Victory, Proms, Walks, and Markets

So, as expected, I am no great cricket player. However, I was made team captain because Friday was my birthday and my team won. After cricket, Erin and I went on an adventure to try and find a music store but apparently it was closed if the old mail in the mail slot and empty window display were anything to go by. Omar and I are going to try and find a different one tomorrow morning. Hopefully we'll have better luck with that since I really need to get my new music so I can start practicing for my next lesson.

Friday night, a bunch of us went to see the NY Phil play Ravel Mother Goose Suite, Bartok Miraculous Mandarin, and Tchaikovsky 4. It was a phenomenal concert- again, a fabulous brass section. The clarinet section sounded great during the Bartok. I wasn't impressed with Stanley Drucker's solo playing though. I really like the recordings of him from his younger days, but I don't like it as much now. I don't know whether it was the hall or him trying to project or what, but during his solos, his tone would spread every time he played above a mf. It was a little frustrating to hear, but at least he's consistent about it, I guess. One thing I will say for him is that he plays wonderfully with the principal bassoonist.

New York Phil!

Yesterday we went on a walk around The City. The City is the square mile original (i.e. Roman) part of London. We saw St. Paul's Cathedral, which is the symbol of London. During WWII, people would wake up in the morning after German air raids to see if St. Paul's cathedral was still standing. We also went to St. Bart's church which was first partially destroyed during the Protestant Reformation (remember? Henry VIII wanted a divorce, the pope said no, so Henry founded the Church of England and turned the whole country Protestant and all that goodness?). St. Bart's is easily one of the most beautiful churches I have ever been to.


Bill cut a deal with the guy at the entrance (in England, museums are free but churches are not) and we all got in for free and choir was rehearsing for a wedding that was to take place later that afternoon. The choir was wonderful and it just made the whole experience of wandering around this old church even more wonderful.

Today we went exploring some of the East End markets with Bill. I definitely have to go back to some of them, along with exploring the Portobello Rd. market next Saturday. Portobello Rd. is very near where I live and I keep passing it on the weekends and I never quite get there in time. It is one of the most famous markets in London and I'm hoping I can get some fresh vegetables there along with seeing all the little stalls.

I've just been kind of wandering around London in my free time here, but I think I need to make a list of the things I really want to do in London/England and a list of places I want to go in Europe. A trip to Paris is a given, since Erik and Andrea are there and I'd also really love to get back to Italy. Spain, specifically Barcelona, and Vienna are also possibilities. There are tons of guidebooks in the London Center, so I think I'm going to do some research for fall break travels later tonight.

Cheers!

Sending good vibes

Since I guess some of you are reading this:

To my Ithaca clarinetists: Rock auditions!

If anyone wants a good audition story involving fire, Elvis, and kittens, just leave a comment. I promise it is one of my rare good stories.

Cheers!

Cricket, anyone?

#1. I love Janet Hilton. I had my first lesson yesterday and she is absolutely wonderful. I'm officially done with Weber and have four new British pieces to get. I was looking up prices last night (because I thought I would have to order them from home and have them shipped to avoid the coversion of the crappy dollar) and they are all much cheaper to buy here, even with the exchange rate. I might go hunting around for some music stores here in London later today.

#2. I missed the first NY Phil proms concert last night. My lesson went a little too long, and the cheap seats were sold out. So no Steve Stucky, Gershwin, or Rite of Spring. boo. Tonight however I will definitely be seeing Ravel- Mother Goose Suite, Bartok- Miraculous Mandarin, and Tchaik 4 after a picnic dinner in Hyde Park!

#3. I am going to learn how to play cricket in about half an hour. If things go well I should have some funny pictures as I think all the music majors will be learning, and we all know how uncoordinated musicians really are. If things go badly, I think a broken wrist in England would really round out my average nicely. (Just kidding mom)

Cheers!

London Education

I don't know that this post will be of much interest to anyone but music education majors, but oh well. Yesterday Omar, Andrew, and I had a meeting with Brendon, our work-study coordinator. He explained the British education system to us, and it is just so different from the United States. I know thats a little stupid to say, Britain being a different country from us and all, but I still can't get over it. For those who don't know, in Britain, students graduate from secondary school at the age of 16, and they can then opt to go to college for 2 years, and then onto university when they are 18/19. What this means is that we've been seeing a lot of people our age in business suits that have been working professionals for years, since they went directly into the work force when they were 16.

