This past week has been one of the best of my life. I went to my second year of BYU Summerfestival. Here's a run-down of what happened during the week.
June 12, Sunday
-Finished packing, got a blessing from my dad
-Picked up two if my friends who were coming to the camp with me
-Flew to Provo (that was a super fast flight; we passed the Grand Canyon in about twenty minutes. To put it in perspective, 8t usually takes about 11 hours to get from Gilbert to Salt Lake City, and the flight was one hour long).
-Met my aunt who took us to see the new Provo City Center Temple and then to Provo
-Checked in, saw Dr. Shumway (the director of the piano program and director of Summerfest). He remembered me from last year, when I had played in a quintet, and asked if I would like to be the pianist for the Wind Ensemble. I accepted.
-Said goodbye to my aunt, dragged my friends to the Cannon Center (next to Helaman Halls, where we had stayed last year) before realizing that one of them (who had been looking at a map) was right in that we had walked in the exact opposite direction of where we were supposed to go.
-Walked all the way back across campus, found out we were staying in the newly-built Heritage Halls
-Walked all the way back to the Cannon Commons for dinner
-Met my roomates, two other pianists besides me. My roomate was a flute player.
-Fireside at Madsen Hall. Dr. Shumway spoke, on gratitude. He told us to thank our parents and our teachers for our education, to be thankful for opportunities, and to thank God for music.
-Met my counselor, Amanda, who plays altogether saxophone and was just about the most legit person on the place. Toured the HFAC again. Amanda is great.
-Devo on service, got to know the girls in my group. About four more pianists.
June 13, Monday
-Nervous for everything during breakfast
-Totally saw Jake Earle out of the window
-Read the schedule wrong and practiced while I was supposed to be meeting my teacher
-Classes and stuff. Volunteered for altogether in choir, then stood behind the rest of the Altos and couldn't find my part because my vocal sight-reading skills are weak.
-Songwriting, which was rad
-Met my teacher, Dr. Irene Peery-Fox, who I had studied with the year before. We had a Masterclass in which I had just about the worst performance of my piece ever. Tons of memory lapses.
-Met a few of my friends outside the practice rooms, we performed for each other there. They're both amazing. It made me feel better.
-Had an awesome lesson with Dr. Peer-Fox, told her what had happened (I hadn't practice performed before I left, so I'd had lots of nerves). She helped me tons with my piece.
-After lessons, we could choose an activity to go to before dinner. Me and my friends went to the Bean Museum, which was way better than I'd heard. (I saw a Liger, like I'd studied in Biology!) The Boyd K. Packer exhibit was spectacular.
-Ate J-dawgs outside of the conference center while listening to a live performance of a BYU folk music group. They had a breathtaking arrangement of "If You Could Hie To Kolob".
-HANK SMITH SPOKE AGAIN THIS YEAR. He spoke about Unconquerable Spirits and shares three stories of Unconquerable spirits, two from history (including Ernest Shackleton), one from scripture (Joseph son of Israel), and a story from modern day about a woman who became paralyzed after and accident and couldn't walk, and how she got past it.
-I got to meet Hank Smith and got a photo!
-Played a little volleyball before we all headed back to the dorms.
-Had a devo on gratitude
June 14, Tuesday
-MY SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY AND THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER
-Got up late
-My group made a birthday bridge for me as I met them for breakfast
-Went to the ensemble practice to get music. They gave me the music and told me to come back in an hour and a half. Freaked out a little.
-Got to group organ late. Had a headache from dehydration.
-Had a half-hour to go over music. Turned out the notes weren't nearly as complicated as I had thought.
-Awesome practice and I got to play a freaking CONCERT GRAND FAZIOLI (if you're not familiar with pianos, just know that that piano is one of the highest quality pianos in the world).
-One of my songs had really weird rhythm where it changed time signatures ever measure, so I had some trouble counting it and didn't come in where I was supposed to (the song is called 'Nevermore', look it up, it's super cool)
-Piano Lit. I'd seen the lists of people who were playing and didn't see my name. Walked into the class, picked up a program, saw my name at the very bottom of that day's list. Super glad we didn't get to me that day, so I had time to prepare.
