The End Came...A Day Late

Today Jen and I had our last concert of this tour at St.John’s Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain (our concert was part of The JP Concert Series).  Lynn Petersen and Mischa Salkind-Pearl were in attendance as were friends and family.  We followed up the concert with dinner at a nearby café.  What a wonderful way to end a wonderful tour!! The time between May 9 (when Jen arrived in Montana) to today has seemed like an eternity.  I now have a wonderful friend and musical partner in Jen and so many wonderful performing and musical experiences.   Looking back on the tour, I would do it all again.  I am looking forward to the future projects that we are planning (keep an eye on the blog and news sections of our website), there is sure to be great new music in our future and yours. Thank you all for you support and coming on this journey with us via cyberspace. 

-Heather

Diagenesis’ Disaster of a Day

This was our first day in Boston. It started out well. Birds were singing, flowers were in bloom, Jen was getting her cello adjusted.

I went outside to load up the car for our trip to pick up the cello and practice at Boston Conservatory. I noticed that the back right tire was very flat. Jen confirmed it. Since I have been doing a lot of driving in Montana I am always completely covered by AAA. I called and they sent someone out right away. Jen had to run to a cab stand to get her cello before the store closed. No cab. She took the T.

The friendly man from AAA came, pulled a nail out of my tire and sent me on my way. I proceeded to get very lost in downtown Boston. I called Jen for help after being honked at a lot. I ended up finding a parking place and Jen took the T to meet me (there is a very sad back story about my GPS that fully explains why I was lost!). We found our way to Boston Conservatory, near Fenway Park, just before a Red Sox game… (for those of you who have not been in the Fenway area during a Red Sox game, this means lots of people, lots of traffic, horrible parking, and crazy rickshaws.)

The day ended well with delicious Vietnamese food (go Pho Basil!), a wonderful practice session, and a trip to my very welcoming in laws (thanks Andrew and Liz!). A special shout-out to Reuning and Son Violins -  Jen’s cello adjustment was fabulous!

-Heather

One Day - Five States

There are many songs to describe today: Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” Johnny Cash’s “I’ve been everywhere,” and even song four of Lynns Petersen’s pieces that we are performing on tour (come to a concert, hear for yourself!).

Jen and I woke up and left Chicago at a very early hour, trying very hard to remember that it was important to get to Boston for our concerts (can’t we just stay and sleep forever??). Those of you who know me, know I am up for anything and will think up and embrace the craziest plans. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, since everything worked out), Jen is apparently happy to accept my plans as rational and good… so, yesterday when I said, “hey Jen, instead of stopping in Buffalo tonight what do you think of going straight to Boston” she said, “yes.”

Basically, what followed was a lot of driving, an all day (all 17 hours of it) discussion of our future plans, and lots of stops for gas and switching who was driving. The highlight of day for me was seeing on a sign that at our next rest station there was to be a Tim Hortons. Canadians will understand that I was overcome with emotion and actually cried when I was standing before it (I haven’t seen a Tim Hortons in 8 months). For those of you non-Canadians it is a donut and coffee shop, it is good, you should try it, you probably won’t cry.

At 2:30 am Jen and I pulled up to her apartment. Our eyes were a little crazy, we were not coherent, but we were safe, and at our final destination.

-Heather

Concert Day in Chicago

Concerts where a composer is hearing their piece performed for the first time always have a special edge of excitement to them. Today was one of those concerts. James Kallembach chose to set the poems of puritan colonist Anne Bradstreet in his piece for us, A Wreath of Thyme. This piece tells the story of Anne’s life, her love for her husband, the difficult times she went through as a colonist in America, and her faith in God. This is an intense story and James has treated it with great sensitivity and beauty.

Jen and I talk a lot about the poems for all the pieces we are working on and how we want to express them. For these poems in particular, we have discussed Anne’s life, how she may have been feeling, and what she was going through when she wrote these poems. In particular Jen and I often think of Anne Bradstreet, at her desk occupying her time by writing her poems. One piece (no.2) has Anne making little jokes “As loving hind that hartless wants her dear” (hind-female deer, hart-male deer), “a dearer deer far dearer…” we imagine her giggling at her clever puns.

