July is Approaching...

It's been awhile since I've updated but not too much is happening with my musical life right now besides teaching lessons (which is always exciting!). In other news, my husband and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary! We spent this past weekend up in Starved Rock hiking. It was a great weekend despite the oodles of mud on the trails from the rain.



I cannot believe that June is almost at an end. I think you could say this was the most calm part of my summer. All that is going to change when July comes!

The first weekend of July we'll be heading up to my uncle's farm in Minnesota for the weekend of the 4th. The following weekend I'll be playing in the wedding of a friend from church. She gave me the music the other day and it looks great! Some standards (Air in G) and some other pretty prelude music not as commonly done (some Quantz, Brahms, Schubert). I'll be playing with piano and clarinet.

Right after her wedding I'll be heading back to ISU for a week of Junior High Band Camp. After 6 years at ISU, this is the very first time I'll be helping out with this camp! I hear it's a pretty long week but also a lot of fun! I haven't found out exactly what I'll be doing yet but I've been planning some ideas for flute masterclasses.

And...right after that I head back up north to help out with my flute teacher from high school's camp. I attended this camp when I was in junior high and helped out with it for the first time last summer. It was a great week of all things flute including both faculty and student recitals! Apparently as an activity this year we may be having them learn about Baroque dance...should be quite interesting :) I am really looking forward to being a part of the camp again.

That's not all, folks. After flute camp, my best friend Gina is getting married in Chicago and I am standing up in it! It's going to be a crazy month but also a lot of fun. And full of music!

PICCOLO!!

Woot! Here it is!





This is my new Burkhart-Phelan piccolo with a modified wave head-joint. I love how the modified-wave gives you so much dynamic control. The sound is a little fuller and bolder than what I'm used to but it's good! I'm so excited to build up my piccolo skills. First task: Vivaldi Piccolo Concerto in C. I've spent a lot of time on 20th-century piccolo repertoire but doing some Baroque music will be really good for refining my skills. It's been awhile since I've spent serious time on piccolo and now that I have my own, there's no reason not to!

I've began working on the Jolivet Flute Concerto! What a totally kick-butt piece for the flute! This is music that disproves any misconceptions people have about the flute being "pretty and soft" all the time. Listening to the recording with orchestra today has gotten me very pumped to work on it. It's a total technical challenge but has some really beautiful lyrical sections as well. I love the interplay between the flute and orchestra. How cool!


Currently Listening to: Jolivet's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra!!

Summer Happenings

Welcome to my new blog! I am a flute player currently living in Normal, Illinois. I'm attending Illinois State University as a graduate student studying with Dr. Kim Risinger. I am lucky to get to be her teaching assistant and to basically live a life full of music and flute! Besides my music, I have been married for almost a year and am enjoying life with my husband!

As a flutist I love to perform and love to teach just as much. I plan to open my own studio in the future and look forward to a life of sharing music with others.

My first year of graduate school ended in May. It was a great year but also a year of adjustments. As an undergraduate I studied Music Education and it was a very different lifestyle than performance in some ways. This year I've had so much more time to spend on my flute and teaching it as well. I've learned so much about my playing and have made progress in gaining confidence as a performer. I've had the opportunity to teach and lead collegiate students and ensembles. It's been very rewarding and a continual learning experience.

Though Normal is not always the most exciting place to be in the summer, a couple really exciting things have happened so far. Firstly I was brought on as a flute teacher at the Music Shoppe here in town. I'll be starting with a piano student there next week and am hoping to get flute students soon. I've been hard at work making some fliers and business cards to put up there. I can't wait for the new teaching opportunities I'll have!

And last week my husband and I drove up to Flute World in Farmington, Michigan so I could find a piccolo. I've been wanting my own piccolo for quite some time now and now it is finally happening. Luckily I knew Burkhart-Phelan was the brand I wanted so the task was narrowing it down to a head-joint. After a morning of trying various standard, clarion, wave, and modified-wave head-joints, I decided on the modified-wave. Then it was narrowing it down between three modified-waves. That was the really difficult part. It was basically like choosing between three different cars, all of the same make and model. Finally I was able to choose one! I've been playing it for about a week now and will make my final decision today or tomorrow. More about the piccolo to come!

And that's it for the first post! More updates to come!


Currently Listening to: Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik (Wind Quintet)
Shostakovich's Symphony 5