Grillin'

One of the cellists in the opera orchestra had a housewarming barbecue tonight, Sunday being the musicians' Saturday. It was a great little party, plenty of stuff to grill, lots of beer and cocktails.

What this party had that most other barbecues lack was a $4 million Stradavarius violin. I'm not sure why, but someone had it in transit from a dealer in New York to a buyer somewhere else, and brought it to the party. To begin, people were playing it in a bedroom at the back, and not knowing what it was, I thought it was just uncontrolled music geeking. Then it got brought out into the kitchen, and passed around. It surprised me how hard it was to have a converstaion about anything else while anyone was playing it.

I played a few open strings and a scale, and I think they were the nicest sounding notes I've ever played. So warm and clean, and so consistent all the way up the strings, and from the low to high strings. Sigh...

Photo update

Some recent goings on that have been photo-documented:

Niagara Falls. On ice...



Nicola Tesla. The man invented just about everything. Anything you think Edison invented, Tesla thought up first. I'm rubbing his toe for good luck.



You might not be able to tell, but I'm way too stressed out about having to play Strauss the next day without a chance to look at the part beforehand that I can't even smile normally for a picture. Capella, on the other hand...



About a week and half after we drove to Niagara Falls I had a recital at school. Went fine, I guess, but the main thing I was looking forward to was the excuse to have a party at our house after and use our chocolate fondue fountain. Our friend Shay gave it to us for a wedding present. At first I thought it was a pretty silly present, but then I realized it's the coolest idea ever. (Thanks, Shay!). Here's me waiting for the chocolate to flow over the top and fountain-ize (sorry that the picture's sideways):