-Choir. Finally started to get the alto part. They were having auditions for a tenor solo for an African song called Tschotscholoza; a TA told me that I should try out.
-OFFICIALLY TURNED SIXTEEN IN THE LUNCH LINE AT 11:59
-The girls in my group sang Happy Birthday to me in the cafeteria
-Practicinnnnng
-Songwriting, got to tour Studio Y, BYU's recording studio, again
-No practice rooms were open, so I opened my birthday cards outside Dr. Peery-Fox's office as I waited for my lesson.
-Good lesson, got a practice sheet to help me practice more effectively
-Practiced for 1.5 hours
-Super long dinner line, thanks to EFY
-SAS two priests from my ward, a kid from Trek, a guy from my freshman choir, and a girl from Williamsburg all in half an hour.
-Faculty Recital. Slept through a few pieces. Saw Dr. Alex Woods, who directed my quintet last year.
-Awesome dance, danced with three guys.
-Devo on friends. They sang Happy Birthday to me again, Amanda gave me a little birthday present of candy and lemonade
-Best birthday ever.
June 15, Wednesday
-T-shirt day.
-Ensemble practice. Missed all of my Piano Skills class.
-Sectional for Wind Ensemble, started to figure out counting. They're so good. They clapped for me again (they did that every day, they're so nice).
-Piano Lit, directly after ensemble. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. I actually played pretty fantastically (I had practiced using Dr. Peery-Fox's practice sheet the night before on my tricky sections) and on a Busendorfer! (Another pretty dang fantastic piano.) Dr. Shumway told me that my performance of the fast section was one of the cleanest that he had heard at Summerfest. That is a compliment if there ever was one.
-Choir. I hadn't practiced and I'm a first soprano and I told him so, but he told me to try out anyway. I went and we went over the part before we officially auditioned. Did much better than I thought I would.
-Ate lunch at a table with all guys. That was probably the most entertaining lunch of the week.
-Went to Conducting under the recommendation of a friend
-Practice
-Interrupted during my practicing by a guy who wanted to know if I would sing for the song that his songwriting group was writing. I went to their practicing room to help with their song and we didn't really get anywhere for the next half hour. Excused myself to get ready for my lesson.
-Lesson. It went really well. Practiced my two-minute cut for the Saturday recital.
-Dinner. Lots of EFY kids.
-Silent movie accompanied by live, improvised organ music. The movie was 'The Freshman'.
-Photo Scavenger Hunt. My group came in under twenty points behind the winner.
-Devo on family. Shared what we love about our families and other groups of people who feel like family.
June 16, Thursday
-Got up late and didn't have time to put on my make-up before I had to go. Had a little experiment where I asked two people (guys) if they could tell what was different about me. They couldn't tell the difference. Conclusion: make-up doesn't really matter.
-Ensemble practice, starting halfway through Organ. Had to leave early.
-Piano Lit
-Was convinced by the TA to go an audition for the solo even though I was a soprano and hadn't practiced. We ran over it and I did better than I thought I would.
-Lunch
-Practiced. While I was practicing, I got a text saying that I had made it as a finalist for the solo.
-Conducting again. Was there with a bigger group of friends. May I just say, professional conductors are
buff.
-Moooooooore practicing
-Group piano lesson. My tiredness caught up with me and I was trying hard not to fall asleep. Dr. Peery-Fox may have noticed this, because she had me go next. Worked on my Scarlatti Sonata.
-My group came late to dinner again.
-Student solo recital. Everyone was
so good.
-We actually DID have ballroom class! There were a few other options, like going to the Creamery, but most kids stayed and learned ballroom again. We were taught by one of the counselors and his wife who had been in a ballroom dance class together. They performed for us and they were
good.
-Devo about honesty and integrity, and about how honesty is not just about not lying, but being truthful in all your dealings.
