Week 1 - half way there!

It has been a very exciting week here in Manchester. It's about 8pm on Wednesday evening, which means that most of you back home in the US are staring at your watches getting ready to go home from work! Anyway, it has been a pretty interesting week for me.

Everything got started on Tuesday. My teacher, Steven Mead, commutes to Manchester for teaching. He lives about 100 miles away from here, but he drives up early Tuesday morning. I had my first lesson and it was great. I played through a few things for one of my upcoming auditons (fingers/toes definitely crossed) and we worked through a few things. It was great to have another lesson. I would try and get a lesson in the past from Steve when I met up with him at conferences/performance venues. Now I'm like - I get one of these every week? Sweet! I hope I never take for granted how much these lessons are worth - and I hope none of his other students do either.

The entire euphonium studio here at the RNCM is about 18 students. We have people from England, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Ireland, Taiwan, and the good ol' USA. We are a diverse group ranging in ages from 19 to 29, but everyone is quite nice. After hours on Tuesday we got together for a little studio time at the bar, and then we went and had Indian food. I don't think I have ever had actual Indian food - I really liked it. I wasn't sure what I was eating, but it was pretty tasty!

Before the night out with the studio, I got to go for a run with Steve. When he comes to teach on Tuesday, he always stays the night in the halls. There are a few rooms in the top floor of the halls for staff when they come up. But, it was great getting to spend some time talking about various things. Mostly about his new disc, which is awesome. You can take a look at it by clicking here.

I am going with my flatmates and friends to see the world-famous Halle Orchestra play Brandenburg No. 5 and Mahler No. 5 (too many 5's if you ask me...) on Thursday - so more info on that later in the week! No other rants about the English yet - but it is only September!