As you can see from the lack of posts as of late, I've been extremely busy. Well, I'm all done with my semester now. I can't believe how crazy and busy it got. I guess it'll be easiest to highlight stuff in reverse chronological order. First off, my first trip to the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic.....

So every December in Chicago, The Hilton, the Congress, and the Palmer House Hotels get overridden by musicians and music educators alike. It is the biggest conference of its kind. This conference, despite its name, places most of its emphasis on band. Although I'm squarely an orchestral guy, I decided to go for several reasons - I knew that a lot of my acquantences would be there. There would be lots of drinking and socializing involved. And I was curious.

I first got there on Tuesday night so I could see the Chicago Civic Orchestra - the training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Well, they are at least as good as the CSO, maybe even better. They played a near perfect and very spirited renditions of Shostakovich Symphony #9 and the Rite of Spring. Of course, I was surrounded by band directors who nitpicked every element of the performance in order to feel better about themselves. I even glared at one of them sitting behind me, even though he was the director of one of the top high school programs in the country. I don't care who you are, a jackass is a jackass.

I met up with two friends afterwards. One is the conductor of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and his wife is principal violist of the Civic Orchestra. I haven't seen them in 3-4 years. We went out for drinks and caught up. We talkked about how good the concert was and my introduction to the cutthroat atmosphere of Midwest. We all agreed that there is much underlying tension between the band and orchestra world and there is no other place to see it so dramatically than here at Midwest. My friend told me about the similar experience he had bringing his youth orchestra there - one of the best in the country.

I had to go back to Champaign for a final exam - only problem. My shuttle forgot to pick me up. They came three hours later after I yelled at them. I had to hang out at a White Hen Pantry until three in the morning. It messed up my schedule pretty bad. After an uneventful final, I got my car back from the shop and drove back to Chicago.

I got there just in time for the Marine Band performance. One of my old teachers always used to complain about the marine band as being a heartless machine - everything wrong with the band world. So I came in with expectations of an extremely polished performance but dull and unimaginative. As soon as I saw the conductor, I knew that this would be so.They had their assistant conductor do a percussion concerto and I immediately saw the expressive potential of the Marine Band. There was so much more passion and a wider palette of sound while this guy was conducting. Not surprisingly, his bio states that he is studying orchestral conducting. They did end with Stars and Stripes Forever - a treat considering Sousa conducted this band for many years. It was like hearing the Vienna Philharmonic do Strauss waltzes. I heard a nuanced performance of the march like no other. Of course this was after the worst and most boring performance of Ravel's La Valse possible.

After the performance, I met up with friends from school to go out drinking. I quickly learned of the "Midwest handshake". When you meet someone, They glare at your nametag(which is worn around your neck) to see who you are. They especially want to see if you're someone they want to get to know or not(i.e. are you famous?). Alos, as you're walking by, people tend to glare at your nametag. Someone equated it to people staring at one's breasts so I got some idea of how cheap that makes one feel. I slowly began to see how small of a world the field of music can be. I kept on running into people from high school, college, conservatory, etc. It was a veritable 13 year flashback of my musical life.

Now Thursday, is the biggest and craziest day of the clinic. I spent the morning going to the exhibits. I first went to the baton makers. I met the maker of my baton and had him measure mine and start a file just in case mine breaks so he can make me a new one. I tried out a few others from other makers. There was one maker whose batons were absolutely gorgeous but they were all too heavy for me. I don't care that they used to make batons for Leonard Bernstein. After lunch I came back to check out the clarinet booths. Although I haven't been playing much in the past two years, I got a lot of compliments regarding my playing. The Howarth people were so excited that they had me play every single instrument they had in order to figure out which clarinet to push at the exhibition. One father even wanted his daughter to get in a picture with me. I had to break it to them that I wasn't anyone famous. Other incidents like this was quite an ego boost for me which isn't a bad thing.

I then went to a conducting clinic for shits and giggles. I've been fortunate to have been taught by some of the best conducting teachers in the world. I have a good idea what I need to work on so I wasn't expecting to learn much. It was in a concert hall and I had to sit in the balcony. The speaker was great in every way. He was going over everything I've been hearing for the past 4 years. He had everyone do conducting exercises every once in a while. I was passively participating and was watching the others. Some couldn't resist showing off during these inane exercises. That in and of itself is pretty obnoxious. What was worse was that some of the show-offs were doing the exact gestures these exercises were trying to do away with. Everyone else was amazed by it and it reminded me how fortunate I've been in terms of conducting instruction.