-Wrote good-bye notes to Dr. Shumway, the director of the camp, who was retiring after thirty or so years of directing the camp and even more of directing the piano program.
June 17, Friday
-Went to an earlier Piano Skills class because rehearsal was right during mine.
-Complete run-through of the Ensemble Concert. I noticed that the Fazioli has
four pedals.
-Left Piano Lit early to go to the solo audition. When I got there, there were three other people, two girls and one boy. One of the girls I had been in Freshman Choir with in Gilbert. When we went in, they told us that we would be sharing the solo. I got to belt a tenor note which sounded pretty dang good when I first tried it (to my surprise).
-In choir, we rehearsed the solo with the rest of the choir for the first time. That was pretty fantastic.
-Lunch, copycat Cafe Rio. The best food I'd had all week.
-One of my friends had co-written a song to record in Songwriting and she showed it to me. It was fantastic and her voice was amazing.
-Conducting, for the last time. That was a good elective. We practiced conducting the Sleeping Beauty theme and part of 'Orpheus in the Underworld' (also known as the Can-can theme).
-Practicinggggggggggg. Practiced performed for a friend and they did the same.
-Even more practicing
-Lesson.
-Immediately after my lesson, everyone from our group came back together and one of Dr. Peery-Fox's full-time students came (he had come last year too, I recognized him!) and performed a half-hour of music that he had prepared for the first round of a major competition that he was competing in. It was spectacular, a contemporary sonata, (another piece I can't remember), and and then ERLKONIG. I LOVE THIS SONG. I sang a choral version in choir when I was twelve or so, and the piano version is lit. Double octaves for the whole freaking song. The hardest piece in piano literature. Look it up. No, seriously, do it. NOW. The story is creepy and awesome and it's just one of my favorite songs forever (like you couldn't tell).
-Jazz concert. There were quite a few numbers, and I think it's pretty cool that that genre gets its own concert.
-Dance right afterwards. This was one of the best dances I've been to (and my group knows why. :D)
-Last devo, about language. Weird last devotional, but that's what was down for that night.
June 18, Saturday
-Was the. Last. Person. Out. My group had to wait for me. I'm not sure what took me so long.
-Walked my stuff over to the Knight Building.
-Breakfast. Already getting nervous for the recital. Couldn't get much down.
-Choir rehearsal. Had to run back to my stuff to get my music before the Keyboard Recital started, and when I got back, they were locking up the practice rooms. So I didn't get to warm up.
-Nervous during piano recital. I'm not sure how much it compared to last year.
-Played well, only made a few mistakes.
-All of the pianists did really well.
-Went to a few minutes of a Question and Answer session about the BYU music program before I had to leave for the ensemble concert.
-Dr. Shumway was there and told me about the Fazioli I'd been using all week. He'd gone to Italy himself to pick it out. $500,000. The 100th piano Fazioli had ever made. No pressure, I get it. That's only one of the nicest instruments I'll ever play. He also told me what the fourth pedal does: when you press it, it lowers the entire keyboard so that you can play fast sections faster. I fangirl so hard over that piano.
-I had a piano solo in one of the songs, a song called 'Nevermore', based off of the poem. It had crazy counting (you could see me counting from the audience, how unprofessional :D) and I got to play loud. I'm good at that.
-The choir concert was awesome. Me and my friend from Gilbert totally represented. We got to stand in a line in front of the piano, conductor, and choir. The sound was so cool in the HFAC gallery.
-Said goodbye to whoever happened to be there that I knew and then left. It would have been too hard to say goodbye to the multitude of people that I had met there.
-Went to the Creamery.
-Went with my mom and brother back to the Knight Building to get my stuff; ran into friends from my ward on the way.
-Came back to the trailer that I would spend the next five weeks in, changed my clothes, and climbed into the van. I was WIPED.
One of the best weeks of my summer, and one of the best of my life. (This took me all summer to write. It takes forever to write on a phone. I finally finished this when I got home and had access to a computer.)
I can't wait till next year. *excited noises*
