Category Archives: School of Music

April 12, 2015 · 8:32 pm

Mahler 2

Mahler’s second symphony, “Resurrection” is one of the most epic and moving pieces ever written for orchestra. It is an hour and a half long, is very complex and difficult to play, and requires a huge orchestra and choir. The UBC Symphony Orchestra and Choirs played it, twice, this past Friday and Saturday and I was lucky enough to be seated on stage playing the second harp part.

It is difficult for me to articulate how wonderful it was to be able to play Mahler 2; the music is so beautiful and interesting and the harps can actually be heard and when the choir sang, I got shivers, every time.

It’s not a piece that is performed often, even by professional orchestras, so the fact that we did it here at UBC is not only a milestone for the school, but a privilege that I have been able to play it as part of my university career.

Saturday night was a little bit emotional for me; for all I know, it could be the last time I play in an orchestra; it will probably be the last time I play with my friend Vivian, who has been my harpist friend since first year when we both entered the program; and what a symphony to be the last I would play at UBC! What a symphony to accompany my graduation.

I am sentimental now that I am leaving UBC, and although there is a little sadness, I am once again filled with the awe that I felt when I first toured UBC and first began taking classes. I actually went here. It was mine. It still is, for a little longer. I am a student at one of the best universities in the world. I have been awarded amazing opportunities such as travelling to Belgium and playing Mahler. I have also formed meaningful and lasting relationships with my professors and peers that I am sure will last going forward. I have also grown tremendously, academically, musically, and personally.

 

Tuum est.

 

It is mine.

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March 8, 2015 · 5:09 pm

Competition

Let’s ignore the fact that I haven’t blogged in four months and get on with it.

Yesterday, I participated in the Vancouver Women’s Musical Society scholarship competition. I’ve been working diligently on my three competition pieces since January, and yesterday was the big day. Leading up to it, I’d been practicing performing in front of my teacher and peers, recording myself, and doing plenty of visualization. I went into the competition with the attitude that I’d never done any festivals or competitions the whole time I’d been at UBC, so why not? It’d be a good experience whether I win or not.

Yesterday, I felt really good about my performance. I wasn’t nervous like the day before, where my hands had literally been shaking during studio class. I felt the first two pieces went exactly how I wanted them, and the third while it had a few slips was still pretty great. So, I mean, yeah, I’m a little bummed that I didn’t even get an honourable mention. But just a little. With these things, everyone does so well that basically everyone deserves to win, but everyone can’t. It doesn’t mean I’m a poor harpist or that I actually played badly yesterday just because I didn’t get the prize.

It was still a good experience, albeit an expensive one… I could have used that prize money to cover the application and taxi costs :P But I digress. I tried! And I showed that I can compete with the rest of them.

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April 14, 2014 · 4:27 pm

One Recital Down

Last Saturday, I performed in my first solo recital as a part of my third year course requirements. I have to say, leading up to the performance I was quite nervous and very stressed out, and I felt like there was no way I’d be ready in time. But, thanks to practicing performing for the other harp students at studio classes, recording myself, and visualizing the recital, the whole thing really well.

Somehow, by the time I got on stage, I wasn’t even nervous anymore. Well, hardly, anyway. I made some mistakes, but that’s pretty normal. I think I dealt with them well, and I played a lot of parts really really well, and that’s more important than a couple of little errors. I’m really proud of all the hard work I put in and I managed to pull off a great performance of a very difficult set of pieces.

My parents flew in from Winnipeg for the weekend to watch me perform, and we did some Vancouver sight-seeing. (I finally went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge! It’s pretty awesome, you should go if you have a chance.) They also fixed the lamp in my apartment and my mom mended my stockings for me, heh heh.

A lot of my friends came to watch me perform as well, although there was one small glitch; there is an elderly woman who attends nearly everyone’s recitals, and she takes it upon herself to hand out programs before the performances. What I didn’t know, backstage, was that she was keeping everyone outside because she thought I wasn’t ready for them to come in! There I was, thinking, “It’s five minutes before my recital, why is no one here?! Have I been forsaken by all of my friends?!”

