A Couple Things…

I disappeared for a while. Not by design, but what became busy-ness became laziness. And then it turned into a habit. And I justified this by telling myself that nobody was reading (except for my mom!), nobody was paying attention and it didn’t really matter if I dropped off the face of the blog world.

But then I remembered: that’s not why I started this. I started this for me. To share – yes – but to write, mostly. And to see what came out as I got more used to putting pen to paper fingers to keyboard.

In the mean time, a lot of things happened or have changed. Mostly in a good way.

1. Little m was in her first Nutcracker. Her teacher has been mounting a full-scale (minus the orchestra) production in our small town for about 37 years. Did I mention Little M’s teacher is 85. You should see her legs!

2. Christmas came. And it was mostly lovely. My brother and sister-in-law came to visit, arriving in the wee hours of Christmas Eve. There was also a train set, books, caves and wine. I do not remember the order. And a camera may or may not have been stashed, helpfully we think, by Little c in a box with the parts for the food processor.

3. I went to Greece. Without my family. For a trumpet conference. I know.

4. We’re moving. While this isn’t earth-shattering news, seeing as my husband is in the military, it’s a bit unique as this will be our last move for at least 8-9 years. Mr. T got a job with the U.S. Army Field Band and because of the special nature of the ensemble (it’s one of the elite, permanent party military musical groups in the DC area), it’s a posting until he reaches his 20-year mark or possibly longer if he/we want(s). So we’re leaving this house, the first we’ve ever owned, and are house hunting in an entirely different part of the country. I can’t pretend to be sad about leaving Desert Town. There are good points (including wearing birks in January), but I think living near major metropolitan areas again will be good for my career and my state of mind. We’ll be taking off for Maryland in the early Spring. Any comments or suggestions about the area are welcome!

5. I completed the coursework for my doctorate. Now comes everything else. Woot.

I’m going to try to be better about keeping this up, for me (and my mom!) and anyone that wants to partake of my company. You’re all welcome. All two of you!

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Anatomy of a Recital, Part…Oh I don’t know anymore

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Recital

I’m going to finish this up lickety-split. After all, my recital was 2 months ago. But I just wanted to get a few things out there for people (yes, my mom) who wanted to read or who are having to generate program notes.

First off – I’m not a music historian. I have an extensive background in music history because I’m old, curious and have taken lots of classes but it’s not my area of expertise. By a long shot.

Secondly, I’m not a great writer. I used to love writing in high school, especially journal entries for my pre-university english class, but it’s been a while and I’m still finding my voice. And even though I’m a really fast reader, I’m a really slow writer. Like, glacially slow. I analyze every word and sentence and still end up making lots of typos.

Thirdly, I took all my own pictures. Or rather, I framed them out and then my husband hold the camera and press the button. I just ordered a remote control for my camera so I’m going to try some self-portraits in the coming weeks and months. As I wade through this photo stuff, I’ve come to the realization that I need really good head shots and I’d like to do it myself (DIM…haha).

Fourth – These program notes are probably not what you’d read at a professional chamber music concert/solo recital. Not that I’m not a professional but I also had to recognize that they were for an academic setting. So there is some language that I would never use if I were doing this outside the ivory tower.

Fifth – despite all of the above, I’m hoping that I still sound like me. And that even for a recital in an academic setting, that they still look pretty good (I used a template in Pages, if anyone is wondering).

So here they are:

DMA Solo Recital Programme Notes

Take a look, or a read, if you’d rather. I’d welcome comments about my writing as it’s something I’m trying to improve before I get to the meat of my dissertation in the coming year.

Related articles

• Anatomy of a Recital, Part 4 (lifecomposing.wordpress.com)
• Anatomy of a Recital, Part 3 (lifecomposing.wordpress.com)
• Anatomy of a Recital, Part 2 (lifecomposing.wordpress.com)

Knead-free bread. But not mess free.

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bread

I really don’t mean this to be a food blog, but it seems like whenever I have time to write something, it inevitably ends up being about food.

But it doesn’t matter. Because this bread is REVELATORY.

Yes, I said it. (Or at least I wrote it).

And I made it, then I ate it.

This is what it looked like before I ate it:

I don’t have an after photo. We ate the whole stinking thing up in a few hours.

I’d been avoiding the whole no-knead bread before, mainly because I couldn’t be bothered to buy the “right” kind of yeast. The instant stuff that people use in bread machines, if you must know. Lo and behold, I was cruising around the interwebs and found out that I could use my normal Active Dry stuff.

