Peabody '09-'10: Week One

First, a brief intro: As I mentioned in a recent post, I need to get my blogging game in gear and stop letting weeks go by between posts. Therefore, gentle reader, I hereby commit to a weekly post that will sum up any interesting goings-on at Peabody; said post will appear on Sunday.

School started officially on Wednesday, but Bassland was already fully in motion by the previous Saturday. On that day, we heard auditions for ensemble placements. Your humble blogger was joined by his teaching colleague, as well as Peabody orchestra director Teri Murai and chamber music director Michael Kannen. These auditions are useful for everyone in that it gives us a "baseline" (pun DEFINITELY not intended) level of playing that both I and my students can refer to when evaluating progress over the course of the year. As always here at Peabody, the entire audition was videotaped. Students can log on to our computer in Mr. Johnson's studio and see how the audition matched up with their own expectations and analysis. Being able to look at "postgame films" of your work is something we very much value here; we all need to learn how to honestly evaluate the good and bad of our playing, and being able to see our work is a great help in doing just that.

My first cycle of lessons with my own students was fantastic and I'm excited and looking forward to doing great work with them this year. One big difference for me is that this is my largest Peabody studio yet, and as a result I am having to organize and distribute my time more carefully. One of the main topics that I addressed with all my students was deciding what music they would be preparing for the first Hal Robinson class, which is on Sept. 20; I'll be posting more details on this in the near future....

At the beginning of the year everyone arrives at school from differing situations: music festivals, jobs, vacations. A big part of the first week for me is seeing everyone start to transition and focus on the same goals: learning, improving our playing and musicianship, and performing at the best of our abilities. The image I like is of a fleet of sailboats that gradually all turn to face away from the shore or the other docks and head out to sea...




See you next week!