The concert tonight was in yet another beautiful church, Hyde Park Union Church, and was very well attended by a friendly audience. Then we went to Piece Pizza to visit with friends and celebrate the performance.

Thank you to James for writing a beautiful piece, to Hyde Park Union for the amazing concert space, and to friends new and old for being a wonderful audience!

-Heather

Meeting Some Musical Greats in Chicago

One of the very  special opportunities we have had on this tour was arranged by James Kallembach.  Eighth Blackbird is in residence at the University of Chicgao where James teaches, and James was able to arrange a coaching/meeting with cellist Nick Phontios.  Heather, Nick, and I started our meeting a small Italian cafe near the Eighth Blackbird rehearsal space.  We got to pick his brain about how Eighth Blackbird became the important new music group that it is today, and ask him questions about what he thought was important for aspiring young groups.  

Once James arrived, we went to the Eighth Blackbird rehearsal space and played the first two movements of James’ piece for Nick and James.  They both had a lot of great comments that we’ve since incorporated into our performance.  When we were finished we chatted with Nick more about our next steps.  He really encouraged us to take every opportunity we could to play together as much as possible.  

After the coaching/meeting, Heather and I went to a nearby coffee shop to talk about all of Nick and James’ advice.  It’s always important to do a little recap after sessions like this that cover so much important information.

Next, we met with James and his wife for dinner at a great pizza place.  It was great to just hang out with James over some good food and talk about life.  In addition to being a great composer, he’s such a fantastic person!  

Full of pizza and good will, we went to the residence halls at the University of Chicago and played the rest of James’ piece for him.  It was a really late night, but definitely worth the time and effort.  Suffice it to say, we slept really well after such a long day of satisfying work.

~ Jen

Diagenesis’ Double Duty Day

Today was a big day for us. The first half of our day was all about our second concert of the tour. This concert was at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in St.Paul, MN. We met with Bjorn, the music director at St. Mary’s, who had looked after the concert for us. We felt so welcome at the church and were delighted to play in such a beautiful space - both visually and acoustically. We would love to return to this beautiful venue.

The concert was great and one of our backers, Jenny Haugen, drove an hour and a half to see us perform. She was thrilled with the concert and, being a soprano herself, was interested in possibly performing the pieces in the future. Her reaction has encouraged us to continue with our plan of commissioning new pieces and has reminded us of how lucky we are to have had three really special works written for us.

The second part of our day was our drive to our third concert location. Since it was very important to us to have a full rest/rehearsal day before our concert, we booked it to Chicago. We arrived safe and sound at Jen’s sister’s apartment. We were welcomed by our wonderful hosts, Cat and Evan Tupper, with food and wine. A very satisfying and full day!

-Heather

Enjoying St. Paul MN

Today was Heather and my first full rest and practice day of our tour. Tim and JoEllen Bohannon have so amazingly, wonderfully, and graciously put us up in a beautiful hotel room for tonight and tomorrow.

This morning Heather and I went to Staples to have programs printed for the remainder of the tour. I’m pretty proud of our programs if I do say so myself. The rest of the day was spend practicing, working on the rest of the tour via email, updating our budget, and just enough relaxing.

One of my favorite moments of the day happened while we were practicing. The hotel let us use one of their conference rooms to rehearse. We shut the door, but all of those years honing our projection have definitely paid off (don’t worry, it’s a part of the hotel where no one would be bothered). One of the front desk workers came up during our practicing and knocked on the door. He had brought us two bottles of water and said, “I don’t usually like opera, but you guys are really great!” Such an amazing complement and so thoughtful!!

Tomorrow is concert number two and I’m super excited! More about that tomorrow…

~ Jen

Our First Travel Vlog

Travel Day 1: Big Sky Country

Heather and I spent a lot of time in Italy together. We’ve spent a lot of time working with each other on the phone and through email. We’ve logged a lot of rehearsal time together. But, you never really know how 12 hours of traveling with someone is going to go.

