Gone.

After four weeks, seven concerts, eight cities, four languages, many new friends, and more than 14,000 miles travelled -- home.

For me, this tour meant a lot of things. It gave me a genuine feeling of thankfulness and appreciation for the life I have. Playing with the orchestra has inspired me to new goals in my practicing, and higher goals in my musical life. But overall, I hope I can keep the attitude that was so prevalent in our group - an attitude of positive patience. At our last concert in Montevideo, our harpist, Andrea, had to play the only harp the orchestra could find in Montevideo. And it was the worst harp I think any of us have ever heard. And while she was playing the cadenzas in Scheherazade, the orchestra could not stop laughing. It was microtonal. The strings buzzed in the middle register. One of the pedals kept falling off. In one afternoon, she had to change something like 18 strings. At first, Andrea was close to tears. I mean, really -- to travel all this way and then have play an instrument like that? But pretty soon she couldn't stop laughing, either. This is the YOA way: if things go wrong, you have to laugh about them.

Another YOA way: make friends with everyone you see. This includes the flight attendant on the way to Buenos Aires. He was so excited to meet us that he wanted us to play music on the plane - so we started playing what we could remember from Porgy and Bess in the aisles. Then he gave us free champagne and let our principal trumpet pass out pretzels to the whole plane, allowing her to fulfill her own stewardess dreams. I felt like when I was with these people, I never knew what was going to happen next.

So that's what I hope to keep going in my own musical and real-life adventures. Spontaneity, positivity, smiling -- and who knows what's going to happen next?

Uruguay

We came to Uruguay on a boat from Buenos Aires. This boat took us for three hours on the Rio Plata, a huge river. The river looks like a Great Lake -- you can´t see to the other side. The Youth Orchestra of the Americas will perform tonight in Montevideo, and then we will all scatter to the winds and to our respective home countries. We will play Mozart´s Magic Flute Overture, a Schumann piano concerto, and Scheherezade by Rimsky-Korsakov with Maestro Marcello Leningher, a very young Brazilian conductor. More than half the orchestra is sick. That includes me, but I don´t think I have the crud as bad as other people. But I think we are all very tired and ready to go home. Some of us already have. One violinist, a Serbian-Canadian, had her passport refused when she tried to enter Uruguay. It was really sad -- she has to stay in Argentina and try to get home some other way, and miss the last concert.

I have most of the day tomorrow to explore what I can of Montevideo. My flight leaves at 5 PM and arrives in Portland at 11:30 AM on Monday.

This tour has taught me a lot of things, and not just musical ones, and I´m looking forward to reflecting on those things as I come home.

Stray dogs are dangerous. So is playing Rachmaninoff.

Last night we performed in Buenos Aires and were then invited to the Brazilian embassy for a party. That´s what we thought. Actually, we were invited to the Brazilian ambassador´s residence, which meant an 1860s mansion with the most beautiful murals, painted ceilings, and ornate decorations in all of Argentina. Who knew? Let´s just say I was glad I never changed out of my nice concert clothes. We were served dinner around midnight and champaign and wine were offered to us until well into the morning. The whole orchestra was there. The orchestra´s mariachi band performed for the diplomats, and they were so delighted they started singing along and dancing.

It´s now 2:30 AM and we are in Rosario, Argentina. We had our last concert tonight with our favorite maestro, Carlos Miguel Prieto, and we are going to Uruguay tomorrow by boat. We celebrated tonight by going to a dance hall near the concert hall. I´ve been hanging out with my new best friend Xiomara, an oboist from Puerto Rico, and we are fending off the various aggressive Argentine men with sticks. And we were almost eaten by stray dogs on the street today. But that´s another story for another day.

Playing with the orchestra is now about as comfortable as it can be. We are a family now. Everyone knows what to expect from their neighbors, and we are able to respond accordingly. The relationship between the orchestra and Maestro Prieto is very special: I don´t think I´ve ever played in an orchestra before where there is so much love between the conductor and the orchestra. It makes playing very easy, and very fun.

How can I describe the attitude of the wonderful people I´m with every day? They are free, easy, and eager to talk to strangers. They are always on the verge of singing and dancing. Some speak three languages very well. We stay up all night, sleep for a few hours on the bus, have a reshearsal, perform, and then celebrate some more.

