The Beginning of Something Bigger

My experience over these past 30 days has been unmeasurable and will always remain in my repertoire of stories for when I am 80 and sitting on a rocking chair talking to my grandchildren.  Memories related to our walking tours in each city and the ex-special Czech forces storyteller. Walking around each city is breath taking and I have to keep reminding myself that I was only taking in around 10 percent of the cities delicacies.  Even with all of the walking around street corners and up/down hills, my journeys are far from over after this trip. This month has inspired me to keep up with my foreign languages and even learn some new ones so I can hold conversations with people and if ever the chance again to meet with the musicians and talk about their experiences and their musical practices.  

This trip was also a month of new experience for myself.  Not only did I visit new places but I tried new things. I kept a list of new things that I ate and did on the trip and took pictures of every meal so I had proof that I ordered and ate something new for the day.  I will hopefully take this new found courage to try new things and implement it into my life.  

My learning styles also helped me through this trip and relating more information about subjects I had already studied.  I was able to see the places and walk around the history of each city. When touring a museum. I was able to place physical items with the descriptions and pictures associated.  My learning styles are mainly kinetic and visual. Places like the Mozart's or Beethoven's house were especially educational because I could see the composers walking through the halls and having conversations with people and composing new  repertoire. One place that was very impactful with this combination of styles was Terezin. I am still thinking about the locations and the stories that are present in those walls.  

This experience will also influence my future teaching strategies.  I am now able to show students a more in-depth and differentiated instruction about music history.  This hopefully allows me to engage the students more on these topics and hopefully start conversations.  I also want to incorporate a higher caliber of musicianship for my students. They should see musicians and people that inspire them to work towards goals.  

Each city held new gems of information and a chance for exploration.  During this trip I also tried to view a lense of an artist in each city.  While we attended concerts and expanded our musical knowledge, I also researched and drew in the style of specific artists.  Some of the drawings I did not post on the blog, but the experience was different than anything else on the trip. I normally draw and paint indoors.  While completing these drawings, I either sat outside or at a cafe. By changing my locations, experiencing the creation of art seemed freeing. I was not contained within a space, and I was allowed to explore and walk through a process at my own pace.  

As this trip and the experience comes to a close, I want to thank Dr. Powell for organizing this trip.  He is able to experience these cities/ performances to the same degree as his students were, but he adds an extra responsibility of managing and housekeeping duties that are contained in his position. 

The Final Giant's Footstep

Coming back to Vienna for a second time, feels like a new city, but once I rode the train system (U4) I remember all of the places we visited at the beginning of the month.  I tried to visit new places that I did not see during my first time in this city. I was pretty successful in my search to find new locations. I tried to go ice skating, but the cost was too high and instead I spent my time walking around the Botanical gardens.  Since it is the winter season, the garden does not have water in the fountains or flowers in the soil. I know that the location will look completely different in the spring when the plants are blooming, but I also found beauty in the lack of foliage, because it takes the landscape and strips it down to the essentials and reveals the main highlights of the park.

After walking around the park, I attended the House of Music.  I very much enjoyed this museum. It holds something for the first time classical music consumer to the Phd music teacher.  They had a lot of artifacts from major classical composers. The first floor, it an exhibit to the Vienna philharmonic. It contained programs from their first performances and major world tours.  It also discusses previous conductors of the phil and what happened to the musicians during WW2. An interactive element is present in the middle of the room. This takes random instrumentations and gives you a dice to roll for melodies and create a luck of the draw Waltz.  I played with this programing twice because I wanted to also write a Waltz for the flute. I think that it was very interesting to have that element in the center of the exhibit and I feel it provides something for every age of tourist. The second floor is dedicated to the physics of sound and explains the four classifications of instruments.  There was also a bass drum in the back center wall that was the diameter of the floor. I thought the second floor was interesting because it engages the scientific mind behind each instrument and explains sound with proximity and wave frequencies for tuning. The third floor contains a walk through exhibit of Major composers. This floor also used to hold the Vienna Philharmonic interactive conductor, but it was moved to the fourth floor to be next to the gift shop.  Before you walk into the section of the composer their signature is present on the wall. Each room holds artifacts about their conducting and musical composition. Each room also contains a time line for each composer and the decorations match either a composition of their work or the time frame where they composed. The weirdest thing on the third phone is a snapchat filter of Mozart’s face. You sit down in a chair and the motion capture, mimics the movements of your mouth, eyes, head, and eyebrow to match the Mozart present on the big screen.  The final floor was one of my favorites because you are able to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in real time.

