The Race!

The Orchestra gave a great concert last night.  One of our best on this trip, I thought. Heldenleben came across especially well.

A YouTube clip of the Friday night performance is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fr0IFIChdI

And now, about the race!  We had really good weather - sunny and 50's -- much better than the hot, muggy weather of past years, so there were lots of fast times.

Over 21,000 people ran.  I finished in just under 1:36:00, my best time on this course by far.

Afterwards I joined Zach Lewis, Plain Dealer Music Critic, who also ran the race for breakfast.

Miami race tomorrow

Tomorrow is the Miami Marathon.  I've been preparing and training for this for 8 weeks, so today I'm filled with a nervous excitement!

I went to the runner's expo at the Miami Convention Center in South Beach today.

I picked up my race packet - T-shirt, timing chip, bib, etc. and bought a Spi-Belt for my daughter.  Then I went for lunch at Sushi-Siam on Lincoln Rd.  Time to carbo-load!  Below is a shot of my buckwheat soba noodles.

After the concert tonight, I'll try to go to bed early.  The race starts at 6:15!!

Miami!

We arrived in Miami yesterday. It was great to feel the warm, humid air and see the sun!

This is our fifth year residency, so everyone has their favorite places to go and favorite things to do.

Last night I combined business with pleasure by running from the hotel across the Venetian Causeway to South Beach -- about 2 1/2 miles. At 12th and Alton there is a soccer field with a track around it.  I did some interval work on the track -- 4 x 440's at my 5k race pace of 1':38".

Then I cooled down by walking to Lime - one of the best Mexican restaurants in South Beach.  Very cheap, quick good food -- a rarity for South Beach.  The baja fish tacos are the best!

I finished with a protein smoothie and went walking along Lincoln Road to watch the various flora and fauna of South Beach at its finest!

The new Nespresso store is beautifully decorated and a great place to sample all of their different flavors of coffee pods, lovingly served in cups with high design values.

Today is a day off.  I've devoted it to more mundane tasks such as laundry(my tux shirt is getting a cleaning and a soak below),

grocery shopping, practicing and reed making.

IU residency

On Monday and Tuesday of this week the Orchestra had a residency at Indiana University.  This involved master classes, a side-by side rehearsal, a concert of our own and other activities.

Jonathan Sherwin and I played in a Side-by Side orchestra with IU bassoonists, Danielle Osbun and Bobby Phillips.

After the Side-by-Side, I went for a 14-mile run with Jack Sutte. This was my last long run before the Miami race.  It was cold, but not as bad as Cleveland.  We went through most of Bloomington, circled back by some farm country, ended up back on campus, showered and went to a late dinner.

Rehearsal and concert the next day went very well. One of the most fun activities during a tour is going out with old friends after a concert.  I met Tim Clinch and Cynthia Carr and a former student of mine, Oleksiy Zakharov, who is now playing second bassoon in the Indianapolis Symphony for dinner. Cynthia and I were at Eastman together, Tim and I played in a recital at Northwestern quite a while ago.

In  the morning I had a quick breakfast with another former student, Dewayne Pinkney, who is working on a DMA at IU.

Miami Marathon

Next Sunday I'll be running the half marathon in the ING Miami Marathon.  http://www.ingmiamimarathon.com/

This will be the fourth year I've run the race.  For the past two years, my time has been stubbornly stuck at 1:40:10 give or take a second (I'm nothing if not consistent!!).

I've been training for this since Thanksgiving.  That's been hard because of the weather and a very busy schedule, but this year I've done pretty well.

Check out my training plan if you're interested.  http://www.runnersworld.com/article/1,7124,s6-238-244-258-6851-0,00.html

The plan combines long runs with speed work that trains your body to sense three different paces; 5k, 10k and half marathon race paces, using the 5k and 10k to build speed.  You train your body mechanics to be most efficient at your goal half marathon pace.

Here's a photo of the shoes I'll wear for the race:

They're Brooks Green Silence.  Fun colors and made from 75% recycled ingredients.  They weigh only 7 oz. each!

The discipline of athletic training has many parallels to the study of music.  More about this in a future post.

The Miami course is absolutely beautiful. It starts in front of the American Airlines Pavilion (where the Heat plays), goes to South Beach over the MacArthur Causeway and through South Beach going back to the mainland via the Venetian Causeway finishing in downtown Miami.

Luckily we have the day off on Sunday, so I'll get a chance to relax, have a great brunch somewhere and enjoy the rest of the day.

Tour prep. 2

Well, we have just three days to pack and prepare before leaving town for two weeks

Tomorrow night I'll be packing my wardrobe trunk.  Here it is with my "roommate" Jonathan Sherwin.

 Jonathan is my oldest friend in the Orchestra and was the best man at my wedding!  Here he is wedged between his contrabassoon and the wardrobe trunk.  Each of us gets 2 1/2 drawers plus space in the area with hangers.

These must be loaded after Saturday's concert because they will be shipped out to Indiana that night by our hard-working stagehands.  I will also pack my bassoon and send it in our instrument trunk.  We have room for four bassoons, a contrabassoon, reed tools, and music in that one.

One of the amenities we enjoy when on tour is our Nespresso machine.  It goes along with us on domestic tours.  Foreign tours proved too arduous for its previous model when a power surge in the locker room of the Musikverein in Vienna fried its circuitry!

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Tour preparation

We are about to embark upon a two-week tour.

Our itinerary includes concerts in Bloomington, Indiana, Miami, Ann Arbor, Chicago, New York and Newark. The concert venues range from Carnegie Hall to Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music.

The Orchestra usually offers two or three different programs for concert presenters.  This time one concert includes Ein Heldenleben, while the other is Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste.

There is often a soloist who travels with us.  This time it's Pierre-Laurent Aimard (photo on left). Aimard is one of the most accomplished pianists playing today.  He can play just about anything!  He will join us for Schumann's Piano Concerto and the Bartok 2nd Piano Concerto.

The Bartok is known as one of the most difficult concertos written for the piano. It will be fun to hear him assay this piece!

But this post is about what we do to prepare for a tour.

Foreign tours involve more preparation than domestic ones, but this one presents some unusual challenges.

First of all, we must pack clothing for both warm and cold weather. Prescriptions that may run out during the trip need to be filled in advance, bills paid, etc. I think touring is tougher for those of us without spouses or partners. Pets and children must be cared for while we're away, mail held, etc.

Musical preparation is also underway. By this weekend we will have rehearsed and performed all of the repertoire to be taken on the road. There is minimal rehearsal time during a tour, so everything must be in place. It's not unusual to have just a sound check before a concert in a new location on tour -- or even just play the concert without any chance to check out the hall.

Along with the parts I've been assigned to play, I'm understudying all the principal parts that John Clouser will play in case he's indisposed. I will take my own copies of the parts along to practice.

I'll also take my reed tools and extra reeds to break in, etudes to practice and excerpts to prepare for the masterclasses I'm giving at the Manhattan School of Music and Roosevelt University.

I'll continue this thread in another posting in a day or so.  I'll try to get some photos to upload of our preparation. . .