The busiest semester.

Well, of my life, anyway. It was strange, and please allow me to throw in a few humble brags. Last year I was part of a residency in which I performed at twenty-seven schools in ten school days. But, that was almost it for gigs that semester, so it was one crazy oasis in the desert. My last semester of my masters degree (four years ago!) I had a credits snafu that resulted in my adding of three classes halfway through the semester, and attempting to perform an elective recital. Yet, somehow, this semester took the cake (There’s cake?!).

I have unfortunately had a major absence in the online community for the past three months. This has been in part a result of my extreme business, for which I apologize. However, this has also been in part on purpose, for which I do not apologize. For years I have been blogging and video blogging, and I had a very harsh realization: I was sometimes coming across in a conceited, arrogant, and self-righteous manor. Maybe that is an exaggerated assessment, but one I made of myself. I think that it is very difficult to be a young writer and use the internet without coming off in that way (I personally blame the keyboard; I was always positive while typing). So, I made up my mind to attempt to change my writing style and to more often than not write lighter material… then that material kept being pushed back by three things:

Gigs
Practicing (for said gigs)
and finally… LECTURE PREP

I decided to completely overhaul both my lecture series and my assignments for my three music appreciation courses. Add it up, and you’ve got the recipe for the ‘ol back-burner special.

Before I being anew and reboot this blog, allow me to summarize my wild and crazy gigs…

The theme of the semester was bad weather. Snow forced me to miss three presentations, two of which rescheduled, and the third of which could not. Snow should have forced me to postpone my first collegiate guest artist recital, but I pushed onward! The result was a small audience, but a greatly invested audience. Finally, a sever thunderstorm and tornado watch caused a very small audience, but not a cancelled performance.

During this semester I have so far presented:
9 Recitals
13 Assemblies
10 Clinics/Master Classes
With one recital and one assembly left. Those 32 presentations happened between January 6th and March 22nd, aka 76 days. Many of these actually happened during my “Spring Break.” This was mentioned in the Des Moines register, but I failed to post the link online thanks to comical mistakes in both my bio and schedule!

Up next, I plan on detailing my weekend at Bernie’s… I mean my various gigs for the past semester. After that, it’s back to music blogs and MPP’s. Hopefully a new approach and a consistent approach can help me gig this blog off the ground again.

Before I sign off, our dear friend Brian has yet to send me any etudes! Please be sure to annoy him at the following email address:
Bivdub@gmail.com