The motion sensor on the baton catches most of the movements and finds the down beat very easy. The only exception to this motion caption was that it only was programmed to work in the meter, so when you tried to turn a fast cut time into a single beat measure, the orchestra does not follow along correctly. Before I stepped up to the podium, I watched other people give the conductor spot a try. I found out that if you do not have a pulse of time, or your rhythm is off, the players will stop and someone from the orchestra will respectfully tell you that you need more practice and are not fit to conduct the Philharmonic with those rhythms.  I did not see their faces, but I do not know how I look with conducting the Vienna Phil and using my left hand for independent movements and ques for certain section in the score. I know that the sensor did not pick up these movements, but great practice makes great results.  

We saw the Vienna Symphony in the Mozart opera house.  This program was very well thought out and I gained a new favorite symphony from it.  Dvorak’s 7th Symphony is very well crafted and each movement can stand alone as an individual piece, but each one interconnects with each other and the soloist were amazing in their parts and their interactions with each other.  I was in the first row, so I was able to hear the individual resonance from the viola in front of me and was able to watch the cellos interacting with themselves during harder sections or light sections where they smiled at each other.  Both flute players had gold flutes, and it added a resonance to the instrument to match the oboe and violin for when the melody was passed off. Their lower octave were also very rich and supported. There was also a piano concerto placed before the intermission.  Being in the front row, I was able to hear the creek of the foot pedals and feel the vibrations coming from the grand piano. The downside, was that the orchestra was very covered by the direct sound waves of the piano. I really enjoyed every piece in this concert and would listen to them again on my own time.  

Mozart vs. Von Trapp

Salzburg creates the picture on the old Austrian town.  This location has gone thru many different design models and landed on the major use of Italian Rennissance.  This was a different pace from Prague and Leipzig because there were more town squares and mountains present in the scenery.  An amazing view could be seen almost anywhere because of the different colors of buildings or the Alps boarding the horizon. The city itself started with its back towards a wall and moved outward from that.  I did find some great restaurants within Salzburg and tried many more cakes and coffees than any other place on this trip. I ate some cake at the coffee house where Mozart could drink and compose on the daily basis.  We also ate and drank at the artist cafe, where I worked on a picture of the Alps and the street by out hostle.

Our class walked up the treacherous incline of the fortress wall and was able to see the best views in the city.  There was a fortress wall that was present to take the best landscape photos and other people not on our trip were stressing me out because they were standing on the edge of the wall.  I also went to the Marinette museum that was placed in a small hovel in the side of the building. This exhibit was well crafted and gave me more information about the art and style of marinette making and performing.  Later after the fortress, the tour guide recommended the Murphy’s Law pub for the best drinks and atmosphere. Jess, Alyssia and I went to the pub later in the day and to our surprise also saw the tour guide having a pint with some friends.  He recognized us immediately and we chatted up a conversation for around an hour. He then told us about this pizza parlor aross the bridge, so after we finished our cider, we walked to this pizza shack. The size of the pizza was amazing and I was able to take the rest home for leftovers the next day.  

We saw a lot of performaces while in Salzburg, but I really enjoyed, the smaller ensemble concerts and how two groups were able to combine and create great chamber music with each other.  This performance had random but functional combinations of instruments. The piece I enjoyed the most was the duet between the cello and bassoon players. This is a combination that is not widely used and it was great to hear the tones match and defy each other. 

