<< May 7, 2007 >>
before there was firefox...

this weekend i stopped by nuggets looking for one of two Pierre Boulez / Cleveland Orchestra recordings on vinyl of the rite of spring that i had just bought from newbury comics. instead, i bought this for $4:

it turns out that unlike the rite recordings, i have performed both pieces on this record at one point or another.

i played the firebird in some weird orchestra in dc that i had done some terrible audition tape for. they must have been really short on percussionists. all in all, it was a pretty awful trip. it was over a weekend, with maybe like two days practicing with the group before our concert at the kennedy center.

my parents couldn't go, so i had to make the trip alone. this may be my earliest memory of having trouble with airport security: the non-english speaking trainee working the x-ray machine was not quite sure what to do with a bag full of aluminum tubes and other percussion-playing equipment. apparently i made it out ok.

i did know one of the oboists from chautauqua the summer prior (which would make it sophomore year of high school), but was still pretty paralyzed the whole time; i was pretty shy back then (ok, i still am). i think i went the first day or two without eating? and then it turned out i forgot my shoes, so i had to borrow someone else's, which were too big for me. terribly embarassing.

there wasn't much else that was memorable from this trip, except i thought i left a t-shirt there which i think i later found.

i believe i've performed romeo and juliet twice; the first time very well may have been in 6th grade, in orchestra before normal classes started on thursdays, where we got donuts. i don't remember where the other place i played it was... probably with the school orchestra again in high school?

but the kind of creepy thing about all of this, is that on the back of the record's sleeve, they mention another bernstein recording with the new york phil of the age of anxiety. who happens to be playing piano on that recording? none other than lukas foss, whom i am almost completely certain was the conductor of that youth orchestra i played the firebird with. we played some awful piece of his which had a terrible percussion orchestration. it is important to note that there's nothing that makes playing a terrible piece worse than being conducted by the guy who wrote it.

oh, hmm. hockey's on.