Technically Supposed to be Nutcracker Mvt. 8 Boxes 87-90 (Orchestra)

This portion of the Nutcracker is not incredibly difficult for the violas, in fact I only played through it twice during my practice time this weekend, and that sufficed. However, there were several other things that I focused on while I was practicing:

• In the 10th movement of the Nutcracker Suite, there is a false harmonic solo for the viola. It is technically for two soloists, the first and second chair violists, and since I am one of those it is important for me to master this solo for the concert. Today I went over how to play each note as a false harmonic, and also played each note normally to get used to shifting around on first finger.
• All State Orchestra auditions are this upcoming weekend, so I played through all of the required scales, EM, FM, F#M, GM, and G chrom., and both of the excerpts, the viola solo from the Roman Carnival Overture by Berlioz, and a part of the third movement of Brahms' Symphony No. 2. I focused on keeping both excerpts at the given tempi and playing them to be as musical as possible.
• I also looked at my current concerto, Handel's Viola Concerto in B Minor. I have been working on this piece for several months, so my main goal today was to play through the entire thing without stopping (even if it required a slower tempo).
• Finally, I read through the second part of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 by Bach as I am going to play this as a duet for solo and ensemble. I took the first movement at a very slow tempo as it was my first time ever looking at it, and I worked out a few fingerings as well. I'll continue to work on this for solo and ensemble.

Identifying Intervals (DP1 Music)

The interval between the third (D) and fourth (G) notes of the trumpet's main melody (duhn duhn duhn - duuuuh) is a perfect fourth.

First Concert Reflection (Orchestra)

Last week we had our very first orchestra concert of the year at Lahser High School. This was an interesting experience not only because it was our first performance as an ensemble, but also because of the performance venue. Lahser is no longer an active high school, so the building was slightly dingy and smelly because of it! Despite the fact that it was not the fanciest venue, our orchestra performed as if it was.

At this concert, we performed Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and a lovely piece called In the Company of Angels by William Hofeldt. This was not my first time playing the first movement of Schubert because I played it at Avanti Summer Music Fest this past summer. However, I had not played the second movement, so I still had a new piece to work on (along with Angels of course). Although I individually did not have much to improve upon, the orchestra as a whole did. From the very first rehearsal of the piece to the final performance, our orchestra showed incredible growth and skill. We mastered techniques specific to the pieces, such as playing quietly but maintaining rich tone in the second movement, and playing extremely fast runs in unison across sections in both movements of the Schubert! We learned to listen to each other and cue each other in not only within sections, but throughout the orchestra. Cuing through breathing was vital to our success this concert. In addition to this, our greatest achievement of the night was the musicality of our performance, which is a regular achievement of our orchestra.

Although our growth this concert was obvious, we did have several faults. The most notable flaw was our tendency to rush the slow, quiet second movement. I do not wish to discredit the band, but I must admit that they tended to rush more frequently than the strings did; their doing so is reasonable because they were so far away from Mr. Wolf on stage! This error was easily fixed, however, as the strings pulled the tempo back at times when the band parts were less prominent. Another flaw was our slight inaccuracies in pitch. This is a common error for our orchestra and all orchestras at our level, but it is almost always managed and fixed when it occurs! We need to continue to work on achieving perfect intonation for our future concerts. We should also focus on looking up at Mr. Wolf to prevent any rushing that may occur, and cue even more dramatically so that everyone in the orchestra knows exactly who is coming in and at what times.