The Finale

Returning home for me was a relief at the end of this trip. That might be a shock to some, because I seem to have enjoyed this experience(I did). But there is a certain comfort that comes with home that no hostel or concert hall or museum can bring. For me, that comfort is being alone. However, this group was amazing, and yes we got tired of each other multiple times, but we all had something that we learned from another. I'm going to list a bunch of those things that I learned from people and places and museums that I thought were important enough to write down in the moment along the trip.

- Next time, bring a tie and a jacket.
- Sometimes you have to keep your own hands warm. Don't give away what you need to survive in order to help others.
- Sometimes the people you don't want to be tricked by know exactly how to trick you.
- Let yourself get caught up in the moment.
- Stretch tomorrow morning. Every day is yesterday's tomorrow morning.
- Tragedy can have moments of genuine laughter.
- Let your socks dry. Being uncomfortable while experiencing something wonderful makes the whole thing a bad memory.
- The most passionate people aren't always on the front lines of their passion.
- Sometimes splitting the party will leave everyone happier.
- The weather will be nice sometimes, but the real joy comes with a change of pace.

and finally:

- People are different. Not just abroad, but at home. No matter how similar you are, you can learn something from every person. Let yourself.

Thank you for coming along with us on this trip.
I can't wait to go back.

Would a Cat Play With a Malher Hammer?

Berlin was an amazing city that presented a different view of history we were studying because most of the city was destroyed during WW2.  Where we had been to locations that were hundreds years old, Berlin just recently rebuilt it city but was divided by the Berlin wall. 

Within the diversity of the city, I was able to find a cat cafe more towards the oscerts of the city.  This cafe only had two cats (who were adorable) and okay coffee/food. I was able to get a cat to lay on a bed by us for around thirty minutes.  Berlin has a law stating that no one can profit from exhibits and museums dedicated to WW2 or the Holocaust. I found this very interesting as more people are attracted to free places, but the purpose of the law is to not create a resurgance of Nazi activity and to not profit off of the horrible things that were present during the time.  The memorial for the Holocaust presented by different height columns, which is very in depth and everyone will experience it differently from the next person. The main reasoning behind the design is for people to figure out their own meaning behind their walking path. For me, walking through the pillars brought a sense of loneliness, especially when the walls were very high and I had not seen anyone in awhile.  When I encountered someone, it was for a brief second because they were traveling a different path than I. When I found friends in the maze, it was harder to keep up with them because I did not know their intended destination. I believe that everyone needs to experience this monument and take in the space and the people that interact with the environment.  

Berlin also holds the museum island. With our metro passes we were able to gain entry into each museum for free.  Alyssia and I tried to walk into the old museum and look at Greek antiquities, but the guards would not let us in without a proper ticket.  We decided to test our luck again and went over to the New Museum. The guards looked at us with sincere disbelief that the other guards did not let us in and welcomed us with open arms to visit their museum.  The New Museum contains more diverse time periods and antiquities. The statue head of Nefertitii was located in a back corner room. You were not allowed to take photos of the statue but a 3-D model bust was created for people with visual impairments.  The skin tones painted on, looked flawless, and it was amazing the smoothness that was projected within the bust.  

The Berlin Philharmonic was amazing.  Malher’s 6th symphony rang out in the halls as the only piece in the concert.  It was a 90 minute program with just enough break between each movement so everyone could let out their coughs and blow their nose before the start of the next note.  Even the conductor was wiping his brow between the movements and needed these two seconds to catch his breath. Our seats were almost in the orchestra. They have risers behind the percussion and benches were placed to hold everyone who had a ticket for this space.  I sat behind the French horn section, and it sounded amazing. Sometimes they would lift their horns to be at a 90 degree angle to project more sound into the theatre. The musicianship presented between each section were able to pass the melody between players and not lose the fluidity of the phrase.  I would highly recommend looking up this performance or even the symphony itself. It causes a life changing moment where you recognize the individual efforts and participation every musician prioritizes for the sound of the group. The Mahler hammer rang through the hall twice, the percussionist lifted the hammer high above his head and striked the box at the exact location where it was needed.  