Next up was the one clinic I really wanted to go to: Colonel John Bourgeois's lecture on the Sousa style. The Colonel was the director of the Marine Band for many years and is credited for elevating the band's musical standards to what it is today. He is revered throughout the band world. I wanted to meet him solely because I'm friends with his son, John Jr. He is a lawyer at a law firm I worked at and was the person I hung out with the most there. An all around great guy. We stayed in touch after I stopped working for them. The lecture was useful if I ever have to conduct Sousa. I had to endure the autograph and photo line. He greeted me warmly and that was that.

Another highlight of the trip was meeting my old high school band director and other old friends from Boston. They go to the Magnum Steakhouse every Thursday night of Midwest but I had to inform them that Magnum was closed for renovations. We ended up going to the hot and trendy Fogo da Chao, an upscale Brazilian steakhouse. They have a gigantic salad bar for the first courses. For the rest, they bring out any of 13 grilled meats on a skewer. They also had me pick out a bottle of wine for everyone. I picked a Marchesi di Barolo and they were thrilled with it. Now, I was determined to try all 13 kinds of meat they had available. Wow! The staff was extremely attentive. The manager came by about 4 times to see how everything was going. I made sure that they bring by the meat selections that missed us thanks to him. Every time they offered some kind of Brazilian after dinner delicacy, we jumped on it. This fabulous meal ended in the most expensive meal I've ever paid for - $95!

Afterwards we ended up in the Palmer House Hotel lounge having drinks and since I've been out of the Boston scene for over 6 years, everyone was filling me in on what's been going on there. I told them in turn about what it's like being a Boston ex-patriate witnessing the greatest year in sports for Boston in its storied history. Now that I mention it, everyone was dressed up for the conference except for two of my friends who were dressed in typical Boston sports fan garb - Patriots Superbowl sweatshirts and Red Sox World Series baseball caps. This caused strangers to give them dirty looks or to induce groans and the rolling of many eyes. Other Bostonians and ex-patriates of course, came up to them and bonded. After a while, I had to bid my old friends farewell since my newer friends were waiting for my return.

I'm back at the Hilton and I decide to get drunk since this will be my only oppurtunity to do so the whole conference. I've been eyeing this girl and after much asking around, a newfound acquantence of mine went to school with her. Things are going well until I start to get bored and more seriously, I begin to realize that not everything's alright with this girl. She could not stop talking about herself and when I saw the Colonel at a table in the lounge, I saw this as an opportunity to end her pontificating and score points by introducing her to someone she worships. She freaked out a little bit by the possibility of such an encounter so I began to ignore her while I drank with the colonel.

He was drunk and he mistakenly introduced me as his son's law partner. He quickly realized his mistake and remembered that I was a conductor. Some kid who looks like the eldest brother from Malcolm in the Middle started kissing the Colonel's ass and wanted to conduct for him. My friend and I sat and enjoyed this experience since the Colonel was ripping apart this kid from UConn. When the Colonel finally noticed how much fun we were having at the expense of this dumb kid, he pointed to us and said, "Don't laugh. You guys are next!" My friend went through a similar onslaught but fared much better. I got up there and my piece was Tchaikovsky Symphony #5. I'd like to remind you that I'm pretty drunk. The Colonel had me move onto the second movement, something I didn't know all too well. When he began picking me apart, we got into a couple of arguments - I won about half of them. He then had me conduct the other movements. I did ok on those. He then had the others do some other pieces and whenever he got frustrated, he had me demonstrate to everyone .

The lounge stopped serving drinks so we moved to a dive across the street. The bar was filled with military players and staffers. As soon as they saw who we brought to this fine establishment, they started screaming. They were treating him like a rock star. One lady, who was fairly easy on the eyes, thanked me profusely for bringing him. She was being very affectionate so I naturally started to respond to it. Only problem was that she later on revealed that she's married and has two kids. I've been having this recurring problem of always finding the married woman in a crowd to hit on. Why is that? Anyways, during all this fun, I had an awkward "Don't ask, don't tell" moment. I was introduced to a member of the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps who put his arm around me and grabbed my ass - and there was nothing equivocal about his intentions. That became my cue to leave. The Colonel gave me a big hug and I stumbled back to my hotel room.

After spending more time at the exhibitions, I drove home. On the trip, I called John and told him about my escapades with his father. He really got a kick out of the rock star treatment. Wow. Despite the bullshit that went on at this clinic, I had a blast. Can't wait until next year.....