vailian

it is a VERY hard week for me, I am doing not only my rehearsals and concerts with my orchestra, I am also moonlighting with the local Radio Orchestra, it pays well but even more notes to deliver. And tomorrow we are starting our "Wagner's Ring Cycle in 2 Days"-- this is a marathon that no other orchestra in the world does, we do the complete Ring of the Nibelungen opera cycle in just 2 days, four Wagner operas lasting up to 6 hours each. Horribly difficult to play and requiring enormous forces, a normal opera house does one of these operas per year, so the cycle takes 4 years. Even at Bayreuth, the home of Wagner opera, the cycle is done over a period of 2 weeks. We did this for the first time 2 years ago, and it was such a success that we have been forced to do it ever since. It is crazy. But people fly in from all over to see it. Masochists, all of them.

Got some great news tonight though, my student Ruth, who is just 16, won a big national competition on the viola. She entered the regionals playing both violin and viola, and has now gotten into the national finals. Fantastic work, especially since I only started her on the viola in September.