Home Safe

After a 21-hour flight, we're back home! I didn't anticipate that I would anticipate culture shock on my return! It's been a stranger transition than I thought it would be. I had a moment where I forgot what the conversion rate for dollars was, and spent a minute just staring at the money in my hand. It felt so weird to be holding dollar bills!

Another one of those moments was a realization I had while driving back from the airport. It really took a lot of effort to remember all the rules after a month of not needing to worry about it. If public transportation were easier here, I would choose to go that route over using a car. 

Jet lag has also been more of a problem than I thought it would be. I work night shift and hoped for a smoother transition due to that. But I'm still four or five hours off-kilter. It gives me a new appreciation for the difficulties that flying for such a long distance causes, and how I could avoid them more easily in the future. 

All that said, I had such a wonderful trip! This was the experience of a lifetime, and I'll always remember it. It will inform my musicianship and experience as a person going forward. I'm so grateful for the opportunity. I'm also glad to be home and richer in experience. I couldn't have done it without the aid of so many people; thank you all so much. I'm so excited to travel more in the future as time and finances permit. 

Home sweet home

What a trip! This course has been more than I could have possibly asked for. I cannot imagine a better suited trip for me I am so happy we got the opportunity to experience Europe in a musical way that let us explore so many important landmarks.

Thanks Dr. Powell for putting in so much work and care to make the itinerary as detailed and exciting as you did. It would have been easy to put in half the events and let us wander but you made sure we all stayed busy and learning constantly. I would have never went to so many historical places that are so significant in the history of each of these cities. I also appreciate that our tours were by some fantastic guides who were passionate about their city and ready to teach us all they could.
The shows we got to watch were out of this world! I do not know how I will ever watch another performance without comparing it to the outstanding performances we got to see. I will say that after this trip I learned that I am not the biggest fan of opera. I sure did try but I just don't think it is my cup of tea. Ballet on the other hand is quite fun and I really enjoyed getting to see some shows I would not have chosen alone.

Post-trip sadness is real and I wish we could go back already but it is time for another semester here at Plu and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to go on this trip. If anyone is ever wandering if they should study away or even start traveling I could not encourage it enough that you will not regret it. This trip will be one I remember forever, it is going to be a hard to one up.

Veni Vidi

Returning to Vienna was bittersweet; we'd had such an amazing trip, but all wonderful things have to eventually come to an end. I was thrilled to have the chance to walk through the Naschmarkt again and try a lot of foods I had missed the first time through. The lens of familiarity allowed me to appreciate the people, buildings, and streets a different way than I had on first seeing them. 

Traveling through Europe like we have means that comparison between cities is inevitable at some point. Everyone tries to pick favorites as we go along with limited degrees of success. As Dr. Powell noted at one point, our favorites seemed to change by the day. There are so many things to experience and appreciate in each place. 'Favorite' seems like more of an obligatory name when there's so much out there to enjoy. 

Our last performance of the trip was 'Otello', an opera that shares a plotline with Shakespeare's Othello. The singers were fantastic! I just couldn't help being struck by the storyline. The plot depicts domestic violence and wildly unhealthy relationships within it, eventually showing the death of a wife at the hands of her controlling husband. There are also heavy themes of racism. 

I think it's healthy to be aware that the world of written opera can manifest without many admirable traits in our current day and age. Different things were considered normal back then and they can be a bit shocking today. But it's also okay to discuss on the problematic aspects of productions in order to address them properly. It was performed at an extremely high level, the production itself just had multiple social issues in the grand scheme of things.

Salzburg

Salzburg was the most stunning place we've been in terms of natural beauty. During the train ride there we passed by the Alps. They're not always visible, but our travel was chartered during a clear day. I could hardly believe how big they were and how the range just kept going. In Tacoma Mount Rainier is often visible and is of comparable size, but it's an isolated mountain. To see so many together was a breathtaking sight.

