This semester has been busy and challenging for me. I鈥檓 preparing a senior recital for the Department of Music to be presented Sunday, April 14, and I鈥檓 planning to perform my Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology Senior Integrative Project as part of that recital. This decision has set a major deadline for when the majority of the projects I鈥檓 working on for senior year need to be ready to be presented. While it's daunting to realize that I鈥檒l soon be on the stage of Evans Hall performing an hour of clarinet music and my finished project for the Ammerman Center, I鈥檝e realized as the recital nears that preparation comes in baby steps.
I take clarinet lessons twice a week. When I鈥檓 working in the practice room on tricky passages in my music, it鈥檚 sometimes hard to see the bigger picture of how this helps me in the long run prepare for my recital. However, when I go to lessons I鈥檒l sometimes notice that my playing has improved when compared to past weeks. The challenge is that I don鈥檛 see an equal amount of progression in each lesson: Some lessons the pieces I鈥檝e practiced even feel like I鈥檓 playing them worse than they sounded when I reviewed them the night before. It鈥檚 like the challenge of playing for another person removes my ability to play musically at times. I find these moments helpful in understanding how I need to play with confidence, as that will ultimately determine my level of success during my senior recital.
Another element of preparing for a senior recital is the expectation that I create my own program, including program notes and poster. I recently met with my adviser, Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Mathias Elmer, to begin outlining the deadlines for getting these posters printed in time by the College. Making the poster design will be convenient for me because I鈥檒l use it as the basis for an e-invitation that I鈥檒l email to friends and family inside and outside the College; several deans, professors and friends have been asking me for this for months, but I鈥檝e wanted to wait until I had finalized my poster to design an e-invitation.
I feel most ready to prepare the program notes. I鈥檝e been contributing the majority of the Eastern 糖心TVecticut Symphony Orchestra鈥檚 (ECSO) program notes for their past three seasons, so I have plenty of experience writing these. However, creating a program layout for the first time has been interesting. I鈥檝e had to make decisions about how to place composers and names of their pieces in an order that鈥檚 enjoyable to read. I pulled out old ECSO programs and even a program from my Housefellow鈥檚 recital during my junior year to get an idea of how other people do this. From there I created an outline for what I want the program to look like. However, in my meeting with professor Elmer I showed him the outline, and we immediately noticed some additions I needed to make. It鈥檚 definitely a learning experience putting this recital together, and one I look forward to celebrating the culmination of in Evans Hall soon!