Ah, currency

The Argentine peso is only worth a third of the American dollar. Translation: shopping. Our hotel is located a few blocks from a major shopping street, and it´s bizarre to go shopping, see the prices in pesos, and think to yourself, ¨Um...really?¨I bought a beatiful scarf for about two dollars. Then I bought shoes. And some other things. I´m seriously considering buying a new winter coat here -- I´m just not sure it will fit in my luggage.

Buenos Aires is a beautiful city. It´s very clean, the people are nice, and the city seems alive with art and other business. I can completely understand the ex-pat thing here. Being here makes me want to move here, too. It´s such a complete change from Sao Paulo and even Rio. Both of those cities were choked with smog. The air was brown, and we were all getting headaches from breathing. A Brazilian composer told me about getting carjacked in Rio. A man put a gun to his head through the driver window while another man reached in through the passanger side and pointed another gun. He was able to escape with his life, and his car was found two months later. It was used for running drugs.

On the other hand, Buenos Aires reminds me of Paris. There are fountains, monuments, parks, statues, and wide boulevards. The architecture looks like an older European style.
It is winter here, and the days are extremely short and rather cold.

Tonight we play at Teatro Colliseo. I´m looking forward to our last few concerts, but I think we´re all about ready to come home.

Buenos Aires

Today we said goodbye to Brasil after several weeks, five cities, a residency, three concerts, and a lot of time on the bus. Our concert in Sao Paulo was successful, but our performance in Campos do Jordao was less than stellar. We alternate sometimes between conductors, and one is very good, but the other is...well, less than stellar. Unfortunately our performance at Campos was at the most important music festival in Brasil. And Kurt Masur was there, a famous conductor. It was a little embarassing. We´re all trying to move on.

Campos do Jordao is like the Aspen of Brasil. It´s very high in the mountains, and the town is actually designed to look like a Swiss resort. It´s bizarre. We weren´t there for more than a few hours, including our concert, so there wasn´t much time to explore before we left for Argentina. When we were in Sao Paulo we really didn´t do much besides rehearse and perform. And it truly wasn´t safe to do much more than that in our neighborhood. After our concert there we took cabs to a pizza place, and there were strength in numbers. But I don´t think I´ve ever felt more uncomfortable in a city.

We arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina tonight in time to have dinner and then wander around the city a little. There is a sheet music store around here, and there are three pesos to the dollar, so I´m hoping to do some serious music (read: Piazzolla) shopping tomorrow morning. It´s so sad that we don´t have more than one day here. We perform tomorrow night, and then it´s on to Rosario, and then Uruguay. And then home!

Teatro Municipal

Last night we performed at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janiero. This theater is over 100 years old, and has beautiful mosaics and sculpted bulls that hold up pillars. The Greek muses dance around a giant chandellier on the ceiling. We played to almost a completely full house, all four balconies, and the orchestra sounded great -- we ended with our standard encore (an orchestrated Brazillian samba) and by the time the piece ended, a quarter of the orchestra was dancing samba with each other and the audience was dancing in the aisles. Amazing.

We are in Sao Paulo now, after a very long day on a bus. My bus was the drunk bus, unfortunately. We arrived at the hotel and got settled. Our normal announcement board is in the lobby telling us when and where we need to be; in addition to the usual announcements, there is a note saying we are in "a very bad area." Rio and Sao Paulo are extremely dangerous cities, especially for the lighter-skinned folks. Kidnapping and ransom are regular ways some people make a living here. So we are being careful to stay with large groups and not wander around late at night.

One other note: I don't believe we have been more than 150 yards away from a flan this entire trip. At least that's what my friend Dave says.

We are in Rio!!!!!