Of course, it worked out. I’m very happy with how much I’ve improved since arriving at UBC, and I’m very lucky to have so many people who came out to support me. Now I get to take a break from practicing, and then start planning the program for my final recital next year!

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April 5, 2014 · 2:38 pm

Third Year Recital

As part of the performance major in the Bachelor of Music degree, third and fourth year students are required to put on a solo recital at the end of the year. Mine is in a week! If you’ve got some free time and would like to listen to harp music for a little while, feel free to come :)

Details:

When: Saturday, April 12, at 2:30pm

Where: Roy Barnett Recital Hall, UBC School of Music, 6361 Memorial Road

What: Pieces for harp by Bach, Smetana, and Debussy.

There will also be a reception afterwards. Who doesn’t like free food?

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February 12, 2014 · 11:41 pm

Three Days Til Belgium!

After many months of preparation and anticipation, I will be leaving for Belgium this Saturday! Needless to say, I am mega excited.

The preparation phase has been kind of hectic, as there are a lot of things you need to do before going overseas. Pay for flights, buy insurance, get currency, make photocopies of documents, pack, sign up for the student registry (a list of UBC students overseas so that if something bad happens in a country, eg. the tsunami in Japan, UBC knows where you are and helps you get home), keep up with coursework, and then annoying unexpected things such as forgetting your duffle bag on a bus and then having to go all the way downtown to pick it up from the Translink Lost and Found office. (Yes, this happened. To be honest though, I’m just happy that it got turned in.)

I am so stoked to be going on this trip! After finding out that exchange wouldn’t work for me, I thought I’d never get an opportunity like this in my undergraduate degree. I am so thankful to Dr. Bob and everyone at the School of Music and Go Global and UBC in general who made this happen!

 

P.S. There will be pics. At some point. Don’t know if I’ll have time to blog in Belgium.

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December 14, 2013 · 9:48 am

Some Fun Things

It occurs to me that I haven’t been blogging much this year; I think that once you’re in the third year of something, everything you do becomes somewhat commonplace and I’ve forgotten that this stuff might be interesting to people outside of my own head. That is, everyone. I promise there is no one else inside my head.

This term I’ve gotten to do some pretty fun things because of my coursework! Here are a few:

  • Trying out songwriting in my creative writing class.
  • Playing a concert at the Vancouver Convention Centre with the UBC Symphony orchestra and broadway star Elaine Page.
  • Arranging Silver Bells for a brass ensemble for my instrumentation class – and then actually getting to hear it performed.
  • Playing a percussion piece which involved hitting trash bins.
  • Playing electro-acoustic music which involves waving my arms around and hearing cool noises that I control.

I’m not actually taking that many courses right now, so here’s some fun things I’ve done outside of class:

  • Meet a world-class harpist from Belgium and attend her workshop.
  • Be a MUG leader for Imagine Day.
  • Man a booth at Clubs Days.
  • Work on campus – have I mentioned that I love my job and all my coworkers and my boss? I’ll write a post about it some time.
  • Try out a new restaurant in Vancouver pretty much every week.
  • Learn how to play Settlers of Catan.

The UBC life is a good life; the challenge now is not to get complacent about it!

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November 25, 2013 · 10:30 am

Here to Learn

This past Friday, the harp students had a studio class where we all play a piece for each other, give each other constructive criticism, and there’s also a teacher there who critiques as well. I played my piece, and my classmates told me what was good, and what needed work, and that was fine. I appreciated that. Somehow, the criticism from my peers was much easier for me to handle than what came next. I wouldn’t say that the harp teacher who was there (not my harp teacher) tore me apart, and she definitely wasn’t “out to get me.” I know that all of her comments were well-meaning, and she wants me to be the best musician I can be as much as anyone else. And yet, that didn’t stop me from feeling like crap once the class was over.

The class made me feel as though I have no idea what I’m doing, artistically. Maybe this is because my teacher and the teacher at the class tend to have opposite opinions, but it still felt bad, and I honestly don’t want to practice that piece now because it makes me feel like an idiot. I also felt like all the other students had all their pieces in performance condition, when I totally do not. I felt really behind.