The main castle of Salzburg is built on a mountain overlooking the city and is lit up at night. This makes it visible from anywhere in the city. There's a river running through the center of town with bridges built over it. This made me miss Prague! The same outlook was there, and it even had some lit-up notable architecture of its own. I really enjoyed the nostalgia for another place that I had seen not long before.

The occasion for coming to Salzburg was Mozart Woche, or Mozart Week! Mozart had worked in Salzburg at the beginning of his career, albeit unhappily. He much preferred Vienna and headed there as soon as he could. But this focus on Mozart allowed Salzburg to focus their main industry on tourism after salt was no longer wildly profitable. Refrigeration rendered it unnecessary after a long period of people getting rich off of the natural resource. 

We saw some of the best performances I've ever seen during this week. During an evening of chamber playing we got to watch an oboe player that had the most remarkable tone. He was extremely soloistic and played almost delicately. Oboes have a bit of a reputation for a sound that pierces through the tones of most other instruments, but he found a way to tame it somehow. I've never heard anything like it and suspect I might not again for a long time.

Berlin

Berlin was beautiful and a lot of fun, but I didn't get to see as much of it as I would've liked. I had started getting sick in Leipzig and had the worst of it during our time there. I ended up needing to go to the doctor. They had me pay in full for the appointment and prescriptions to be refunded by the insurance company later (less than ideal, but I was just glad to get the medical care I needed).

I was diagnosed with strep, a sinus infection, and an unknown airborne allergy at the appointment. It seemed ironic and a little funny that I'd come down with so many things at once while on a huge school trip! With the prescribed medication I was able to recover within the week, thankfully.

Berlin was the place where the Nazi regime was democratically voted into power, and thereby seized control of the government afterwards through a series of emergency declarations and abuses of said power. We were able to tour the major areas of political importance throughout the city and hear much of the involved history. 

The class visited Terezin near the end of our time in Prague. I won't be writing a blog post on it due to the sheer amount of suffering we learned about in the camp and the emotion involved. I'll say that this visit changed me fundamentally, and that everyone should have an experience like this. The knowledge of what happened in the Holocaust is vital to prevent more genocides from occurring, and learning about these events is a fundamental way to honor the victims and survivors. This knowledge has driven me harder to advocate for the rights of the marginalized and will continue to do so.

Back to Berlin! The city was expansive and vibrant, with many different sections that each had their own personality. We got to watch a wonderful performance of the opera Andrea Chenier, which I hadn't heard of before. He was a French writer employed by the monarchy that got killed along with his lover during the rebellion. The singers each brought a lot to the table; the different timbres of voice made it difficult to decide which voice to focus on in group numbers.

I wasn't able to do a lot here, so here are the pictures! Enjoy.

Once more Vienna!

Hooray! This trip has been amazing all around but I do love Vienna and am glad we got the opportunity to return and explore the city once more. This time around was much more relaxed and kind of just some free time to go out and have fun around the city and souvenir shop a bit. This time around I visited many souvenir shops on a hunt for a sweatshirt to bring home. during my hunt I found many stores that carried all the same 5 sweatshirts, and I of course decided I do not care for any of them so I continued on my hunt and eventually found one in a discount souvenir shop that I had not seen anywhere else! Inside one of the souvenir stores I read a sign that said "best photo of St.Stephens upstairs" so of course I had to check it out and I will say that I did get a pretty great picture. On my hunt I also managed to pick up some classic Manner wafer cookies and some gummi bears to bring home. My family will not be short on european snacks any time soon!

Souvenir shop view of St.Stephens

During our trip we also made some stops to some of our favorite food places when we first visited. the first day we went back to an Argentinian restaurant in the Naschmarkt and we were almost more impressed the second time around because we got extra of an amazing bread with garlic butter. The next day Janelle and I went back to a little bistro and got some pesto pasta which was less exciting than the first time we went. I don't know if it is because of the other pastas we experienced or if it was just not as good this time around.

