please support...

from the blog of william harvey...

this is, like, hilariously awesome...

"The Paganini Caprice Challenge!

Photo: Peter Schaaf. This is how I will feel when donations come in!

Two hundred years ago, the great Italian virtuoso Niccolo Paganini wrote the hardest pieces ever written for the violin: the 24 Caprices.

For twenty-four weeks, I will learn and record one caprice per week. If a total of $500 has been donated to Cultures in Harmony that week, I will post the video to YouTube. When a new video is posted, I'll let you know via the blog, the Facebook group, and Twitter.

If less than $500 is donated in a given week, then the video cannot be posted until the amount is raised, and we'll send out an e-mail reminding everyone to donate so that we can post the next caprice. Please check out the first three caprices at the webpage of the Paganini Caprice Challenge.

This campaign will raise a total of $11,000 for Cultures in Harmony's projects in 2010. Those projects will involve return visits to many of the places where we have conducted successful projects in the past, as well as a new project in Mauritania.

How You Can Help

• Forward the videos of the caprices to all your friends. We want these videos to go viral!


• Donate any amount of money to Cultures in Harmony using the link available on every page of our website. Any amount contributes to the weekly total of $500 per Caprice!


• Sponsor an entire Caprice by donating $500 to Cultures in Harmony! You will receive a CD or DVD of the Caprice you sponsored as well as acknowledgment at the Paganini Caprice Challenge page. Thank you to Mimi Zweig for sponsoring Caprice No. 3. Mimi is Professor of Violin of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and my beloved teacher during high school and college.


• Volunteer to film, supply the location for, art direct, or act in a Caprice video by contacting us.

I hope to be able to post a new caprice every Sunday to give you a fun video to watch to start off your week. So let's keep the donations coming in, and see if you guys can get me to learn, record, and post all twenty-four caprices!

Check out the videos now, and remember: your donations are tax-deductible."

-harmonybeat.blogspot.com

my friend doug!

last evening i caught up with one of my very good friends

(and also a new addition to the new world symphony trombone section),

doug

!

we dined at a restaurant that does this thing that's semi common in miami called

beat the clock

where the price of your meal is the time that you ordered it (we ordered at 5:40 = $5.40 for a ton of carbonara!)

and then there was

gelato

...

my concoction was an equivalent to my choice cocktail, the amaretto sour: lemon sorbet + amaretto gelato = tasties without the woozies.

over the course of our gelato, we realized that next month marks our seven year anniversary as friends!

whoa.

seven years ago...

we were just little nubbins, sitting in the back of youth orchestra together...

playing

pictures at an exhibition

(a teensy ethan bensdorf nailing the trumpet solo, and everyone's favorite dr dennis conducting...), talking shop during all of our breaks, singing brahms in the parking lot of the steak n shake late at night after cso concerts...

i think this picture is from 2006... when we had already known each other for four years!

and now...

we're munching on gelato in miami, playing in new world together...

who woulda thunk?

and who knows what another seven years will bring...

cso?

LA?

boston symphony?

NY phil?

the community youth wind ensemble volunteer project of boise, idaho?!

teehee.

here's to seven years, dougie!!!

xoxo

yeh

hello, miami!

wait a tick...

dejavu? (i was just here!)

i'm subbing with the new world symphony this week :-)

program:

John Adams The Chairman Dances

Edward Elgar In the South

Adam Schoenberg Finding Rothko

Benjamin Britten Young Persons' Guide to the Orchestra

i'm playing castanets and some other things on the britten

and drumset (what the...?) on the adams.

if you've never heard the chairman dances i highly advise you to do so.

the scenario of the piece:

"chiang ch'ing, a.k.a. madame mao, has gatecrashed the presidential banquet. she is first seen standing where she is most in the way of the waiters. after a few minutes, she brings out a box of paper lanterns and hangs them around the hall, then strips down to a cheongsam, skin-tight from neck to ankle and slit up to the hip. she signals the orchestra to play and begins dancing by herself. mao is becoming excited. he steps down from his portrait on the wall and they begin to foxtrot together. they are back in yenan, dancing to the gramophone..."

peter sellars and alice goodman

wouldn't it be so fun to be in that colorful room?

the piece is so dreamy and colorful and exciting. it makes me want to dance and get all groovy and stuff. i could listen to it all day long and bob my head every second of the way.

although i don't know what genius put me on the drumset part (i mean, i do know what genius that was, and i luv him, but come on.)

i literally had a stressful time packing because i have to wear pants all week behind the kit and not my miami-appropriate sun dresses!

(bitch bitch bitch.. life is so tough...i'll shut up now)

in an effort to be economical, i went to the publix and bought sandwich making materials so that i could pack lunches all week (it seems to be the general trend at restaurants in miami to attract customers by the booby size of the hostess rather than quality of the food... so i don't really feel guilty by not indulging in miami beach cuisine). publix, for what it is, actually has a decent mustard selection.

i was for some reason getting into the commercial/artificial food vibe of the publix

(i had ritz crackers and kraft cheese in my cart) and actually almost purchased hellman's honey mustard.

but alas even i probably couldn't have finished the economy sized tube.

so i got a cute little sweet hot inglehoffer with honey.

okee. wish me luck this week everybody!

xoxo

yeh

little words of wisdom

i've had an extremely tough time concentrating on playing lately, and it's been pretty poopy. but today, as friend craig and i strolled to school, he told me this:

"you're chinese, so you understand this...

what you're going through is like one of those chinese finger traps.

the more you try to fight it, the harder it's going to be to break.

but if you take it easy on yourself, and let yourself go for a bit, 

you'll come out of your funk with ease..."

...and i proceeded to have a wildly successful two hours on the xylophone.

thanks, craig.

xoxo

yeh