Summer Recap: ARIA, South Hadley, MA

(I’ll post photos later, my desktop is dead at the moment.)

I loved music camp. I guess that's mainly due to the independence I experienced in those 10 days. There wasn’t any reinforced practice schedule so you basically had a wealth of free time, and I explored the beautiful campus of Mt. Holyoke College when I wasn’t toiling away in practice rooms. It’s an adorable little place, with a stream running across the campus connecting two lakes and Canadian geese flapping right outside your dorm. A verdant forest was a jog away from the practice rooms, and there was an equestrian center beyond that. And ALL that was accessible outside of my practice hours, and I enjoyed (sometimes in a frightened sense) every minute of hiking on/off trails and poking at frogs at the edges of lakes. Once, I accidentally went off trail once and saw the outline of a fox in the distance. I bailed out, but it was awesome.

The teachers I worked with were just as great. There were three violin professors (all middle-aged men), and they were just brilliant- their wealth of knowledge of almost every aspect of violin playing was quite formidable, and I loved the 2 hour lectures we had every evening. There was a problem though- I had trouble applying the numerous concepts to my own playing, even though I understood them. Information overload, I guess. I didn’t improve fantastically, but I did get a better grip on classical music and the nature of their violin performers.

ARIA also taught me about living on the East Coast in general. I seriously think I would want to study on the East Coast. Not only is the music scene quite fantastic, I just can’t get enough of the environment of trees! I remember my first image of Connecticut/Massachusetts was lush forests and pastures and lakes on the plane. LA is becoming quite droll, although it’ll always be home. I think I’ll really miss the SoCal weather though; it was deathly humid at camp, and the dorms had no A/C so basically I baked to sleep every night. I think I would also dislike snow.

I'm currently busy with orch auditions, but expect a post soon about caves, cacti, and adobe architecture.