In terms of how the primary/secondary school system works here, each class of our equivalent of K, first, second, etc. grades is taught by one teacher. Each teacher teaches all the core subjects for the grade level (like in the US), but they also teach art and music, and the other "non-core" subjects. These teachers are trained to teach, but not necessarily in music, art, etc. So basically what you have are teachers teaching subjects that they know practically nothing about. The British government has recognized the problem with this system and has funded what they call musical services.

Andrew, Omar, and I will be working for one of these musical services. There is one service per district, and basically what they do is sell their services to the schools. So teachers from the Lambeth musical service will go to several schools in a day and team-teach classroom music. A specialist each in brass, woodwinds, and percussion will each go to a school together and do classroom general music (singing with solfege, an Orff-like mallets program, and recorders) in addition to a small band. If students wish to pursue an instrument they must take lessons after school and there are also ensembles on Saturdays, and Thursday nights. Students must however pay for these options themselves (there are scholarships).

The thing with this system, however, is that you still have the normal classroom teacher there, who in most cases has never played an instrument or sung, or participated in music at all. So the musical services also run even classes to teach music to the classroom teachers. The teachers all learn recorder or djembe and have to learn to read music just like their students.
The Lambeth service aims to teach rhythm and pitch through singing with solfege in the general music portion and through ensemble playing right from the start. Students are given instruments from the music service and are allowed to take them home after 8 weeks, or in some of the rougher neighborhoods, not at all, since they would just get sold. We'll be working in a very rough district- students coming from homes with no financial providers, abuse, and very low socio-economic status overall. Additionally, the British public school system has no allowances for specials classes for gifted or special needs students so you have 30 first graders of all different abilities and needs in the same classroom, which is great for inclusion purposes, but not great for standardizing the curriculum.

The other problem with the system is that the British university program does not have degrees in Music Education. All the musicians who go to uni are training to become orchestral musicians. So what you are left with in these programs are teachers who know very little about music, and musicians who know very little about teaching. Apparently the three of us are some kind of blessing for the program in a way, because we are both performers on our instrument (and able to teach all the others) in addition to have a very strong music education background. It sounds like we'll be doing a whole lot of teaching right off the bat, which is awesome. Brendon has already offered us all jobs (once we graduate in December) in a very serious way. England is badly in need of music teachers for all their schools.

I haven't actually been out to teach yet- we have a meeting at the program's office next Wednesday, and then my first day of teaching is the Monday after that. From what Brendon told us, we will be teaching in an inner city kind of environment, which will be great experience. The Lambeth Music Service has all kinds of ensembles, and the three of us will be learning to beatbox in preparation for their beatboxing ensemble, so watch out for some new skills when we get home haha.

Batteries, Dinosars, and the Proms

Well, I can say that I know what a battery looks like when it explodes. Robin had tried to use her battery charger on Sunday night, when after about five minutes two over the batteries exploded, leaking battery acid everywhere. Fun. Let this be a lesson: when in Europe, it's easier to just buy batteries. Needless to say, after that I didn't test out my battery charger and just bought some the next day.

Normally on Mondays and Wednesdays, I'll be teaching, but since the British school year hasn't started yet, I have these days free. So I took advantage of that and went to the Natural History Museum with Omar, Andrew, Mike, and their roommate Eric. We spent about three hours there all total between the dinosaur exhibit and the human body exhibit. The museum is housed in this beautiful semi-Romanesque building that looks from the outside like a palace, and from the inside like it could be a church if it weren't for the giant dinosaur skeleton in the middle of the entry hall. American museums can be beautiful from the outside (the Met, for instance) but every one that I've been to doesn't even come close to the Natural History Museum.

The easiest way, however, to tell a British Museum from an American is:

The boys and I also decided to go to our first Proms concert. The Proms (short for Promenade) are a series of concerts every year from July to September. Tickets range in price, but the main draw of the Proms are the standing room only tickets for £5, sold about a half and hour before curtain. Last night the Royal Philharmonic was performing Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet and Tchaikovsky 5. It was brilliant. The whole brass section, but the trombones and horns in particular, were stellar. The horn section sounded like one instrument in every single tutti and the horn solo in the Tchaikovsky was absolutely beautiful. The principal clarinetist was impressive in every solo- beautiful tone and absolutely beautiful phrasing. I've never clapped for that long after a concert.

There are many more Proms concerts I'm looking forward to attending. The New York Phil. will be in town this Thursday and Friday. They're playing a Steve Stucky premiere, the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F, and Rite of Spring on Thursday, and on Friday will be the Ravel Mother Goose Suite, Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin, and Tchaikovsky's 4th. We're going to try and have a picnic in Hyde Park (weather permitting), which is right across the street from Royal Albert Hall.

