I had my birthday: Yay I'm 21!! I went out, turned 21, had a crazy time, then woke up the next morning and stood in line for Siegfried all day :) Siegfried was incredible. Here's the cast:
And then... I went to Italy :)
Italy was unbelievable amazing. First of all, you can't go wrong with 7 Italian boys, 2 Spanish boys, Luca Benucci, and me, the lone female. :) Not that bad of a situation at all. This is the bunch of us that was still there in the evening for their little "first day being all together" party.
My time in Italy was some of the best I could have imagined. It started out a little bumpy with 7 connections to get there. Ubahn to Schnell bahn to plane to train to italy's ubahn to train to different train, finally I arrived in Cesena, but I had no idea where to go, so I ended up walking around in Italy in the dark. I decided that wasn't the safest choice, so I asked two people walking dogs, "parli inglese?" and one said no very strongly and the other said, "oh a little." The one who didn't speak any ended up walking me all the way to my hotel in silence, as we couldn't really converse at all. He was a very nice old man though! So I got to my hotel and had a cute little tiny room with a bed and a sink and it was lovely, but cold. I ended up having internet access though, which worked out really nicely as I checked my Facebook to see that I had a new message from Giuseppe, a student of Luca's who had recommended the hotel and said he'd help me with anything. Then I took a power nap. :) The two of us and another horn student, Vicente (from Spain), met later that evening at a pub in town and we chatted and they showed me around a little bit. They also promised to meet me in the morning to get me to the conservatory!
The next morning, I woke up really early to shower, get ready, warm up, and find a place to have breakfast, all before meeting at the conservatory at 9. I had a lovely Italian breakfast in a cafe:
Then Giuseppe and Vicente picked me up and we went to the conservatory. I had 7 more guys thrown at me all at once and I couldn't remember any of these Italian names. Right away I knew I needed to work really hard on the names. I got it in a day: Giuseppe. Vicente. Stefano. Frederico. Mattia. Giullem. Davide. Emmanuele. Manuel. LUCA! and Tamino was the pianist (japanese).
We started the day at 9 with 2 hours of breathing exercises, buzzing, and singing. Luca uses a spirometer, which allows you to see your airflow by watching a little ball that is held up by your wind. VERY USEFUL. We did some breathing and buzzing together, then we would go around and he would listen individually and give us each critiques. Then we each played an opening phrase from a mozart horn concerto (first notes on the horn), and using the proper air... wasn't that difficult or scary at all! After all of this, we had individual "20-min" lessons. Mine was an hour. lol. None were 20 minutes. I watched all of them work, and these guys were almost all new students of Luca's so they were only a little bit ahead of me in "Luca training," so watching and listening to them was quite informative as well. Then around 1:30, we all went to lunch at a cafeteria nearby. It was very yummy, I had pasta! Then.. we go for coffee :) They bought me special coffee.. that was absolutely delicious. Then we go back to the conservatory and continue with lessons. Mine was last and it was full of singing. haha. This was actually really informative. He had my try a bunch of different things and then play again to see which ones really helped me sound better. Turns out both the spirometer and the breathing bag helped tremendously and when I sung before playing, my tone was better than it's ever been. The little buzzy thing (a circle on a stick, arnold jacobs used it a lot) did not help.. it made my sound rather harsh. But these were fantastic realizations! I need to BREATHE!!!!!!
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| The streets of Cesena.. it was beautiful there :) |
The last thing of the day was a mock audition because they had one coming up shortly. They all played mozart 3 exposition and Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony horn solo. Then we ranked people to see who did best. Emmanuele won. We got kicked out of the building at 7:30. Yep, that's right. 9 AM to 7:30 PM with a lunch/coffee break. SOLID WORK ON HORN. It was incredible.
That night was their party, Luca cooked homemade Ragu, which was wonderful and Guillem made something called a tortilla, scrambled egg with potatoes in it, also really yummy! I stayed up really late talking with Luca about amazingly interesting, inspiring things and then totally passed out at the hotel.
The second day was basically the same thing. We did more technique stuff in the morning and less breathing work. He has his students work on flute vocalises for technique and a bunch of other things, horn and not horn. Then more lessons and then we all switched off playing movements of Strauss 1, I got the 2nd movement. We traded off playing, singing, and buzzing with the spirometer. It was kind of awesome. Luca's teaching is just really motivational and energized. There's always something that happens with my playing, like a big realization that I CAN sound better or it CAN be that easy, etc. I just need to hone in on all of those things and habit them. It was a wonderful trip.. we ended with appetizers at a pub and really good conversation. Luca is one of the most inspiring people I've ever met. I mean just for life in general, not only horn. He just understands and learns about each of his students individually so he knows what each of their personalities needs, on horn and in life.
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| Playing, Singing, Buzzing on spirometer :) what a trio! |
Random things I learned in Italy:
-Everyone's named Giuseppe. The first, 2nd, and last guy I met there were all Giuseppe. lol.
-Italians don't speak english. And they don't like when you do.
-Italians are not afriad to go for it. I met a guy on one of the trains back and he started talking to me in Italian and I was like woa. Inglese. and then he actually spoke english which was a miracle. So he started talking with me and asking where I was from and what I was doing here. Then I got up to get off in Bologna and he followed me to the door. I asked if he was getting off and he said no, he left his bag in another car. The train stopped and I went to get off and he said, "Jamie, wait!" and I'm just like... "umm.. I need to get off.." and he pulls me in and says I hope that we can meet again sometime soon, and we go to do the kiss kiss on either cheek and he totally goes in for the kill and kisses me. It was very surprising.. and then I left. lol. Another italian on the plane from Rome to Vienna kept turning around and staring at me, so naturally I looked at him like, "what? why are you looking at me?" and then at baggage claim he come up to me, doesn't speak english, only german (he figured I was austrian) and asks me out to dinner. I politely declined the offer. Those Italians... fearless! ;)
I want to study in Italy with Luca Benucci. Not sure when this will happen, but I assure you, it will.
Well, I'll have to continue this November synopsis later, as I'm really tired. Guten Abend! :)
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| Lucaaaaaa :) |
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