Road trip

So we’re finishing up a road trip – Corinne is riding shotgun, with not one but two small yellow note-pads, one for creating lists of lists of things that we are going to do next; the other with questions and agenda items from before. Our new PA, Cecile, has given us a list of questions about things we like, feel, hope for the group etc with which she is going to magically create a design strategy, for the website, other publicity materials etc etc.
We have just played (this morning) at the Southern Chapter conference of the College Music Society, held at UCF in Orlando. We played 2 movements of the Schoenfield Café-Music at the end of the performance session this morning. And were gratified that the audience had swollen from the 14 who were there at the beginning of the session. The conference was combined with Music Theory Southeast, and many of the presentations were by theorists – some of which we heard, and which were, well, over our heads a little… But heard some good things, met some interesting people, including a lady whose thing is Tangos – she is going to send us several of her arrangements, and we are looking forward to that.
Corinne had agreed to play on a composers’ concert last night, and liked the piece (by Jonathan McNair) – unfortunately the pianist she had rehearsed with took ill that afternoon, so she ended up playing with a very talented student from Miami, who learned it on the spot.
We are going to enjoy these road-trips it seems – we have pretty complementary personalities, and still all get on very well (oh the horror stories one hears!) We discovered the joys of Applebees dessert shooters – a smallish portion that give you a taste – in this case, of chocolate mousse, strawberry cheesecake, and key lime pie – have a taste, pass it on, that kind of thing. We went to a Mexican restaurant that was recommended to Greg by a guy at a bar…. Anyway, it was ok – we did enjoy the tableside guacamole. And lots of sorting out the problems of the world, new ideas for the trio etc!
Lots to do when we get back – not least, beginning to bullet-proof the new pieces we will play in NYC – Takemitsu and Zwilich. And of course lots of little absences from one and another of us, to keep the scheduling interesting 