Recipe-wise, I followed the instructions on the Smitten Kitchen, but instead of using 1/4 tsp of instant yeast, I used 1/3 tsp of active dry. I also used bread flour and not all-purpose, mainly because we’re high and dry up here. Everything else I kept the same. And you should be forewarned, I still found this pretty messy and managed to get flour all over my newly cleaned stove top. But apparently sticky is good for the yeasty-beasties! Also, while it takes a lot of time, it’s not actually time-consuming. That being said, it’s a perfect, lazy-weekend-at-home kind of project.

Here’s the recipe, from smitten kitchen. And probably other places, too.

Yields one 1 1/2 pound loaf

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast/1/3 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. Mix together flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70F/21C.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your hands, gently (and quickly) shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450°F. Smitten Kitchen says to put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. I only had a 2.5L casserole on hand and that’s why mine a little oddly shaped. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

The Verdict: Fantabulous. Stupendifying. European loaf of goodness in the my Desert Town, USA kitchen. Crunchy crust and airy, bubbly middle. And four very happy boulangerie customers for lunch.

UPDATE: I tried dividing the dough in two so I could have two smaller loaves. It worked beautifully. You’ll just need a second casserole dish, but then the dishes don’t have to be as big as in the original recipe.

This cake has no sugar. Well, almost.

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Bake, Chocolate, Maple syrup, Olive oil

So apparently there was an election ’round these parts. Snort. I can’t truthfully say that since I’m not a US citizen, I wasn’t paying attention, but I can say it was nice to not live in one of the so-called battleground states. And it’s brilliant that we don’t have cable.

So instead of voting, I made a cake. The idea was to make a cake with no processed sugar. The intention was there. Unfortunately, the maple syrup was not. Once I got over the heresy of running out of maple syrup, I got a little creative and came up with something beautiful. And ever so slightly pink.

The recipe was adapted from Aimée over at Simple Bites, where she was running an unprocessed food series for the month of October. So naturally I found the one of the few things (probably) that was the least healthy. But it was yummy.

Dark Chocolate Beet Bundt Cake

2 large beets, cooked and cooled (or 3 medium)

1/2 cup s=unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

1/2 cup olive oil

1 cup honey

1/4 cup brown sugar (I was all out of maple syrup!)

3 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup unbleached, preferably organic, white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour, preferably organic

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp. sea salt

NB: My fave method of cooking beets for something like this is to wrap them in foil and roast for about 1 hour, maybe longer if your beets are really big, at 350F. Take them out when soft-ish (you can squeeze the foil to check) and let them cool. When you need to peel and grate them later in this recipe, you can do all that over the foil and clean-up is muy easy.

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Butter bundt pan and dust with cocoa. Grate beets with box grater and measure out two cups (I was a little over and didn’t sweat it). Transfer to a colander and let drain bit. Mix together butter, olive oil, honey and sugar until well blended. Add eggs, one at time, beating after each addition. Sift together dry ingredients and gently fold into wet ingredients. Do not over mix! Fold in beets until well-distributed and scrape into bundt pan.  Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until wooden skewer comes out clean.

Pretty, no?

The Verdict: Rich, earthy and comforting. Yes, you can taste the beets but I didn’t find it overpowering. For for my taste, I’d rather have maple syrup instead of so much honey, so at some point I’ll follow the original a bit more closely (we’re dry and high here in Desert Town, USA, so I usually have to alter things because my dry ingredients are, well, drier).

You can find the original recipe here.

 

 

Auditions update: October Edition?!?!

I’ve been MIA for a bit around here but I thought I’d update the audition info, since I forgot to do it at the beginning of the month.

Here are the October AFM audition ads for horn:

Daegu Symphony Orchestra

FRENCH HORN – Principal Horn

Resume Date: November 14, 2012

Audition Date: email for info

Start Date: email for info

Salary/Benefits: $40,000(negotiable) plus medical coverage and 25 days paid vacation

General Information: Located in South Korea will make 1 year contract and can be renewed DVD recording ofaudition repertoires, current resume/bio

Contact Information: For audition repertoire, and further questions please contact Ms. Song athaileysong@gmail.com

Email: Haileysong@gmail.com

 

Nashville Symphony Orchestra

FRENCH HORN – Associate Principal 3rd Horn

Resume Date: November 2, 2012

Audition Date: February 23-25, 2013

Salary/Benefits: 2012-13 Salary: $69,000.36 + EMG (Signatory to the IMA), Benefits and  7.63% AFM Pension

General Information: Employment begins at a mutually agreed upon time.  Repertoire will not be given over the phone. No phone calls please.

Contact Information: E-mail resume to: auditions@nashvillesymphony.org Or post two copies of your one-page resume to: Audition Coordinator The Nashville Symphony One Symphony Place Nashville, TN 37201-2031 Visit our website for more information: www.nashvillesymphony.org/auditions

Email: auditions@nashvillesymphony.org

Website: www.nashvillesymphony.org

Hopefully I be posting a bit more regularly this month. I’ve a got a bunch of things going on, but I’d like to attempt to have some continuity. Or at the very least, some cake recipes.

