On Good Music, Food...

Last night I played a concert with an amateur string orchestra way outside of Berlin, primarily made up of senior citizens. Another girl from my studio and I were only used in 2 pieces of the all-English music concert, so while we weren't being used we read the paper/listened from backstage.

It really strikes me each time I play in an amateur orchestra in Germany just how good the string players are. I mean, these are doctors, bankers, lawyers, etc. and they play so well! Also in my experiences with student orchestras where the string players are non-music majors in college and just playing for fun - they're at such a high level. I think it has something to do with the music schools in Germany and how it's possible to study with a private teacher of your instrument from the beginning.

Since German schools don't have a music program like American schools (some have a general music teacher or theory teacher) music schools are where kids go after school to take lessons and play in a band or orchestra. The music schools provide a very good foundation for the young musician because of the private teachers, etc., however, the downside is that the music schools cost (sometimes quite a bit of) money and have limited space, which can mean a long waiting list or no chance at all to get in.

Anyway, while I applaud the American system of music in the schools for everyone (not including the schools who have unfortunately cut music from the budget) because of the opportunity it gives to all children, I understand it is hard to teach all instruments and for the kids to really advance in group lessons if they're not really self-driven. As an elementary band director, my dad has a big job teaching all the wind instruments. I guess there are pros and cons to each system, but like I said, it seems that the German amateur string players are at such a high level which makes it fun to play in orchestras even if they're not professional.

After the concert we were invited to one of the violinist's houses for a party. On the car ride over to his house we had to take a small ferry across the lake. It was just a moving bridge, unlike the real barges they use on the Rhine River to drive cars across, but the little trip took us into a delicate little village.

The host was a doctor and their house was quite large by German standards (still small by American standards - especially for a doctor) and very beautiful with the different rooms separated by a single step up. Their backyard could've been out of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine with tons of plants, little hidden nooks and corners, and a tiny former brick barn, used partly now as a roof terrace to sit in the sun, overlooking the lake.

Besides walking around admiring the quaint house, we ate well (which is why the other oboist and I wanted to go..eh hem..) and had fun talking to the other musicians before getting a ride back into Berlin with a son of another violinist.

Last weekend on Saturday I celebrated my birthday by having a small group of people over. Of course we had to turn on the tv for Europe's largest event, second only to the World Cup, which is the Grand Prix Eurovision Song Contest. This mega-spectacular event consisted this year of 37 European countries, each represented by a music group or singer. By calling in, each country votes on their favorite selection (naturally not their own country), and at the end country with the most votes from the other countries wins.

This year the hard rock monster band from Finland won, knocking out more typical ballads or hip hop from the other countries. Germany's song, in my opinion, was just embarrassing. Dressed in cowboy attire, their "country" song was a plain insult to anyone who likes or doesn't like country music. Needless to say, they didn't score very well overall.

The day before, on my real birthday, my on-again/off-again friend, the one I spent Christmas with, surprised me. After months of experiencing only her bad mood (and therefore not spending much time with her) she cheerfully brought a homemade cake to the music school. It certainly shocked me, but it was a really nice gesture. She also came to my birthday get-together the next day and gave me a book on baking German cakes.

This was a great present because I've been wanting to learn how to make German cakes for awhile now. Compared to their American counterparts, German cakes are not that sweet, but spite of that, rich and tasty. Now, with high school graduations in America just past or still going on, I'm sure it doesn't take that much work to recall that typical graduation party white (or chocolate) sheet cake with make-you-sick-to-your-stomach frosting, not to mention the "mints," those rose-shaped, pure frosting mint bites, which are good till you've eaten one too many. Then the thought of eating just one more literally brings a nauseous feeling. The only thing left to do in such an instance is balance the way-too sickening sugar feeling with a ham bun.

Anyway, sometimes similar to a pound or butter cake, a very common German cake not very high, but pretty heavy, i.e. not fluffy, though they certainly have fluffy cream cakes here too. My favorite kinds are fruit cakes - especially the kind with cheesecake on the bottom and cake/cherries or plums on top. That combined with a cup of coffee makes the absolute perfect afternoon break sugar kick, especially on the weekend.

So now that I have the new cookbook, I'm excited to start. Unfortunately I don't have an electric mixer or a large baking sheet, so we'll see if I can be creative. Either that or I'll just continue to drool over the pictures and eat my cheap (and hard) version of American chocolate chip cookies from the grocery store.

P.S. For anyone interested, here is a German citizenship quiz. You can test your knowledge of German facts in English here!

Happy Birthday Mom!

First and foremost, I'd like to pass on warm wishes to my wonderful Mom on her birthday! Since this blog was started yesterday, the date is wrong, but it was finished on the correct date: May 17th, her birthday!

