Caltech

Clarinets!

Clarinet choir is now my only musical activity, but it’s a fun laid-back one. We have nine clarinets, and most of the music we play is one or two players per part. We rotate parts so that everyone gets some soloist moments, but the group is large enough that no one player stands out too much. Lynne, a clarinet player who teaches private lessons and plays in several ensembles, started and conducts the group. Although the group is not official for academic credit this year, next year it will probably be part of the chamber music program. In addition to clarinet choir, there is a trombone choir and possibly some other choirs I don’t know about.

One of the really cool things about clarinet choir is getting to play different clarinets besides the typical B flat instrument. Several of our pieces have parts for alto clarinet, bass, and high E flat. I always wanted to try the E flat in high school, so I’m borrowing Caltech’s horn and playing E flat in the clarinet choir. It requires a much stronger embouchure than B flat, but it’s tiny and has a much higher range.

Our clarinet choir is having a concert right before finals week at a nearby library, so we’re having rehearsals every week. Our concert will be with the trombone choir, and it’s a great opportunity to showcase the new group, although this means I have to find a white dress shirt in the next two weeks. More next time about our progress!

Chamber Music Concert

Last week I had my chamber music concert, one of several that the program puts on, one set in the beginning of second term and the other at the end of the year. In our set of performances there were two string quartets, a string quartet with a featured oboe, a brass quintet, a guitar ensemble, and my group. Dabney Lounge was filled with the audience, something I definitely was not expecting. With its old fashioned wood floors, warm lighting, and high balcony, Dabney Lounge feels like it’s from the days where most musical performances occurred in front of royal courts. Although the room was quite warm, as the air conditioner is too loud to use during small ensemble performances, it was still a lot of fun to listen to all the performances. Our trio performance went well, although since we were dressed formally, I was dripping with sweat at the end of it. I didn’t get to hear the two performances before ours, but my favorite of the following selections was the oboe and string quartet performance. The oboe player performed a challenging and long-about 30 minutes- selection with style and enthusiasm, and although I never would have thought of the combination, the oboe and string instruments complimented each other well. Although I was unable to make it to the other concerts, the concert after ours featured another woodwind trio premiering a piece, and the composer traveled from Europe to hear their rendition. Now that chamber music is finished for the year, I have a lot more time on my hands, but since our clarinet choir is getting ready for our debut performance in three weeks, I still have plenty of music to work on. More on that next time!

Bandorama

It was a busy weekend, but all the concerts were fun! Caltech’s two jazz bands performed at the Bandorama concerts, and featured a different vocalist each night. Kjerstin Williams’s performance singing a mashup of Round Midnight and My Favorite Things was particularly good. The juggler and theremin player were great crowd pleasers in the concert band performances. I got to watch the juggler’s routine, which involved juggling five balls at once, and juggling three balls while playing his trombone before catching one of the balls in the bell. When the theremin player demonstrated his instrument, he did an uncannily accurate imitation of a motorcycle. The hall was pretty full both nights, despite the parties and other activities going on this weekend.

My favorite piece of music was one of our concert band selections, Waltz 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich. The piece is much heavier than a typical waltz, with booming downbeats and a beautiful melody. Bill seemed to have a good time conducting the downbeats with huge waves of his arms.

At the concert, the band program said goodbye to its graduating members with plaques commemorating their years in band.  Each leaving member wrote a paragraph about what band meant to them that was featured in the program. Having a diversion from academics and a creative manner of expression was a common thread in these summaries, as well as being able to work with our director and the other members of the band program. One student even mentioned that music enhanced his mathematical skills with its logical structure. It was nice to see the students’ perspective on the contribution of music to their lives at Caltech.

If you want to see the show for yourself, apparently the Bandorama performance will be on YouTube in a few days, so look it up and check it out. I’ll write about the chamber music concert next time, but for now I need sleep. See you next time!

Crunch Time

So, yesterday I had my second to last chamber music rehearsal. The difficult parts of our piece are finally falling into place, which is really good, since our performance is in just a few days. Our piece is a lyrical Milhaud composition with some tricky interplay in the fugue portion. I’m just hoping I don’t miss any notes. We have one more rehearsal Friday, where we’ll do a couple run throughs just to make sure we’re ready to go.

 Tonight, I had my final band rehearsal of the year, in preparation for our concerts this weekend. Our performance will include a theremin, the only instrument that is played without physical contact. Just by moving his hands near the two antennae, the player controls the volume and pitch of the instrument.  Google it if you’re interested in the specifics on how it works. We also have a juggler performing to one of our songs. He’s a trombone player in the band and a student at Occidental. After he graduates, he will be joining the Flying Karamazov Brothers juggling show. Hopefully I’ll get someone in the audience to snap some pictures of him; he’s really fun to watch.

My parents are flying in from Texas to visit and come to my band and chamber music concerts. The chamber music concert is on Mother’s Day this year, so I’m excited to have my mom here. Hopefully she’ll enjoy my concert and Mother’s Day Lunch. I’ll write more soon about the performances!

Getting Started

Hi guys, I’m Nikki and I’ll be telling you about my involvement in the music programs at Caltech. But first, a little about how I got into music here.  

My involvement with music started when I joined band in 6^th grade on the clarinet and continued playing through high school. Our school had a rigorous band program, with daily marching rehearsals starting at  7 AM two hours before classes began, an hour of band class every day, and weekly evening sectionals. Although band tended to make my life very stressful in high school, it was also my favorite class and when I chose Caltech, I didn’t want to give up the clarinet just because I was going to a “Tech” focused school.

Luckily, Caltech has several programs for musicians who want to continue performing on their instrument. During the club fair in orientation, I met the band director, Bill Bing, and the chamber music director (his wife), Delores Bing. Band was an obvious choice for me. Chamber music, which is geared around small ensembles of 3 to 4 musicians on different instruments, was not something I had tried before, but I decided to give it a shot. Both groups required a short audition for placement purposes, where I performed a brief selection from a work of my choice and sight-read a few lines. Then, when the school year started, I was placed into a chamber music group and placed on a part for band.

During the school year I have rehearsal once a week for each group. I play for an hour with my chamber music group, and for two hours with band. Chamber music groups perform twice a year, and the groups change for each performance. Band performs a major concert about once a term.

Chamber music groups are made up of Caltech students, and each meeting is led by either Delores or a private music teacher, who often plays with the group. My group this term is made up of Mitch, a professional Bassoon player, Keshav, a freshman oboe player, and me. We selected a piece at the beginning of term, and we perform this coming Sunday.

The Caltech-Occidental Band is made up of Caltech undergraduates and graduate students, Occidental students, alumni and community members. Bill leads us through rehearsal almost every week, but we occasionally have sectionals led by our section leaders instead. The Caltech Bandorama performances are coming up this weekend, where the two Caltech jazz bands and the concert band perform a free show.

In addition to these groups, the clarinet section in the band, with the help of our section leader, Lynne, decided to start a clarinet choir this term. We now have approximately 9 clarinets, and we play together twice a month for about two hours. Although we started out just playing some fun music in our spare time, we now have a joint performance with the trombone choir scheduled for early June.

That’s all for now, but hopefully I’ll be able to share some of my performance preparation experiences with you later this week, and I’ll have pictures of my concerts after the weekend.