My first day of school

Things are finally underway here at York as I had a long day of lectures and rehearsal yesterday. In some ways I feel as if I used my brain more yesterday than I have in months, maybe years. That's kind of the point of my being here though.

Wednesday mornings consist of a research seminar in which we learn how to be effective researchers in our given field. (We also had an interesting conversation about the meaning of "research".) The seminars are divided generally into composition, musicology and performance. I'm doing the performance seminar. The second part of the morning, also a performance seminar, basically consists of a coaching class where students bring different pieces of repertoire and we explore performance practice problems. I'm excited because the lecturer is very knowledgeable on these things and we also have access to harpsichord and fortepiano. I'm looking forward to doing some Schubert and Zelter (who? you may ask) lieder with fortepiano. I imagine my approach will be somewhat different than I'm accustomed to due to the acoustical differences between the fortepiano and our modern piano.

The afternoon featured my first choir rehearsal of the semester. It's rather different singing with young voices again after singing primarily with adult singers for the past few years. The Chamber Choir has a nice light sound. I found myself having to listen extra hard to try to blend with my fellow tenors. It's definitely a different sound than I'm used to singing with, but I think I will fit in just fine. This semester we are working on Haydn's 'The Seasons'. I didn't know the piece prior, but find it to be charmingly rustic and lustig. The second part of the afternoon is a lecture which will be given by a different professor every week on a specific topic. I missed out on some great ones at Peabody, and so will try to go to as many as I can.

Nothing today, and tomorrow is our Vocal Studies meeting and small ensemble coaching. Our ensemble is still figuring out what to sing and so we haven't rehearsed yet. Tomorrow night is also the first rehearsal for the Yorkshire Bach Choir. We are doing a program of music for Guy Fawkes Day (a York native) of Tudor music with lots of Byrd and company. Good stuff. I guess I should probably go learn it or something...