Although the 87-degree heat yesterday didn’t quite feel like the first day of autumn, I enjoyed a long walk home in the warm sun, taking in the last few moments of summer. School is back in full swing at Cornell and I am elated with my studio of gifted students — they all have such beautiful artistic talent but are equally wonderful human beings. I had missed walking up the slope, attending Bethe House dinners and hearing the chimes from the clock tower — it’s hard to believe I hadn’t been on campus in nearly 9 months.
I also had the great pleasure of really sinking my feet into my new life as an Aizuri — although I began with the quartet while I was living in Italy and we had some projects in Philadelphia, this fall is our first full-time entree together. We kicked off the season with a whirlwind 5 days at Avaloch Music Farm, with which I completely fell in love! The idea of creating an artist colony for performers is so beautiful; having a chance to take advantage of such a glorious setting, gorgeous facilities and the company of other fantastic musicians was inspiring. Thank you to director Deb Sherr and the best, sweetest mascot of all time — Sylvie!
Amidst the new school year and quartet goings-on (as the newbie, I’m definitely playing catchup — on the docket this past month was 9 new quartets for me!), we also packed in a Knights chamber tour at the Skaneateles Festival, where I put in some serious time with a David Lang duo for violin and piano, some very cool tango-inspired quartets and quintets, and enjoyed the chance to take in beautiful Lake Skaneateles and our final performance outdoors at Anyala’s Vineyard…
Now it’s off to a recording project and Brooklyn show with the quartet, the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota season opener, a trip to catch my kid brother’s first performance with the Boston Symphony, and lots more teaching at Cornell. Oh! And I bought another home — this time a lovely house up in Ithaca!
As always, here I leave you with a little photo/video diary…hugs from NYC!
A little video snippet of our Mozart K. 387 run (click link above to watch)…