Greetings from Seattle. I’m up here doing an instrumental camp at Bastyr University, which is actually in the hamlet of Kenmore, Washington – right at the northern tip of Lake Washington. We’re in the midst of one of the earliest record heat waves in Northwest history. In Portland yesterday the official high was around 96 degrees, but friends who were driving around reported temps of up to 104 on the freeway! Today is supposed to be up to around 101 in Portland for the official high, and here in Seattle it will reach the mid-90’s again. It wouldn’t be so bad except that the buildings are not air-conditioned, and our dorm rooms are on the top floor with poor ventillation (because pigeons will fly into the rooms if the windows are wide open and the blinds are up!). Given the choice between sweating in bed and sleeping with pigeon droppings, I’ll take sweating any day. It’s a good bunch of kids here – I’m working with a viola sextet that’s playing a piece by Paul Pisk, (which is actually a good piece) – the only thing wrong with that is that the coachings are at 8:30 in the morning. We also have communal bathrooms, which also isn’t that bad, except that we have to get up at 6:15 in order to get a shower without waiting in line. Did I say that I miss my bed, bathroom, and air-conditioner very much?! At least we’re not living in cabins!Â
Last night I did the U.S. premiere of Dorothy Chang’s piece Streams for solo viola. She and her husband Paoulo were able to come down from Vancouver, B.C. to see the performance, and happily, she was very pleased with how it went. We’ll both listen to the recording and email back and forth to see what changes we’ll want to make, and then I’ll go into the studio this fall and record it (after doing a performance of the revised version), most likely at the colorfully named Dead Aunt Thelma’s Studios. Heather played the Beethoven A major cello Sonata last night with Sandy, and played the snot out of it. Local cello legend Cordelia Wikarski-Miedel was in attendance and gave rave reviews of her rendition. Tonight we do the Beethoven c minor string Trio with Marcia Ott on the violin, and Tuesday night I do the Kodaly Adagio with Lisa Bergman.