Over the weekend I’ve thought about it a lot, and I was reminded of my pre-kindergarten self: I was determined that I had to know how to read before I went to school. I didn’t want to be behind. So, I taught myself to read. I also wanted to know how to play piano before my first piano lesson, but my mom put her foot down on that one. But I think the effects of this Friday’s studio class are an echo of what has apparently always been ingrained in me; I want to be perfect before I even get there, to not need criticism.

Well, newsflash, this is a university. A school. A place to LEARN. If we were all perfect already we wouldn’t be here, right? You’re not expected to know everything beforehand, that’s what your teachers are HERE for. If I could finally just internalize this lesson I think I’d enjoy studio class so much more.

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November 3, 2013 · 6:03 pm

UBC IMPART

Now that two months of school have passed (see: class ends in 26 days), I can give a little insight into the Go Global group study project I’m participating in. It’s called UBC IMPART; what the acronym actually stands for I have no idea, but the basic idea is that we use various technologies and software to interact with acoustic musical performance.

Mainly what we’ve been using so far are gesture-tracking technologies, such as accelerometers, webcams, and Xbox Kinects. The programmers in the class then take the data generated by those devices to create an electronic element for the performance. For example, the sound generated by the acoustic instrument may be picked up by a microphone, and then depending on how the performer moves, the computer program could change how the sound is processed, by adding reverb or echo, etc.

It’s a really cool project, and it’s really fun to be one of the performers for the group. (I just play harp, I don’t do any programming.) It’s so neat to be able to wave my hand around and control a sound effect and hear it change based on how I move.

What’s also very exciting is that we will be travelling to Belgium in February to perform our music and share with students there. If you’d like to keep updated with the IMPART project, you can follow the blog at http://ubcimpart.wordpress.com.

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October 9, 2013 · 8:26 pm

A Significant Improvement

Come this Friday evening, I will be performing in the UBC Symphonic Wind Ensemble’s first concert of the year. About a year ago, I was doing the same thing. Look back at myself from that time, I’m amazed at how much improvement I’ve made in my ensemble playing skills.

Last year, I was so nervous I could barely even focus, let alone play musically. Whenever I made a mistake, I would beat myself up about it horribly, even walking home crying sometimes. That wasn’t productive for me or the ensemble. I had trouble making entrances in time, I didn’t count rests well, I was terrible at looking up at the conductor while playing, and sometimes I didn’t even have my parts properly prepared.

Since then, I’ve learned that confidence is the best thing you can do for your playing. Letting nerves get in the way just screws you over before you’ve even started playing. I also figured out that it’s OKAY to make mistakes, that’s what rehearsals are for! Everyone makes them, and no one is going to hate your guts because of it, so no reason to be nervous. I learned to deal with mistakes productively; ie. identifying the problem and fixing it without getting upset, rather than taking it way too personally and making myself unable to solve the problem. I’ve learned to always have my parts learned fully for rehearsal (seems like a no brainer, but it’s just a matter of prioritizing I somehow didn’t grasp), I count better (usually..), and I’ve gotten way better at looking up at the conductor.

It’s truly amazing what a difference a year can make! Just wait til I’m in fourth year, I’ll be unstoppable!

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August 10, 2013 · 8:43 pm

Belgium, Here I Come!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m finally getting my Go Global experience! If you are a regular to my blog you may recall that first I really really wanted to go on exchange, then found out that it wasn’t going to fit into my degree, and then was really disappointed when everyone else got their acceptances for their magical exchanges in far off lands while I was stuck at home. And while UBC is totally amazing and everything, I was still very disappointed.

But then, about a month ago, I received an email from the school of music saying that a research project involving gesture-tracking software was looking for third and fourth year musicians to participate, and that the project will be going to Belgium for two weeks to collaborate with students at another university there. I was so excited! This would be my chance to go experience another country as part of my UBC education.

At the moment, I’m not 100% clear on what exactly the research is going to entail, but I’m very excited to find out. Also, I haven’t technically received the Participation Agreement yet, but I have been accepted into the program, so I feel like it isn’t too early to celebrate. If it is, well, whatever. But for now I’ll be daydreaming of Belgium!

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