Last night we had our first concert in Salvador, and it was pretty successful. The orchestra will settle down as we play more. The soloist for the Dvorak cello concerto performed an encore of a slow movement of the sixth Bach suite. Suddenly I was struck with a profound homesickness, particularly for Louella playing that movement early in the mornings at Cazadero. I started to cry - I missed home so much, and the cellist´s selection of that particular piece was somehow a key to what I´m normally doing in July -- Cazadero.
Our concert ended at around midnight (things get started much later here) and then we boarded busses back to the hotel. We arrived at 1:30 AM and then had to meet in the lobby at 4:15 AM to catch a plane to Rio. We arrived in Rio de Janeiro around 11, and had lunch. I still haven´t had more than a couple hours sleep.
Some friends and I went to the top of Sugar Loaf this afternoon, which are two huge mountains over the city tied together with a gondola. (Kind of like the pods in Portland.) You can see everything, the whole city, the Copacabana, Impanema, and the Christ statue. And we couldn´t have timed it more perfectly - the sun was setting, and the full moon was rising while we were at the very top. It was so beautiful.
Tomorrow we have our next concert. Then it´s on to Sao Paulo.

More from Bahia

Brazillian dancing is kind of like an aerobics class that has had too much espresso.

We´re all getting a little tired, and the tour begins when we play in Salvador in two days. So the orchestra is trying to rest and have fun before everything gets really out of hand!

I had another lesson with Leone Buyse today. She has a way of saying things that just make sense to me. We´ve been working on clarity of articulation, and opening up my sound. It´s been really fun, and she is a wonderful woman.

Every night there has been chamber music performed by orchestra members in the lobby of the resort. Last night we had a group of cellos, some bassoon quartets, a string quartet, and then a mariachi band brought down the house.

absorbing culture

There is so much to learn and absorb from all the different cultures here. In our wind section alone, we have Americans, Colombians, Costa Ricans, Venezuelans, a Chilean, and a French Canadian. As I'm learning to speak more Spanish, and dance salsa, I can see how the laid-back way of many of these cultures actually makes doing these things much easier. Spanish comes out f my mouth as soon as I relax a little. I can dance much better if I chill out and let the guy lead me. And music follows that. As soon as we relax, we play much better. As soon as we don't take things so seriously, music flows out of our instruments and it's in tune and together.

Things are so relaxed here that we are becoming habitually tardy to everything. But it's okay, because we just take things as they come. Rehearsal, and whenever that ends, we eat. And whenever we feel like we're done eating, we go do something else. Last night they screened the documentary that was made a couple years ago about the orchestra. They followed several musicians back to their home countries (Colombia, Venezuela, America, Canada, Argentina) and showed how they live and how playing and touring with the orchestra changed them. They also followed a young Venezuelan boy as he begins to play the violin, and contrasted that with an 80 year old former concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Everything about the documentary was about being in the present, and being thankful for what we all have in our lives -- especially music. Many of my colleagues in the orchestra come from backgrounds of intense poverty and struggle. Some were children during wars that the US instigated in their home countries. It is such a privilege to get to know them and play with them.

This is beyond a doubt the most demanding orchestra I've ever played with. The level of playing is extremely high, and the sheer energy coming out of people as they play this music is so inspiring.

Tico Tico!

We are still rehearsing at this resort in Costa do Sauipe in Bahia, Brazil. It's normally a very expensive place, which is weird for a bunch of scrappy college-age musicians from all over the world to be staying here for free.

The air is very humid and smells a little like coconut. I've seen an iguana on the beach, and a little monkey-looking mammal. The birds are bright colors and sing beautiful songs. I'm learning more Spanish and getting acquainted with a Brazillian drink called "capoena." Basically, it's limes, sugar, and a Brazillian liquor. We're also doing a lot of dancing - and it's a LOT of fun to be led around the floor by a Cuban.

We are going to play some encores for the concerts, and one of the ones we're doing is an orchestra arrangement of Tico Tico. When we read through that piece -- oh, my God -- it was like a party exploded in the middle of orchestra rehearsal. We were playing AND dancing at the same time. Sections would just stand up at different times, and everyone who was in the room who wasn't playing was doing the samba. Otherwise, we've begun rehearsing Porgy and Bess and Sheherezade.

I had a lesson yesterday with Leone Buyse, the flutist who teaches at Rice University and who is with us in our residency. She is former principal of the Boston Symphony and she is a wonderful teacher. She's completely positive -- I haven't heard a single negative thought come out of her head yet -- and she gave me some really good guidance on tone development, which I feel I need.

ahhhhhhhhhhh

Chamber music + Debussy + Amazing harpist + Amazing violist + ME = awesome.


