A ton has happened in the last week, and most of it for the better. I'm feeling a lot more settled in the apartment I am in, and am getting used to living alone. This week I had a few couch surfers, one of which was a Polish girl, Ula, who is on a 6 month journey through Latin America. When she arrived here she had already spent a number of weeks in Cuba and Jamaica. She had lots of great stories, and was on her way to Colombia, planning on looping through South America until the end of the year.
There was finally a lot of musical action here this past week, and hopefully continuing, now that school has started and vacations are over.
On Monday I went to my first nucleo (each section of the city here, and in most of the country, has a "musical community center" of sorts where the kids arrive after school daily to orchestra and choir practice), the nucleo of Chapellin, in the neighborhood La Florida. The kids here rehearse in a community center that doubles as a preschool in the morning and a church on the weekend. There was a choir rehearsing in the cafeteria, and small kids playing in orchestra sectionals in the rooms on the second floor. Alexandra, the director, grew up in the neighborhood and founded the nucleo four years ago. Here is the nucleo from the outside:
On Thursday I went to a rehearsal of the Orquesta Filarmonica here (I mentioned them in a previous blog), where they were playing the Brahms Violin Concerto with a 14 year old soloist. She was tiny! And totally amazing. Their concert yesterday was quite good, too. I was introduced to many in the orchestra, including the two oboists, who are professors and teach in various places in the city. One of them wrote his undergraduate thesis on the different oboe reed making schools here, which I am very interested in reading. (Yes, of course, oboists everywhere meet and start talking about reeds within the first 5 minutes).
This weekend I went to a ton of concerts! Friday night Laurent Lefevre, the French Bassoonist, appeared as a soloist with the Simon Bolivar B orchestra, and gave a spectacular concert. He was here giving master classes as well. There are famous foreigners here regularly, it seems, to give classes and play as soloists with the local orchestras. I met some bassoonists who live and work in different Venezuelan cities, and have invited me to come visit-I am planning on traveling some in November, I think. Saturday morning I went hiking with some German friends-it is so exciting to find green spaces outside the chaos of the city!
Saturday night the Simon Bolivar A played with David Ascanio, a Venezuelan pianist, Mozart's 20th piano concert. Ascanio gave a presentation at the beginning of the concert, having the orchestra play a few different sections, and explaining the interaction between the piano and orchestra. Their conductor is a 26 year old rising star in El Sistema, who is already winning international competitions and the like.
Sunday morning I went to a guitar recital (the Simon Bolivar concert was sold out-I guess they often do, with the general musical support here and tickets at $1.75-about the price of an ice cream cone in the street), the Natural History Museum (which preached conservation, and had some nice exhibits on local wildlife), and the Filarmonica Concert. By the end of the weekend, I had met many oboists who play in various different orchestras here in Caracas; last night I went out with a group of them and got to hear all about the oboe gossip here-who gets along with whom, who plays where, who makes reeds how, etc. It was really interesting to learn about all their different experiences as musicians here-the 3 of them currently play in different orchestras and come from very different parts of the country.
This is from last weekend's ultimate tournament:
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