Lucky for us we got to finish up the trip with some pretty stellar performances one at the Musikvereinssaal and one back at the Wiener Staatsoper. The first we went to was the Vienna symphony and we got to sit front row! Front row was a ton of fun because we could see the performers faces very well and it was kinda funny I noticed one of the flute players counting on his fingers and getting ready for each entrance. The other performance we went to was the opera Otello which was breath taking. It was quite the dramatic performance and I found it to be very easy to follow when our monitors with translation were actually working. The monitors went out quite a few times but lucky for us it was still easy enough to sort of follow what was happening.

Chamber Music to the Max

The second half of Salzburg that was guilty of stealing my heart was the amazing productions we got to experience. If it wasn’t obvious from other posts on this blog it was Mozart week while we were in Salzburg which is basically a big celebration of Mozart’s birthday for a full week. Mozart week is full of top line performances of all Mozart works including opera, symphonies, masses and more. During the week we got to experience many of the performances including a mass on Sunday morning, Le nozze di Figaro that night, 2 small ensembles performing chamber music, a symphony orchestra, and a Mozart Dinner concert.

Le nozze di Figaro was a partially staged production, which means that the orchestra was actually on stage instead of in a pit and the rest of the show actually worked on the sides and in front of the orchestra. This was pretty cool because it kind of forced the performers to put on more of a show visually and it felt a bit interactive as they acknowledged the crowd often. This particular version of the opera was also extra long and I’m talking 3 1/2 hours because they included every piece Mozart wrote for this production which is quite unusual as people normally cut a few pieces based on their cast and who they are performing for. While it was quite long I am very thankful I got to experience it all.

The small ensembles were also quite fantastic but specifically the ensemble we watched from France. This ensemble had a string quartet and then a group consisting of clarinet, bassoon, oboe, and French Horn and they were absolutely amazing! The oboe player was featured in an oboe Concerto and all I have to say is wow! That was the best oboe playing I have ever heard. It was artistic, fun to watch, and clear unlike any oboe I have ever seen or heard. I am so happy we got the opportunity to experience this.

Mozarteum where we watched the french ensemble

I Want to Go Back (Reflection)

I can’t believe that we’re already back home. It’s been a couple days since we got back to Washington, and it’s weird to be back. The trip went by too fast, yet I don’t think I would change the amount of time we were there. It was an incredible trip and probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for a lot of people. With all the memories that were just made on this trip, I couldn’t have asked for something better to spend my J-term. I had so much fun with the people on this trip, the places were insanely beautiful, and the performances were some of the best I will ever see in my life. I don’t think I’ll have another experience like this for quite a while. I’m very glad that I was accepted on this trip and met some amazing friends while there.

Vienna, Prague, Leipzig, Berlin, Salzburg, and back to Vienna, that was the route we took for this trip. I think Dr. Powell did a good job picking the places we went to and the concert we attended and activities we all did together. Dr. Powell and Dr. Brown gave us a lot of good insight about everything we did because of either previous experiences, or it’s about the concerts, and they are music professors after all. They were also pretty good professors to hang out with too, giving good restaurant suggestions and other activities we could do in our free time was very helpful and they did have some great suggestions. They made the trip even better than it was already. I probably won’t get over how amazing this trip was for a while because of how much planning and thought Dr. Powell put into creating this trip for us.

One of the best parts that we had was all the concerts. There were quite a few of them, and sometimes all we wanted to do was just eat dinner and sleep, they were still absolutely amazing and worth going to. I will be honest; I almost fell asleep during a couple of them near the beginning. Whether that was from jetlag or just being incredibly tired from all the activity during the day. I never wanted to fall asleep, but my body was telling me differently. That was only for about the first week, after that I was able to fully pay attention and appreciate the immense talent and skill these performers had. Out of the ballets, orchestras, operas, and the couple random ones, my favorite performance out of the whole trip was The Vienna Philharmonic with a horn and piano concerto during Mozart week. They were amazing, and I am a bit partial to piano pieces because of playing piano myself. If I were to go by category, I’d say that for the ballet my favorite was Onegin, the very first performance we saw, for orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, for opera, I would say Otello, which was the very last performance we say. For the few random ones, I put chamber groups in there, and my favorite was Les Vents Francais combined with Kodaly String Quartet. These two groups combined for Mozart week and had such an incredible performance that some of our group cried by how enamoring the performance was and the mastery of skill that was shown.

