Week 30: April 21

This week Maddy and I tried to do a Wherigo, starting at Embarcadero. Wherigos combine the best attributes of scavenger hunts and video games, and we were really excited about this one, but our battery died halfway through so that was fairly anticlimactic.

We found a cool statue anyway

Both my parental units came down this week to spend Easter with me at my little church. We had a great time together and they got to meet some of my friends and teachers. They also attended the baroque ensemble concert on Saturday night.

Ok, I need a new paragraph to talk about baroque. I have been preparing for this concert since Christmas break. There were four concerti on the program: Telemann concerto for two violettas, C.P.E Bach A-Major cello concerto, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (HA) concerto for double bass, and Antonio Vivaldi's "Il Grosso Mogul" concerto for violin. This was my first EVER solo with a baroque orchestra, on period instruments with gut strings (the baroque violin I'm using really is from the 18th century)!!

Il Grosso Mogul is one of a set of four "country" concerti that Vivaldi wrote. There was an England concerto, a France concerto, a Spain concerto, and an India concerto. The England, France and Spain concerti have sadly all been lost, but we still have the India one, with an amazing gypsy-style slow movement in which all the ornamentations were written out by Vivaldi himself, and that's the one I performed on Saturday. I fell in love with this piece at first hearing, and I have worked really hard on it and have had help from many different people (I was shocked that it is almost as hard as any modern concerto, in a different way).

The concerto is a fountain of white-hot sparks - a blinding curtain of sheer violin glory. Corey said at our last rehearsal that it was "going to bring the house down" - and he was right! I was so happy afterwards that I could have cried. I get so excited when people actually respond to you: "They LIKED it, they really LIKED it!!" This is why we perform; this is why we slave away to get everything perfect! Because people LIKE it! REALLY!!! I had more fun on that stage, grappling with violin fire, than I've had in a long time. Makes my whole life worth it!

They recorded the concert, and I ordered a copy. I'll post a link on this blog when it comes.

Colleagues and I after the concert. We all look exhausted because we are.

Easter Sunday at Nativity was lovely. I played Panis Angelicus with a vocal colleague from school and there was ample food after Mass, mostly homemade Croatian and Slovenian delicacies.

Croatian Easter basket

Parental unit, friend, self, Slovenian choir guys

After church I took the parental units to Golden Gate Park. I thought we could spend a nice afternoon walking in the beautiful gardens and looking for caches, which we did, but we were somewhat-unpleasantly surprised by the fact that almost everyone in the park seemed to smell of weed, and half of them were sporting weed shirts/socks/necklaces/other clothing items. When I got back to dorm, someone informed me that 4-20 is the police code for illegal drugs, which apparently makes April 20th Weed Day. That explains everything.

Stow Lake

OOOH that looks fun

Duckie

Duckie reaching for bread

A creek runs through it

This could be a field of triffids.

Stepping-stone foam

The PUs left for home today...but, oh my goodness, only three more blog posts left! I'm gonna come home, y'all, I'm comin' HOME! After all, what's the point of going out to seek your fortune if you don't return home covered in glory?

- Antisocial Violinist