For Auld Lang Syne

Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had as fun a break as I did hanging out in central Wisconsin with the Kamp clan. It snowed just in time for Christmas and made the most of it. I kicked in the new year Sunday night in Des Moines with a well attended pops concert featuring these guys. They kept the audience entertained with shtik and song and a good time was had by all. It is really nice to start off the year with a big fat check for two "days" work. I found out that playing fourth horn on the average straight classical set is exceeded in down time only by playing fourth in a Broadway pops set. Most songs used none to three horns with the exception of the symphonic arrangements.

Resolutions
This year I pledge to blog more, practice more, date more (okay, get a date), make more friends, start a working brass quintet, get a horn quartet together, give a solo recital, write some tunes, arrange some tunes, record some tunes, improve my improvisation skills, improve my intonation skills, run another marathon, get a summer gig and audition like mad. This is a kind of bird-shot approach to resolutions. Something is bound to hit.

Sights from the Road
Being on the road a lot I witness strange, interesting or humorous sights all the time. I'm going to start risking my life to document these for you, the reader. I hope you're thankful!
The first of these is the holy grail of the license plate game. My brother and sister played this on a road trip all the way from Wisconsin to Maine and back this past Summer. I think we got shots of forty-some states but never dreamt we would ever see the likes of Hawaii or Alaska. My sister has since sent me a blurry, low resolution camera phone shot of what she says is an Alaska plate. I'm still skeptical. As you can see above, however, there is no doubt of the veracity of my claim. I caught it on I39-South half an hour north of Madison, WI.

The Madison Marathon
It has been five years since I've run a marathon and thirteen since I've run one fast. My goal is to work up to 70 miles a week and, ultimately, to break three hours in the race itself (May 27, 2007). I will plot my weekly mileage and average pace at the link on the right. I welcome you to join me on my journey toward marathon shape. Of course the possible obstacles are many. Not the least of which is the very real possibility that an audition will be scheduled for that day. Such is this life.

Music
This year starts off pretty cool. Brahms 4, Mahler 1 & 6, and Don Juan all in the first five weeks. A couple of February auditions here and here. Then things will be a bit slower than last Fall. I'm hoping to fill some of the open weekends with chamber music. That's the biggest difference between freelancing and being a student. Chamber music is taken for granted in school because it's so readily available. I was in both woodwind and brass quintets most of my time in school. Now only the occasional wedding get folks together in such small numbers. I'm going to try my best to change that this year. More on this endeavor in a later post.