This is a trip to go in the books, and to stay there for a very long time. I can’t believe I was able to go and be a part of this program and have an absolute blast and wish I could go back soon. I’m sad that we ever had to go home, but I’m also happy to be back in my bed and with my family and friends again.

A Post Trip Reflection

Our last few days before heading home were spent back in Vienna. While we did see some amazing performances in Vienna, including the Vienna Symphony and the opera Otello, I spent most of my time just enjoying the familiar city. 

During our 22 hours of travel time back home I spent a lot of time reflecting on our trip as a whole. By the end of our trip, I felt that I had become desensitized to the beauty of the music that we had seen. A new standard had been set and everything was meeting it, but because everything was meeting it I began to expect that beauty from every performance. I didn’t realize just how much my standards for music had been changed until I was sitting in Choral Union rehearsal. We were doing a simple warm-up that included singing chords, a warm-up that is relatively easy to be in tune, and I kept feeling that we were never singing them in tune. I felt off throughout the entire first half of rehearsal, as everything felt as if it wasn’t quite in tune. I realized in the 10-minute break in rehearsal what was going on. Throughout the past month, I have been hearing music that is either performed so accurately that it’s incredibly in tune or listening to music on Spotify that can be electronically altered to be perfectly in tune. I was so used to hearing everything so perfectly, that being in a rehearsal where that wasn’t the case made me feel so off. All that being said, that is definitely the only negative effect this trip had on me, and honestly, that’s the best negative effect I’ve ever had from a trip. 

I learned so much more than I thought I would on this trip about not only music and composers but also culture and how culture affects all aspects of life, including music. I noticed cultural differences from each country and even each city. I became so much more self-aware about my own cultural ideologies, especially when it comes to social norms, such as putting your feet up on a seat (which you could get fined for, but at the very least would get yelled at). I leaped out of my comfort zone in so many different ways, including “getting lost” in cities on purpose, talking to locals, and, most surprisingly, trying a ton of new food! I got to so much exposure to some great music ensembles as well as pieces (some of which I’ve actually added to my Spotify playlists). I am so lucky to have had this experience, and can’t wait to apply what I’ve learned on this trip to the rest of my studies and my career in the future.

A Unforgettable Life Experience.

How do you sum up something that you can not explain in just simple words? This trip has honestly changed my life as a musician and had taught me to love and appreciate every art form. Before this trip, I had never been to an opera, ballet, and this was only my second professional orchestral experience in my life. The level of music I heard is something that I will never forget and hope that I am able to take what I have learned and take it and apply it one day when I am teaching music students. Music is just not about perfection and playing everything completely right in a concert it is about been able to persued your audience into feeling the emotion of the piece and helping them better understand why we play the music that we play. And that is exactly what I got out of every performance on this trip. The best examples of that would be Mahler's 6th that we heard the Berlin Philharmonic perform the Vienna Symphoniker Orchestra, Les Vents Fraçais / Kodáy String and Le Nozze di Figaro. In every since one of these performances, I either cried of almost cried due to how amazing the performances where. And it was not just because everything was done perfectly but because you could hear and see the human aspect of the music they were performing. 

 

One of the things that I would like to bring back from this experience to PLU would be the fact of congratulating members of our ensemble after concerts. To me, I feel that we become these robots when performing music that we forget that we also have to add the human aspect to our performances. I think one of the best things that I saw was that after ever performance each player or singer would go around the ensemble or performers and give them a hug or a handshake and say a great job or thank you. I believe that if this where to be instilled into our ensembles that we would have one, a better relationship with each other and also have a stronger bond within the ensemble and we would all want to work together to ensure that each individual is recognized for their own hard work and it would also show that a valuable member of the ensemble. Two it would show the audience that we aren't robots that just perform and get off the stage because we are just done and want to go home. It the same concept as when people start putting away their music as soon as a concert is done without even acknowledging the audience. 