One 1.5 hour rehearsal can indeed be life-affirming.

rehearsals in bahia

We have finally begun to rehearse in earnest. In the last two days, I have played for more than seven hours each day. We are all tired.
I am playing principal flute on the Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances, one of the hardest pieces in the repertoire for woodwinds. This I discovered after we started rehearsing it. It is nearly impossible to actually play all the notes. It's insanely fast, and the rhythm is very complicated throughout the piece. But it's an amazing piece. The orchestra is fantastic. The strings especially sound wonderful. I think I'm finally getting my wish -- the wish to play with a bunch of people who are way better than me for a while!

When we don't have orchestra rehearsal (six hours a day), I'm either practicing or playing with a chamber music group. I'm actually playing Debussy's Trio for Flute, Viola and Harp -- maybe my favorite piece of all time! I've also been asked to play a piece by Ibert with the harp teacher. My plate could not get any fuller!

Speaking of plates, the food here is great. It's pretty vegetarian friendly, which is what a lot of you have asked me in emails. Believe me, you have not tasted pineapple until you have tasted Bahian pineapple. I'm also eating some delicious fish. I think the people who have been eating the Brazillian beef have been getting sick. So luckily I'm not tempted by that stuff. Another thing - they have a lot of juice here. They make their own watermelon juice! And papaya juice, and pineapple juice, and mango juice. It's a juice festival. Unbelieveable.

It's been raining here, but that's good because we're inside all day rehearsing anyway.
I'm sure I could tell you something more, but I'm drawing blanks. More soon.

Bahian Youth Orchestra!

Last night, I heard one of the best concerts of my life. It was not played perfectly, it was not in tune, and there were some wrong notes. But the energy in the room was indescribable. The Youth Orchestra of Bahia (pronounced bah-ee-ah) performed for us, all local kids who, a year and a half ago, couldn~t play anything at all.

They performed excerpts from Stravinsky´s Firebird and the New World Symphony. And they played some Venezuelan dances and Brazillian folk songs adapted for orchestra. They were amazing!

And why, exactly?

Because these kids rehearse Monday through Friday from 3-6 pm.And they only started a year and a half ago, without winds. The program is modeled after the Venezuelan music education system, where every child is required to have a musical education of some sort. The principal bassoonist had only started seven months ago and he sounded fantastic. Not only do these kids receive excellent training, and consistent coaching, they all really want to be there. They love the music, and they feel it with their whole bodies. It was like a party- dancing, cheering, and more smiling than I ever remember seeing in an orchestra concert!

Bahia has never had a full orchestra come here before. We are a novelty and something of celebrities. People hug us and kiss us and smile at us.

We have not yet had a full orchestra rehearsal yet, but sectionals are underway. The wind section is astonishing. Our coach is Alex Klein, former principal oboe of the Cleveland Orchestra. I am playing principal flute on the Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances - fiercely hard.

After our sectional today the whole wind section went swimming in the ocean together. Yeah. My kind of day.

people from earth

Today we were welcomed to the orchestra and introduced to the faculty members who will teach us during our residency. One of the Brazilian teachers talked about how we are all people on Earth, and we don´t meet enough. I kind of liked that.

It is true that there are people from all over the world here. The cello teacher is from Finland. There are people from all over the Americas, and a new friend of mine is a Slovak girl studying in Montreal. In one conversation, you hear Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English. It´s been fun trying to remember my high school French along with the new languages I´ve been studying just for this tour.

It is absolutely beautiful here. I cannot stress that enough. But it gives me a strange feeling to be in a very expensive resort (which I dont think anyone on this tour could afford in real life) that is surrounded by very poor people. The disparity in wealth here is very obvious.

I audition for seating this afternoon, and then we begin rehearsals tomorrow. That gives us most of today to fool around, swim, and lie on the beach!

Elise is in Brazil

From Costa do Sauipe, a list of things:

White sandy beach
70 degree ocean
Palm trees
Coconut water
No sleep in 30 hours.
Very bumpy flight lasted eight hours.
Everyone is so nice, and very forgiving of bad Portuguese.
Music will start to happen tomorrow.

More soon.