Back to New York

In September I started my second year at Juilliard School. I have to admit that after two month on the west coast in sunny California it was not pleasant change to go back to very hot and humid New York. But after a while the humidity stopped being any kind of trouble because everything at school started in a good old fashion.

The second year at Juilliard has generally bad reputation between students. It is not about the subjects which stayed almost the same from the first year, it is just that this year requires a lot of preparation for every single class. The subjects I have this semester are Ear Training II, Theory and forms of music, completely new subject was Music History from Antiquity to Renaissance and Liberal arts changed from Politics to Arts and Generations, it is about the development of arts from Ancient Greece and Rome to nowadays. From the beginning we were given tests from every subject and we also had auditions for orchestra. We had to learn most of the hardest excerpts for first violin. I had very successful audition and I was invited for concertmaster audition which took place in November. We had to perform several solo excerpts in front of the members of   New York Philharmonic, which was very exciting. Everything went well and I became a concertmaster for the year 2013.

At the end of October New York was damaged by the hurricane Sandy. We are quite far from the shore so we weren’t touched by that, but the shores of New Jersey, lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens were completely destroyed. The school had given us three day holiday because most of the teachers and professors live in New Jersey and the public transportation did not work so they could not get to school. The holiday was very helpful because we had mid-terms the week after and according to most of the professors, these were the best during the periods of time they were teaching there. For instance Mrs. Scott is teaching ear training since 1968 so it has been a while.

I had also quite a lot of work with orchestra. I was assigned for two cycles, one of them was with Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov in Alice Tully Hall where we performed modern piece by Henry Dutieullux and Brahms 4th symphony. The other one was with legendary violinist Ithak Perlman in Avery Fisher Hall. We played some of the most beautiful pieces by Mozart – Overture to Abduction from Seraglio, Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto “Emperor”, and Symphony Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. 

Me and my brother found a string quartet with which we performed many times at Juilliard, Columbia University and other places. At the same time our group with addition of one violist and cellist, was selected for very prestigious Julliard chamber fest at the begging of January where we going to perform sextet by Johannes Brahms.
It was very exciting semester for me, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot!

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