now I'm really going to take advantage of what I've got here, it's truly an experience of a lifetime that not everyone gets!  It's time to squeeze the juice! (IES joke <3 kent)"  However, I'm not that student.  I'm really proud and happy to say that I really have been living the life here.  I'm doing exactly what I came here to do: play horn, experience the European music scene,  explore Vienna, and become more culturally adept. 

Alles gut Heute in Wien  :)