It's been awhile since my last blog, but I am still up and runnin' in this crazy city - wait, did I say crazy? Actually, this regular chaos is nothing compared to the insanity that's to come. Soon the World Cup will be in Berlin and the days of leisurely subway rides will be a thing of the past and getting a seat will no longer be the only worry: squeezing in, staying out of drunken fights, avoiding riots - basically staying alive - will be.

I experienced foreshadowing of this last summer during a regular soccer game. After transferring trains I only needed to go one stop with a different train to get home. Waiting on the platform, an announcement came on saying there would be a delay because of a police deployment. So I waited...and waited...and checked the busses outside to see if there was anything at all that drove somewhat in my direction...then went back to wait for the train longer...

But then finally I saw, or should I say heard, the train coming. When I say heard, I mean, screaming and pounding fists against the windows. When the train stopped, crowds of people poured out of the train onto the platform. Amidst the screaming some people started lighting firecrackers right there. The train was filled with police in riot gear, so as I got in I was sure to stay close to the men in (green) uniform, but once in the train, we continued to wait.

There was so much commotion and chaos and since the last thing I wanted to be was stuck in a train with exploding firecrackers, I decided to leave the whole mess after all and take a taxi the last stretch home. What a waste of time.

Unfortunately this image of Berlin will not only be repeated, but multiplied in June. Alas, what is a poor, soccer-clueless girl to do? Without a bike, I will be forced to battle the very inebriated, unruly masses. I think I'll try to avoid riding in the subway, however, and take the above ground trains as much as possible. At least then you don't have that feeling of being stuck underground with pure chaos.

I've been gathering people together to play in my chamber music concert. Finally this week it seems to be coming together and I have most of the people I need. I'm excited about my chamber music program with things like the Britten Phantasy (quartet with strings and oboe), Telemann Tafelmusik for flute and oboe (with bassoon and harpsichord basso continuo), and hopefully "Ich Habe Genug," a Bach aria for baritone and oboe with basso continuo. I still need a singer, but I would love to do the piece. I need one more piece and my program should be complete.

We also have to do a repertoire concert which is just basically some solos and orchestral excerpts. The catch is that we are given a piece a few weeks before the concert that we are to prepare ourselves, without professor, and perform. This concert is more like a jury, though, because the professors stop pieces, and/or ask for specific things during the concert. It shouldn't be too bad.

Last weekend I went to Hamburg to visit Bethany. She was performing a solo with a small orchestra outside Hamburg. It was in a really beautiful suburb of Hamburg with beautiful brick streets complete with outdoor cafes. There was an old castle with a pretty pond where tons of college-aged young people were sitting around. Bethany played her solo at a big church and it went great. Afterwards we hung out at an Italian restaurant with the orchestra and the following day walked around Hamburg, by the lake, etc., and finished with coffee.

I decided to play it cheap since I was just staying for one night and I found a ride both ways. There's a website in Germany where you can post a route you are driving and people who are also going that way can ride with you. It's a lot cheaper than the train, and though you sometimes have to deal with traffic or crazy drivers, it's sometimes a nice chance to chat and meet interesting people.

This time I rode to Hamburg with a girl who had just finished a 7-mo. internship in Boston and was happy for a chance to talk about all her experiences in America. On the way back I rode with a nice guy who had been in the German army and was interested in comparing ours with theirs.

On a different note, I feel like the past 2 weeks I've been in the "right place at the right time," in witnessing a couple strange events. Well, one was a car accident in Hamburg with Bethany - a series of cars rear ending each other after a sudden stop from the car in the front. Luckily most of the cars were barely hurt, except for the last one who really crunched his front. We heard the squealing of the brakes and saw the last car ram into the one in front of him. No one was hurt, but it was just strange to be there at that moment.

The other one was less damaging, but stranger. Last week as I was walking from my apartment to the subway I saw 2 delivery vans stopped in the middle of the busy street. The front van belonged to 2 German men and the one behind it belonged to 2 Turkish men. Apparently they had just had some sort of problem and were fighting loudly. The 2 Germans got back into their van, and just as it looked like the waters had cleared, I saw one of the Turks approach with a really long knife (probably for cutting lamb meat for a doener, a Turkish gyro.)

He literally went running up to the van with the Germans in it and just in the nick of time the Germans drove off. I have no idea what the Turk wanted to solve with the long knife, but I'm guessing it wasn't to shake hands and say sorry. His friend was shouting at him in Turkish, probably to come back and not do anything stupid, but luckily the Germans got away in time anyway. I watched astonished and wondered what the heck I'm doing living in this area of Berlin, the so-called slum!

