I'm very excited about concert on Wednesday. I finally get to have my Saxophone Quartet (2009) performed!

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I'm gonna take the GRE this Friday. It's frightening because I still haven't started studying yet! I'll need a lot of luck... As for my thesis, I don't get how I have 40 pages but only five minutes of music... is it time for a big repeat sign?! ||:   :||

Four of the five adventurists continued our journey today for another concert! We drove to University of Michigan, met up Andy Ly and other friends, and saw the Mariinsky Orchestra in the Hill Auditorium, with Valery Geriev conducting and Denis Matsuev on the piano. The Rachmaninoff 3rd piano concerto was amazing. The balance on the orchestra part was so well-controlled; the pianist was amazing. Somehow they arranged the brass to the right of the stage and basses lining up in the back, which is sort of weird... The Mahler 5th was emotionally intense; Maestro Geriev conducts without a baton and has some really interesting conducting gestures.

We then hung out at an Irish pub. I met Evan Chambers, and that was great! He plays in an irish band, isn't that cool?

We five adventurists get up at 4:00 in the morning on this cold Saturday morning, headed off to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park near Cleveland! The morning was crudely cold. As usual, I brought my huge camera bag and my tripod. Photos will be updated to my Gallery soon. After hiking a few trails, we took the best nap lying on some blankets in a random shaded ground. Yes, I didn't sleep last night... It was a great trip, except that we missed the sunrise ---- not that I need to photograph that, because the moment of sunrise usually creates too much contrast; it's the even lighting situation that the sunrise creates that is interesting.

8:00p.m was a concert in Severance Hall, Cleveland with the Cleveland Orchestra, Semyon Bychkov conducting Brahms Symphony No. 3, Ravel's La Valse and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini with Kirill Gerstein. The conductor was amazing in that his gestures were so natural and convincing, and they reflected exactly how the sound was shaped. It almost felt like the gestures were over-rehearsed though... It sort of lacked spontaneity. The capability of he orchestra's technique and force were no doubt stunning. The performances were almost too perfect... the conductor did tend to over-phase, and this resulted in that the phrases were fragmented and shortened at times. Let me add that the pianist's performance was so clean that powerful. In short, I enjoyed every single moment in the Severance Hall tonight.

Went to the "Musicians from SoundSCAPE" concert in BGSU tonight. Tony Arnold and Aiyun Huang came, together with Dr. Rosenkranz, they presented an amazing program with all contemporary (aside from a Webern song cycle) works. During Tony Arnold's performance of Aperghis's Recitations for voice 2b, someone in the audience just started laughing... rather loudly. Everything was fine besides that, and it was mostly an enjoyable night of cool music.

As I look back on this previous semester (my last semester) in San José State University, it was a rather intense one. I did not compose much music, but I “composed” a huge recital with 1 hour and 30 minutes worth of music. I think that it consisted all the “business” aspect of being a composer, which included looking for performers, printing and sending them music, constantly annoying them by e-mailing twice a day, setting up rehearsal times that had to match simultaneously up to five performers, remembering rehearsal times, be nice and not nice, keeping track on the progress of my pieces, printing posters, asking people to come (promoting), etc. These things all come down to a word – composing. Inevitably, they take that much more time than actually writing notes; so, I realize we composers rarely have time to write notes. My only advices for those of you who are doing a recital is that make sure you start early or even start rehearsing before a piece is finished! We composers or performers never have enough time, and in reality, we get even less time than expected. I think it is such a giving while we are all in college and can ask performers to do us “favors.”

After being very busy with graduation, taking my mum, sister (they came from Hong Kong for two weeks) and girlfriend to many places, I could finally find some time for myself. I have decided to compose, not with musical notes though, but with my camera. In August, I will start pursuing my master degree in composition at Bowling Green State University, and meanwhile, teach in either ear training or music theory.