After not getting enough sleep, having to worry about big projects and tests coming up, and exhausting myself at track practice trying to get ready for an upcoming meet, I honestly wasn’t quite looking forward to Monday night’s rehearsal. However, just half an hour into the rehearsal, I was already quite enjoying the rehearsal even though playing the 2nd movement of Britten takes an incredible amount of counting and concentration. Mr. Edward’s continuous energy and funny remarks kept rehearsal very interesting and lively as well!

Natalie Yu, violin, Asst. Concertmaster

As we begin work on Bruckner 4, our greatest challenge has been the transition from the emotional and fiery Mahler to the broad and poised attitude of Bruckner. We were reminded recently of Ms. Chen’s chicken/eagle vision concept and are now faced with a gigantic example of it. In the next few weeks we need to adjust and learn to step back and let the music breathe. After putting forth such effort to illustrate sudden mood swings and sparks of anger in Mahler 5, we will have to exercise discipline in “getting out of the way”. I find these drastic programming adjustments to be very valuable, and this year has been full of such changes. i look forward the the challenge ahead of us with Bruckner 4.

Boris Popadiuk, Cello, Principal