But in better news, I've received word that my friend Katy and her husband Matt have gotten tickets and will be coming to Berlin at the end of July! Bethany's and my friend Jesse will also be coming to visit in Germany at some point. Hooray for visitors!

Hanging out in Berlin with me Pal

This past weekend my American friend Bethany, studying horn in Hamburg, came to Berlin for a much needed visit. The last time we had seen each other prior to that was over New Year's. It's amazing how not only seeing a great friend, but just spending time with someone who finally understands you completely in a foreign country, both in language and in culture, can re-charge you. It's so nice to be able to complain/laugh together about things that frustrate or perplex us here as well as just hang out and have fun.

Berlin had been beautiful the week leading up to her visit, but of course, the typical moody city that it is, had to cool way down, as well as sent some nasty rain showers for part of the weekend. But we didn't let a couple chilly spring days slow us down. Friday night we met up with my former Russian English student to go out to her favorite club, and since becoming the the only club I go out at (okay, I've only been there a total of 3 times in the past 1/2 year.)

Saturday we slept in, did a little shopping, ate a well-priced dinner in a chic Australian restaurant, and went to a cocktail bar while waiting for seats to open up at the cool orient lounge which was the goal of the night. We finally got in to the orient lounge around midnight. But it wasn't too late; the atmosphere is so relaxed anyway that it's a nice place to go before falling asleep, unless you're me and fall asleep on the comfy couches at the orient lounge.


We enjoyed a small plate of baklava treats, a Turkish espresso for Bethany and a water for me, and the large Arabic water pipe which one could order at the lounge. We took turns trying to "smoke" it, which just means getting mouthfuls of fruit flavored smoke (we had cherry) which you don't inhale, nor is it drugs or dangerous. It's only my second time even getting it to work because I was always afraid of inhaling it into my lungs the other couple times I tried it. But it was a very relaxing night and the orient lounge is definitely one of the hippest places in Berlin, from what I've seen.


Sunday was better weather so we took a nice, long walk through the Tiergarten (like Central Park with lots of trails through trees and ponds) and came out on the other side just in time to meet Bethany's Australian friend who used to study violin in Hamburg and now studies in Berlin. She and I actually ran into each other last week during my gig, as she was concert master. So we all had a fun time over cake and coffee at a quaint cafe and afterwards Bethany and I started out for part 2 of our walk and checked out the area by foot.

A few hours later we finally made it back to my very first neighborhood in Berlin, in Charlottenburg, where I once in lived in the dorms and where Bethany actually briefly lived, too, in 2004 for the summer before starting in Hamburg. We drove the long way for one reason: Cancun, only the best "Mexican" restaurant in Berlin. We enjoyed a plate of nachos and a virgin cocktail for a last-night bang in Berlin.

May Day is Germany's Labor Day and is a national holiday. So yesterday meant no one worked and of course the music school was closed as is the case on any holiday. So after dropping Bethany off at the train station, I walked through some huge open-air markets and bought some interesting and extremely well-priced French cheese at a cheese stand. When the crowds got to be too much to handle I headed home for a nice afternoon at home.

In other news, I am hopefully getting the dates for my 2 graduating recitals from my professor tomorrow. My professor, who is Brazilian, is known for being disorganized, and this is no exception. I've been trying to get dates for a while now, and need them to be able to find people to play in ensembles for my chamber music concert.

I also have been asked to join a student orchestra in Berlin. While it would be very fun to play regularly, I am a little worried about their rigorous rehearsal schedule which includes weekly rehearsals, as well as 2 weekend "rehearsal weekend," one of which is somewhere we have to drive to and can't leave once there (it's where I had rehearsals for the the orchestra I played in last summer - we were there for 8 looonnnng days).

But as soon as I find out a for sure date I will be able to either say yes or no to the orchestra. It's possible it directly conflicts with a recital or important preparation recitals. I'd love to play in the orchestra and it's great to finally be getting pursued, it's just bad timing with my recitals coming up! Speaking of orchestra: our concert Friday went better than planned. After only a short week of rehearsals and a miniscule amount of time with the high school choir, we presented Mahler's 2nd symphony before an audience of over 1,000 high school students from the large city district of Berlin I happen to live in (the so-called slum).

The orchestra project, who's motto is "out of the opera, out of the concert hall and into the schools," even made news in a national German news magazine, Der Spiegel. It was congratulated especially for bringing positive news headlines for the low-rated city district in a time when it seems all we get is news about school chaos and misbehaving. It was fun to be apart of the project and even better because the kids were actually pretty respectful during the concert and only clapped once in the middle of a movement!