A Letter on my Journey to The Schola Cantorum Basiliensis

The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to Dominic about my time in Basel. I'll follow up with a proper blog post about my trip later this week. 


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In my 30 hours in Basel, quite a bit happened. Donna and I talked alot about The Hague and the Schola and she showed me around the school and a bit of the town as well before we went back to her place. We talked about music non-stop from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday evening!

REED MONTH

For those of you who didn't know, August is Reed Month.

After finishing work with Chamberfest this past Friday, I - gradually - started to get back into my practice regime. I saw a new baroque flutist in town, I made two modern reeds, I made a baroque reed - Life was good. 

Because of the long work hours at the festival I, unfortunately, haven't been able to play my new Wietfeld baroque bassoon by Pau Orriols (His company has a name, but I keep blanking on it - let's call it Bazinga for now). Dominic in Toronto has been quite excited to see the instrument, so I decided to take it down with me when I saw him today. 

Entrepreneurship not just a necessity, it's good for you too.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to watch a recital by Olivier Brauld, accompanied by Melisande Corriveau and Eric Milnes, focusing on the very beginnings of the French violin sonata. The list of composers included de Visée, Rebel, de la Guerre, Clérambault, Mascitti, as well as others. It was an excellent performance, and well narrated too! -It was very nice to hear French and English used interchangeably without any repetition.

After the concert I had a long chat with Eric Milnes about my prospects for grad school which proved quite fruitful. Eric had a great piece of advice for me, he preluded with a special pose and said "This is the best piece of advice I can give  you, are you ready for it?". He said that having your own projects were essential to a career in music. Not only if you had a problematic personality - which, by having your own group, would be challenged by personality conflicts, developing a good business practice, etc. - but even just for the fact that you'll feel more satified when seeing your own work come to fruition.

He couldn't be more right.