Also coming up is Verdi's Requiem, the Nash Ensemble doing a clarinet quintet, the Berlin Phil., and the Quartet for the End of Time with Martin Frost.

Cheers!

The Elderly- for real this time.

Sorry about the misleading subject line last time- my laptop battery was dying and Mike had borrowed my adaptor. You can see these signs all over my neighborhood:

Silly Brits.

The signs were designed by a child in the 80's and apparently all the elderly people in Britain hate the signs and want them redesigned. I think they're brilliant.

It's funny- I can't really believe I'm here yet. I don't really feel like I'm in a foreign country- I'm just very comfortable here. London as a city is unlike anything I've seen in America- mixed in with the new modern buildings are the old (London Tower) and even older (there are ruins of Roman walls in the area between Westminster and East London). You can be in the middle of something that is reminiscent of New York City and 10 minutes later be in a quiet residential street. I love it here. I don't feel like a tourist even though I am definitely one- I saw a bus full of bobbies today and couldn't have been more excited. Robin and I have a scheme to get a picture of some bobbies without them noticing.

The director of the center- Bill- takes groups of the willing on walks around different parts of London each week. Yesterday we went on what was supposed to be a three hour walk but ended up being four hours. We walked around the Westminster (Parliament, etc) area and over the Thames to South London where a lot of the theaters and music halls are. It was very informative, but exhausting.

Flats and the Elderly

London has been a flurry of activity so far. It is by far the prettiest big city I have ever seen. It has a bit of something for everyone. There are the modern bits that remind me of New York and then all of a sudden, you'll stumble across the remnants of a Roman stronghold in the middle of the city. Meghan, Seth, Robin, Erin, Rebecca, and I finally found a flat after three days of traipsing all over London. We went as far south as Brixton below the river and as far north as Marble Arch/Edgeware. We finally settled on this adorable cottage in the Chelsea/West Kensington area.


It's what is known as a flat-share, meaning that we share the house with other people. So the six of us IC people are sharing three bedrooms and there are three French "young professionals" in the other two bedrooms. It's in a great neighborhood- very close to Notting Hill and the Portabello Road market.
On our second night in town, Meghan, Seth, Robin, Erin, and I took a little tour and visited Buckingham Palace and Parliament/Big Ben. It was a lot of fun and we went back during the day today when we were led around London by our program director for an almost four hour walking tour. Last night my flat and Omar, Andrew, Mike, and their roommate Eric, met up for dinner and a drink to celebrate signing our leases. We ate a gourmet burger joint and then some people split off to drop their bags at the hotel before meeting us back at the pub. Somehow, Andrew and Mike managed to walk all the way to High Street Kensington (which is quite a ways from where we were), never make it to the hotel at all, and get on the tube going in the wrong direction before they made it back to the pub. I, however unbelievable it may be, have yet to have gotten lost.
London has been really great so far, and I'm looking forward to finally getting to relax now that we have a flat settled. I only have two classes and a lesson next week, so I'm planning on doing a bit of sightseeing and touristy things this upcoming week.

Jolly Old England

I'm finally in England!! Traveling went well overall. In typical Ithaca fashion, the lounge that we were supposed to have at the airport was never actually reserved for us, so there were Ithaca students all over the concourse. The flight was very smooth- around 6 1/2 hours. I sat next to a very nice Italian couple. The husband helped me get my clarinet in the overhead bin because I was a bit too short and the woman didn't speak English but she always smiled when she caught my eye. I got to use my elementary Italian skills from the trip to Italy when I had to get up in the middle of the night and both of them were sleeping (scuzi, mi dispiaci, prego, grazie, etc).
We got to the hotel and stopped at our rooms. Meghan and I are on the 16th floor and have a spectacular view of south London, including the London Eye. The day was filled with orientation and working on finding some flats. We had no meetings yesterday but we have two appointments to see four flats today. Three are south of the river and one is up by Hyde Park. The printed warnings on the road to look left or look right depending on the traffic pattern are invaluable. There are tons of roundabouts here and it is sometimes hard to tell which way the cars are coming from.
Breakfast at the hotel was a full English breakfast, which was quite an experience: fried eggs over-easy, roasted tomatoes, hash browns, two types of sausage, black pudding, porridge, and fruit. This morning will be full of sightseeing- Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace.