The rest of the summer

I hope to fill you all in on what else I did this summer, complete with pictures, but since I don't have a camera I have to depend on others to send photos to me. We'll see how it goes. I will probably have some others of the Perlman Program as well and I'll post when I get them.

For now though I thought I would post what I did right after going to the first music thing I did this summer. From June 25th - July 1st I was a camp counselor at Kansas Bible Camp. My brother Carl was the speaker for the week and his wife Tisara and their boy Tobias came as well. It was nice to see all of my friends as well while I was there. Some of them I hadn't seen for a long time so it was nice to get caught up with them. Looking at these pictures now it seems like it was years ago that I had these boys as my campers.

Leaving the Perlman Program

Well, it's over. Two and a half weeks of chamber music culminated in three concerts of which my group played on the last (Saturday). It was somewhat of a let down for me to have worked and worked on this piece for 2 weeks and then to be done with it after 15 minutes, but overall I enjoyed the work we did. I learned a lot from this experience and am sure that I will refer back to it in my thinking.

I've posted some random pictures from the workshop including the one above of some of us at lunch. The "dining deck" was nice because it overlooked the bay area with all of the sailboats and yachts.

Here we are at the faculty concert.

One of the enjoyable things we did at PMP was sightread music. Sometimes we would do this after an evening masterclass. I wanted to do more but just didn't have the time. Here are a couple pictures from one evening where we were sightreading with Merry Peckham. If I remember correctly it was a Brahms Sextet.

What is a masterclass?

Last night we had our second and final masterclass - this time with Donald Weilerstein. I've put up a couple pictures from the first one we had last week with Itzhak Perlman. A masterclass is basically just a private coaching/lesson that's not private but rather open to the public. We play through the work and then he gives us his comments/suggestions and we try out a few of his ideas for about 30 minutes. Since Itzhak did the masterclass there were a lot of people there from the public - because he's kinda famous and people like him. This made it even more interesting for us having not only to play the piece, but take it a part in a masterclass in front of so many people. It was good though. We've come a long way since the first few days. I'm looking forward to our performance of it on Saturday - only four days away.

Going to the Perlman's

The other day we went to the Perlman's house for a barbeque. It was really good food and I had a lot of fun. Some of us played tennis. I haven't played tennis in a really long time and I forgot how much fun it is. Maybe it's just that I couldn't do it back then and now I can. There's also a swimming pool, ping pong table, and pool table. After it got dark we went in and watched a video about Carnegie Hall that included some cameo's by Itzhak. After the video we listened to the Perlman's and the rest of the faculty talk about their memories of Heifitz, Galamian, Piatigorsky, and others. It was a really neat experience that made me feel welcome in the music world. I think that's why I'm enjoying this program as much as I am - because everyone is rooting for everyone and it's fun.

Galamian's Great-Grandstudent

I enjoyed listening the other night to Mr. and Mrs. Perlman talking about Ivan Galamian and how he taught; his manerisms and such. It was interesting to hear such a great violinist talk about his early years when he was still a student. I was also reminded that I was Galamian's great-grandstudent. He is still teaching today through his students who taught their students who taught their students, etc. I'm a product of his teaching as well through my teacher Stanley Konopka (grandstudent) and through his teacher Robert Vernon (student).

Tonight my quartet will play the first two sections of Bartok 3 in a masterclass with Itzhak Perlman. We've put in a lot of work in less than a week but we still have lots to do. It'll be nice to get his observations and help.

Here are a few pictures from the island that my friend Chu took. Enjoy.

My trip to Shelter Island

I got to Shelter Island by way of my friend Jesse who was driving through Cleveland on his way to the Perlman Music Program (PMP). We actually went to Boston first because that's where Jesse was moving to and we dumped a U-Haul trailer full of stuff off at his place before going south. We left Cleveland at 8:30pm and ended up in Boston around 9:00am so I think we made it in good time. As we left Boston we picked up Yue Chu at the train station, a pianist who had just arrived back to Boston from a visit home. He is from Tianjin, China where my other Chinese piano playing friends are from. His dad works at the music conservatory there so I think they may know him.

After that we took a couple ferries to get to Shelter Island. This is a picture of Jesse and I on the first ferry that took us from New London, CT to Orient Point on the north fork of Long Island. I think we look a little weird but it's probably due to the fact that the wind is blowing and that we hadn't slept much the previous 24 hrs. I'd never been on a ferry before and it was nice. We'll be taking it on our way back to Boston. I decided to fly from there back to Cleveland because I knew that I could get a ride to Boston and it's cheaper to fly from there, so that worked out nice.


My group here is working on Bela Bartok's 3rd String Quartet. It's only 14 minutes long but it's very difficult. If you've never heard it, go check it out from the library. It's crazy, challenging, and lots of fun. We'll be performing it here on Shelter Island, Saturday, August 26th. This week Paul Katz is our coach and I'm really enjoying his coachings. I'm learning a lot and being stretched. We'll be playing the Bartok in a masterclass for Itzhak Perlman on Thursday this week. I'm looking forward to that. Here's a couple pictures from dinner the other night. The first one is of Itzhak, the other is of his wife Toby talking to Vivian Weilerstein with Jesse and Merry Peckham between them, sitting on the end. If you look in the background right above Toby's hand you can see Paul Katz, our chamber coach.

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Shelter Island

Just wanted to give my address while here on Shelter Island.

Perlman Music Program
Attn: [My Name]
Box 838, 73 Shore Road
Shelter Island Heights, NY 11965

Back to posting

Hello to everyone who still looks at my blog. I have not been posting for a long time (obviously) but plan to get back into it by posting what I've done this summer in reverse order. Actually it may be in random order depending on some photos I'm waiting for from a bunch of people. I'm hoping to make my blog a little more interesting by adding some photos.

Anyway, nothing too interesting right now but hopefully soon. My plan is to post while I'm here at the Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop. It's really beautiful here and I hope to get some good pictures to show you.

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