 

I am sure to thank also for the fact that I got to spend time with some amazing friends and had the chance to build a better relationship with them. Yes, we got mad at each other everyone in a while but as DMA said that would happen at least once on this trip. I am great full to have been able to spend so much time with you all and thank you for the amazing memories. You guess are awesome and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for us. #core4 

 Thank you, Vienna, Prague, Leipzig, Berlin and Salzburg for been our amazing home for the past month. I can not wait until I return to each one of these places. It still amazes me every time that I do something amazing that it is through music. As John Denver once said "Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same." again thank you to Dr. Powell and Dr. Brown for this amazing experience. Until we meet again in Europe!!❤️ #lutesaway #lutesout #musicstrong

Back to Vienna

Been back in Vienna feels great! I am happy that we had the chance to go back and really get a chance to do our own thing since we have already been to the city once before. Vienna is probably my second favorite city of this trip. It is easy getting places and there is just so much to see. Even though we are here for a second time I don't think you can see everything that the city has to offer.

The second to last concert we had was the Vienna Symphoniker Orchestra which was just was amazing. The program included Mendelssohn's Ouvertüre,, Die Hebriden, op 26 which was just amazing. I fell in love with the piece with in the first few measures. The program also included his Konzert für Klavier und Orchester Nr. 2 which again was just absolutely killer. The pianist was amazing she kept my attention throughout the who piece which for me is a hard thing to do when listing to a piano play. Also, the horn section was just immaculate. The last piece on the program was Dvorák's Symphonie Nr. 7 d-Moll, op 70 which was the first piece of Dvoráks that I have ever heard and I really enjoyed the piece you could feel every musical moment and all the emotion behind the phrases in the piece. The conductor for that night was Enrique Mazzola who was absolutely amazing his style, emotion, and his understanding of the music was just phenomenal. I was just so impressed that I again had to stick around after the concert just to be able to meet him and tell him to thank you for such an amazing experience. So, after the concert, Frank and I work our way backstage where we got to meet and speak to him. He told us that he was just appointed the director of the Chicago opera and that if we were ever into to send him a message and let him know. He truly was an amazing human. 

The program from the Vienna Symphoniker Orchestra 

Frank and I together with Enrique Mazzola 

The last program we go to see was Otello which I am still not really sure how I feel about it I enjoyed it a lot but I am not sure that it was one of my favorite performances that we went to. That might just have to do with the fact that the people that sat around us were kind of rude during the performance so it was hard staying engaged for the program. The people around us kept coughing in the open air without covering their mouths, kept keeping in the middle of the opera and were also on their phones. One person went as far as to even take out there phone and take a flash photographic photo in a dark opera house. Overall though it was nice to see another setting of an opera that was more serious based the comedic based. 

                                   

For our last free time in Vienna Frank and I went into an underground chapel that is right next to St Stephen's cathedral which was cool to go to but was kinda small and would have been cooler if the had more information about the actual chapel. After that, we went and bought souvenirs to bring back to the US. I do have to say that I never thought I would ever spend over €100 on chocolate but I did lol. The last few hours of our last night we spent going out and having a few beers and smoking a cigar and speaking with a group of Norwegians that we meet. Vienna has again been a wonderful home of the last few days and its hard to believe that the trip is over and that we have to head back to the States. I can not believe how much I have learned and how much more I appreciate music thanks to this trip. I feel that the amount of knowledge I learned here in 27 days is a lot more then what I learned in a semester worth of Music in Historical Context 1. Thank you so much to Dr. Powell and Dr. Brown for all of their hard work and especially for the great memories that they helped me build in this once in a lifetime opportunity.  Until we meet again Vienna ❤️🎶