Company’s Here!

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Rattlesnake

We had an uninvited guest drop in on us this week-end.

And the party in question promptly took care of the mouse problem we’d had in our compost bin. And it wasn’t this guy below.

It was this guy:

And for some reason, he was really ticked when we asked him to leave and got all punk teenage bad-boy on us when we did.

In fact he was downright angry. Sabres drawn, rattles blazing.

Sorry, dude.

I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

 

 

 

 

Related articles

• Reports of rattlesnake bites in Arizona on rise (azstarnet.com)

Anatomy of a Recital, Part 4

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Money, Recital

Recitals are not cheap. Especially when you’re not getting paid to do them.

On the other hand, how many people on the planet actually get paid to do a horn recital? Outside of a university setting? Maybe a handful. Maybe less than that.

So I thought it might be good for me and general populace (read: my school, financial aid people or anybody else getting ready to do this) to actually look at the cost breakdown, line by painful line.

Pianist – $250 (The ever-fabulous Michael Dauphinais. This included all of the rehearsal time and the actual recital.)

Venue – $125 (I chose an outside venue, but the is what is would have cost me to use one of the halls at the school of music.)

Dress – $91 (on sale from $300!)

Posters – $3.50

Programs – $11.50 (I made colour ones for my committee, my school portfolio and my own personal file; the rest were black and white.)

Gas – $40 (There were two occasions that I had to come up to school from where I live that weren’t my normal school days.)

Babysitter – $30

In ‘n’ Out Burger – $10 (I didn’t eat a lot before so I was pretty ravenous afterwards.)

TOTAL: $561

Holy cow! This is in addition to tuition and fees. In this economy.

Where could I have saved money? I could have done an entire recital without accompaniment. And it would have been depressing, awful, somewhat boring and really tiring. I also could have used a classroom at school instead of a hall or the church that I ended up using and that would have been free. And depressing, unprofessional and clinical. I could have skipped the posters. I could have gotten my husband to stay home with the little people instead having his presence and support. The programs are a part of my requirement (although not an official one, I might add) but I could have skipped the colour versions.

So now that I’m thoroughly depressed, let’s look on the bright side. This could have been a whole lot more expensive.  So, where did I save money? By having a fabulous pianist who was prepared and professional, as well as being someone that I musical “gel” with, I saved myself some rehearsal time. The dress, kind of. I wasn’t originally looking for a dress so I did overspend my shirt budget of about $50, but it was WORTH EVERY PENNY. So compared to the original price of the dress, yes I saved. I’m going to go with that. Other saving? My posters and the photography for them and my program. I wasn’t going to do any of it and then I got persuaded that it would a god idea. I took (or set up up) my own pictures and did my own editing. I had a sweet friend print my posters out for me at the Honors’ College on campus (it’s only for undergrads, but she bent the rules for me a bit) and it was only $0.25 for each colour page. I also borrowed a digital recording device from a friend, so I didn’t pay anyone to record the recital, which can get spendy, depending on who does it.

I think I was as “thrifty” as I could have been, with maybe one exception. But honestly, being thrifty wasn’t the point of the exercise. I’d anticipated the costs last spring and set aside some of my gig money for it. But it’s still a little ouchy, all things considered.

UPDATE: I forgot about the $100 worth of music that I bought for the occasion. That brings my total to $661. Zoinks.

Related articles

• Anatomy of a Recital, Part 1 (lifecomposing.wordpress.com)
• Anatomy of a Recital, Part 2 (lifecomposing.wordpress.com)
• Anatomy of a Recital, Part 3 (lifecomposing.wordpress.com)
• Recital Programme (lifecomposing.wordpress.com)

Anatomy of a Recital, Part 2

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Music, Recital

 

Doing this in chronological order would be too easy. So I won’t.

I started thinking about this recital a while ago. In fact, I started thinking about it shortly after my last recital, a chamber music extravaganza, last April. To some people, that might seem like a lot of time to plan a recital. It’s really not. When I was doing piano stuff in high school, at the very end of my study, it was taking me months and months just to learn a piece. I think it took me almost a year to learn a complete Beethoven Sonata. So four months is pretty snappy.

This first thing I did was to secure my pianist, Michael Dauphinais. He’s ostensibly on faculty at my school, but he really isn’t utilized the way he should be. Why Michael? Because he’s easy to work with, professional, and a lovely, musical pianist. He played for me for my first doctoral recital and it was such a joy to work with him.

The second thing I did was try to find a date that worked for me, my committee of three, Michael and the school at three different halls in two venues. At previous institutions that I’ve attended, there was always a designated period for degree recitals and the faculty gave their availability to scheduling people. So I just go down to the scheduling people and I could pick from there (or, in the case of McGill, they told me when my recital was and that was that). But not here. Sigh. So I did a doodle poll with a bunch of times and places and between the bunch of us, we found a single date (out of about 10, whittled down to 4) which I then immediately booked with my committee, Michael and the venue.

Doodle is both annoying and awesome. Awesome, because you can ask a bunch of people about scheduling. Annoying, because people don’t get back to you all at once and you keep getting an email every time someone finally gets back to you. Kind of like Chinese water torture. And there’s almost always a lone holdout. But I digress.

Since I decided to use an off campus venue, I actually forgot to tell the school until the end of August. Oops. There was a form that everyone on my committee had to sign that approved the music I chose and the date and venue (again) and there was another card that just my supervising professor had to sign so that the school would even know the recital was happening. That was the one I forgot. It’s due 30 days before the recital. I think it waltzed in about 21 days before. They knew about the recital but this was just one of those crossing the “t’s” moments that I’m not always good at/don’t care to remember.

I also had to book the recital venue and I ended up choosing something off campus. Why? The two halls that are available at school don’t have great acoustics – one is too boomy and the other swallows you up (or me at least). The real kicker is that you have to pay for them and it’s not a minimal $25 fee or something. I’ve just gotta say – I really disagree with this. I have to present 4 recitals because of my degree. I have already paid fees and tuition because of my degree (ok, I’ve got scholarships, but there are always some little things that add up). I’m already charged an extra fee for lessons because of my degree. One would think they’d let you use the hall in the school that you’ve paid tuition and a pint of blood to attend for the recitals that you need to present BECAUSE OF THE DEGREE.

Anyhow, I chose an Episcopalian church used to having chamber music concerts and recitals. It’s fairly close to campus. They’ve got a nice Baldwin grand in there (never thought I’d say that about a Baldwin, but there’s a first time for everything) and the staff at Grace-St. Paul’s was lovely to work with.

Not too much visual clutter and the only thing I really needed to think about was where I was going to stand. I did my first recital for my DMA here, so it was almost comforting. That help, the comforting bit, when you’re under stress. I’d imagine these things get worse when you don’t know what you’re walking into. You control what you can and this was something over which I had a say. And there’s a built-in fence there in case anybody in the audience gets rowdy and rushes the stage.

Hey. It could happen!

Related articles

• Anatomy of a Recital, Part 1 (lifecomposing.wordpress.com)
• Recital Programme (lifecomposing.wordpress.com)

 

Will it chip?: Part 3

I promise at some point I will get to non-leafy green things, but for now I’m doing an exhaustive study.

Collard greens.

Hmmmhave I ever had collard greens in my house? ‘Round ’bout these parts, we eat pretty healthy. Kale, spinach, mustard greens, swiss chard. But collards? I’d always understood them to be a south of the Mason-Dixon line sort of thing. I’m from north of 40. So there you go

Upon further examination, I decided to use the slow and low method that I’ve perfect with my Tuscan kale. And this is what came out:

Washed and dry (thoroughly!), tear into chip-sized pieces and toss with olive oil. Spread over parchment, sprinkle a bit of sea salt and roast at 250F for about 30-35 minutes.

Verdict: Still awesome. They have more of a nori/seaweed texture to them than the kale or brussels sprouts and a slightly nuttier flavor while being really delicate. Yay!

Will it chip? Part 2.

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Brussels sprout

My son doesn’t eat veggies.

This is really embarassing to admit. We actually eat a variety of healthy food at our house. Local and organic when possible or feasible. Little M is the epitome of a fabulous eater. She will try everything and continue eating about 99% of it. She cleans her plate and never complains.

Little C is definitely his own person. But I digress.

We have had enormous success feeding him veggie “chips” or as he says it “tsips”. And this was no exception.

Brussels Sprouts!

He loves these like dogs like rolling in smelly things. They’re that good.

We’ve tried these a few ways: low and slow, high and quick. I think it depends on how much moisture you have in the sprout leaves and how much crunchy versus chewy you go for.

Here’s what we did:

Remove as many of the outer leaves from your brussels sprouts as possible. This might require cutting the stem periodically. Wash and dry thoroughly. Preheat oven to 300F. Toss with good quality olive oil and lay out in a single layer on some parchment paper on a baking sheet. Dust with salt (or pepper or herbs or parmesan cheese: you get the picture) to taste. Bake for 20 minutes, checking to see if they’re getting too brown too quickly. If so, turn the heat down and possibly increase the time. Testing one or two chips is always an option to know where you are in the scheme of things.

Verdict: Not quite as crunchy or delicate as the kale chips, but still quite delectable. Devoured by all. It chips!