Hello everyone! I'm sorry I have been terrible about updating this thing. I will try to remember as much as I can here. I am almost finished with my first term. Our last class is Friday. I have been learning so much and it's been very busy. Lately it's been a struggle just to learn the required music well enough to get by in each class on top of the daily exercises. We usually only have two days to try to learn the next piece or set of etudes and studies. Trevor can be brutal with his criticism (about our playing and our personalities.) I still think he is brilliant and probably one of the best flute pedagogues of our time. He has got his teaching method down to a science even if it does mean kicking us when we play something wrong! I am finished with my term paper on The History of the Flute Prior to 1720 and learned so much by doing the research for it in Trevor's library. The great thing about his library is that you can read about an ancient flute, and then find the actual specimen in his collection and check it out and play it! Did you know that there was a flute discovered in a Neanderthal campsite and it is predicted to be anywhere 43,000 to 82,000 years old?! It was made from a cave bear femur bone (unfortunately, Trevor does not have this one in his collection!) He does however have a flute that he made from the tibia bone of a woman who used to live in Elmsted...and he hops around on one foot while he plays it.
The village in the fall was beautiful and I think I'm in for my first real winter! The "gritter" (salt truck) drove by last night. We were walking back from class the other day and a pony ran up to us! It looked at us for a few seconds, but when we tried to pet it, it galloped back to its mother. The poor sheep have just been sheared and its so cold outside. But then again, its been raining a lot too, so maybe they're happy to lose their soggy wool. The other day we were taking a cab to the airport (going to Rome) at 3:30AM and we passed by a grassy area with maybe 20 rabbits all together! It was such a sight to see wild rabbits in the early morning like that. Our nightly walks are getting colder, but the cats still come out to visit because they know Trevor is carrying pockets full of shrimp and cat biscuits for them. We have another village whist tournament on Friday. Did I mention that I won the last one? I had the top score of the night and brought back a box of chocolates to my flatmates! Lindsay and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the whole studio at Trevor and Dot's house. Neither of us have ever done this before, but I must say it was a great success. They all loved it and I don't think the Japanese and and Croatian girls had ever seen that much food on one table before!
We went to a Royal Philharmonic Concert at Royal Albert Hall which was great. We have been to several classes at the Royal Academy of Music and I learn a lot from just observing William Bennett coaching other students. Also, we had a pianist, Juliet Edwards, come to the studio and give us a class. Some of her advice to me was exactly the right thing I needed to hear and will be helpful thoughts for me for a long time. We got to visit Albert Cooper in his nursing home and played a concert for him and the others there! For the non-flutists out there: Albert Cooper has been one of the leading developers of the mechanics of the flute in the 20th century. He invented the scale that flutes are built with today-mine even says Cooper scale on it. We also played a concert for the Gardener's Society in the village hall last night and our next one coming up is at the 12c. Hastingleigh Church on Saturday!
We just got back from the Italian Flute Society convention in Rome! It was totally unorganized in the typical Italian way, but we did hear some good concerts and classes. Barthold Kuijken was there and gave a fantastic baroque flute concert as well as a class! Other celebrity concerts included Emily Beynon, Andrea Oliva, Felix Renggli, Angelo Persichilli, Matthias Zielgler and many more. We also finally got to see Trevor's Carnival concert which is hilarious. We had a little sightseeing time to and got to go to St. Peter's Basillica, the Fontana di Trevi, the Spanish Steps and the Colusseum-all incredible! I celebrated my birthday at a restaurant in Rome where the waiter went around to every table to tell them and the whole place sang, "Happy Birthday to Giuditta!" We stayed in a bed and breakfast near the convention center which was the closest and least expensive that we could find and it turned out to be absolute luxury. It was a beautiful place that served us breakfast in bed every morning, had a great balcony, heated towel racks and even a maid service so that when we returned in the evening, our clothes were folded and put in the closet, the books on the nightstand were neatly stacked and everything perfectly tidied! I've never experienced anything like that before!
Winter break is from Dec. 16-Jan. 7 and Adam is coming to visit!!!!!! I'm of course counting down the hours until he gets here. He has booked a music tour for himself and is beginning in Ireland right now. He will come to the Dairy on Monday and after a few days here we will travel together to the cities where he's booked shows including London, York, Amsterdam, Glasgow and possibly Edinburgh for New Years! He has friends we can stay with in a lot of these places. I couldn't be happier. :)
I will work on uploading the pictures today. It will take forever on dial-up, but hopefully I'll get some posted. I will try to write another blog after the break. Thank you for all the birtday emails and facebook posts! I have enjoyed hearing from people back home. Please let me know what's going on in your lives as well! Happy Holidays to those who are celebrating and I hope to hear from you all soon!