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took a lesson today with the principal violist of the orquesta here. his name is fransisco, and he´s from australia. pretty cool guy. i playes some bartok, some bach, and some mendelssohn scherzo, and we talked about possibilities of me playing with the orchestra here. i don´t think anything is for sure, but he recommended i send a recording to the orchestra just in case they had an opportunity come up. he gave me some great advice about what to do to get to the next level- play in front of the mirror every day, be your own teacher, record yourself and actually listen to it (really.... shit.).
he also said that you never know when an opportunity may come your way, and that opportunities may not come your way, so you need to make your own.
the orquesta played last night in maria pita square. i love outdoor concerts in the summer, espeically when thye´re in beauitful old plazas at sunset. good music, good company, what could be better! the plaza was packed too. i think they´re expecting the same attendance for our concert on sunday, which will be amazing, and scary too!! I get the sense that the people here are pretty chill- whatever happens is cool by them, and there´s no need to worry or hurry through the day. lessons i need to learn for sure, but lessons that are hard to implement in the american society. i wont miss the smoke and carnecerias everywhere, thats for sure!
so we have our concert tomorrow, then i fly back monday morning from coruña. its been a quick 10 days, that´s for sure! i don´t know that i´m ready to be back to reality, but then again i don´t really have a choice. i really enjoyed not working (playing is not working, by the way! people pay us to do this!)

i´m looking forward to seeing all of you reading this. really, i really am.
besitos!!!!!

today we had a seminar (cursillo) on anxiety and music. its still amazing to me that musicians are the same the world over. we experience the same emotions and conditions despite having been brought up in very different musical worlds. its comforting to hear that everyone has anxiety about performing, even people who you would never imagine could ever feel this! the discussion was led by a psicologio who specializes in anxiety in musicians (apparently, this is a huge problem, huh?). our discussion eventually meandered into beta blocker use, at which point things got pretty heated.
at any rate, today´s discussion further confirmed for me that no matter where i end up, travel to, etc, there will always be a community of like-minded people to embrace me. i dont know many other professions that have the same ability.
and depite this being all in spanish (brain fry), i think i gained some insight into musicians as people, not just as musicians. we are all passionate about the same things, afraid of the same things, secretly desire the same things <well, maybe not the exact same things, but you get the idea). that´s my deep insight for today.
i can´t think in english anymore, so that´s about as deep you´re gonna get from me.....
besitos y abrazos

it´s tuesday here, i think...
the rehearsals have been going really well. my section is pretty cool, and we´re all having a blast playing the bernstein! i am already anxious about the solo in the "somewheré" section of the work. (there´s a plaaace for us, somewhere a plaaaace for us...). one cool thing they do here is after someone plays something well, everyone takes the time to applaud. makes it feel like we´re all in it together, and not out for each other´s throats like it can feel sometimes in orchestra at school.
i think my favorite part of the city so far is the paseo marítimo. it runs all along the coast, and i´ve been taking this route up to the torre de hercules almost every day. there´s something about running along the ocean that is just incomparable to anything else. phil, keith and i (los americanos...) have been hanging out with a cool group of spaniards. mostly violinists and violists who can speak little to no english, but somehow we´ve managed to become fast friends. i think the hardest part for me has been trying to order food! they have so many specialities here that dont exactly describe what food it contains, so i´m never really sure quite what i´m actually eating, but i´ve figured out the safe foods are: tortillas (what we call omlettes), and sangria. everything else, i´ve either forgotten the name of, or not had anyone able to actually translate what it is! i´m learning too many new words a day to remember any of them im afraid....
hopefully later this week we´ll have some time to go to santiago de compostela, or some other neighbooring cities because i think la coruña has shown us all her charms.
hope this finds you all well and happy! i´ll be back in a few days, and exhausted i´m sure, but i´ll try to post some pictures when i can (cant connect my camera here).

hola a todos desde españa!
it´s been almost 3 days here, and the weather has been awesome. nice and cold, just like i like it! we have had 3 rehearsals, a seating audition, and no full rehearsals yet. the section is pretty strong already. i got the music on friday morning, and was the only one who hadn´t seen it before that time, so i had all of 1 hour this morning before rehearsal to learn the following:
bernstein- west side story suite
handel- water music suite
gershwin- porgy and bess suite
tchaikovsky- fancesca remini

needless to say, its been a little slow going, but everyone here is really nice and accomodating to my attempts at making some conversation. the rehearsals are all in spainish, and i am surprisingly able to understand everything our teacher is saying (he´s from italy, but plays in the OSG here, and speaks very clear spanish with a gallego accent).
everyone in the orchestra smokes (todo el mundo!), and every restaurant has smoking inside, so i´m feeling a bit crappy right now. i´m probably going to be sick in a day or so. i can´t take all the fumes....
the city of Coruña is interesting. its right on the atlantic ocean, and the views from the walkway along the ocean are amazing, but the town has sections that are not so great. its kind of a typical european town, with a hint of amsterdam (what i imagine that would be like), and a bit of spain. its not what i expected from spain anyways. sorry for the rambling, but i´m a little exhausted already! i can´t keep up with the kids here, they bring a whole new meaning to the party lifestyle.
my room is really really small, and i thought i would have it to myself, but my roommate showed up late thursday night. she´s very nice, but very quiet, so we don´t really say much to each other. the room is also at least 90 degrees at night, but we can´t keep the windows open to air it out because there is so much noise from the street below, so i haven´t exactly been sleeping.
we have our first full rehearsal tomorrow, which i´m lookign forward to. phil, keith and i (the maryland gang here) went out to a nice dinner with mr. ross last night, and he showed us some of his favorite places from when he was living here years ago. the town definitely comes alive at night (and all morning, for that matter).
i will say that i have never before been homesick when i got to europe, but i am a little bit here. i alwyas miss my friends and family, but i feel like i´ve really started to build something of a life in DC (as much as I might not want that necessarily), so i miss the normalcy and comfort level associated with knowing how things go.
anywho. i miss you guys! i´ll try to send post cards later this week, and update this.
besitos y abrazos!