Turns out, traveling with Heather is really great!

We left Montana this morning planning for 8 hours of driving to cover 500 miles and make it to Dickinson, North Dakota. That’s a lot of driving, but Heather and I managed to make it really fun by talking about details for the tour, discussing possibilities for our next big project, and talking about life in general. We’ve learned a lot about each other.

For me, it was the first time seeing the northwest landscape. I’m not a nature person, but the sheer size and distance you can see is really incredible. Also, the colors are so different from other places in the US I’ve been. I think one of my favorite things about travel is seeing how the color of the landscape shifts. A lot of Montana is this great clay color, but the greens and grays are so beautiful too.

Now it’s time to rest up for another day of driving tomorrow.

~ Jen

PS. For those of you keeping track of cello comments, one couple asked about that “contraption” I was carrying around in Perkins, and another man in Pizza Hut commented that my “date was a little short.” I can honestly say that I’ve never heard that second one before - pretty amazing.

Tonight we performed Diagenesis’s debut concert and premiered three fantastic works by Lynn Petersen, Mischa Salkind-Pearl, and James Kallembach.

As a new duo, there was a lot of anticipation around this concert: How well will the unique combination of cello and voice relate to an audience? How will an audience respond to us as performers? The risk and excitement was different from so many other performing experiences. As we walked on stage, we were fully committed to performing these pieces that we loved and really believed in. The result was so rewarding.

In the audience were the composer of our first piece, Lynn Petersen, and the poet whose text she had chosen, Ed Noonan. Art song is a marriage between poetry and music, and so often performing these works is a strategic guessing game of what the composer and poet intended. While that traditional process is fun and challenging in its own way, playing for the actual composer and poet, live and inperson, is so exciting and an incredible opportunity. Even better, Lynn and Ed loved our performance!

The concert was very well attended, and the enthusiasm of the entire audience was palpable and so fulfilling for us. People really enjoyed the color of the two instruments and were grateful for all of our hard work. It was the ideal performance exchange and we can’t wait to get back to Montana for another concert!

-Heather and Jen

At Last, Jen Arrived in Montana

I picked Jen up from the airport and we couldn’t wait to get started on our new pieces.  We started right away by talking about the music in the car and making practice plans.

Once we were at my house, Jen unpacked and we got right to work.  Since we had practiced on our own and then worked on our ensemble through the recordings, we were able to work on phrasing and expression right away:  we talked over the texts and worked out what we wanted to express with each piece and cycle, we experimented with timing, dynamics, and we also talked a lot about the interaction between our parts.  

The next step was to meet with Lynn Petersen, the composer from Helena Montana, and play her songs for her to be sure we were expressing her intentions.  We were able to meet her at our first performance venue, St.Peter’s Episcopal Cathedral.   Jen and I got to the church early to hear how our duo would sound in the space and experiment with how we would set up. Then Lynn arrived and we performed each of her pieces and discussed them with her.  She offered suggestions about articulations and commented on the musical decisions we had made.  I think that one of the most exciting things about this new project is the collaboration we will have with living composers.  We are so glad that we had the opportunity to work with such an encouraging, enthusiastic, and talented musician.

-Heather

Fly to Montana? Check.

The first step of our concert tour is complete - I’ve just arrived in Montana!

When Heather and I were planning the best route for our tour, we decided that flying me and my cello to Montana then driving back to Boston would be the most efficient way to use our time and money. For all of you cellists out there, you’ve probably already noticed a major complication in our plan - flying with a cello is often a nightmare. Personally, I’ve done a lot of research about the best way to fly with a cello; I’ve asked experienced friends, done a lot of internet research, and of course have my own experiences. I’ve learned a couple of interesting things.

1. There is no way to predict whether you will have problems when you fly. In fact, I have never flown with my cello without having at least one small problem. For example, on my flight to Montana the airline and airplanes changed from when I booked by flight to when I actually flew. This caused seat assignment problems for both legs of my flight. There was no way I could have predicted or prevented this problem. Also, airline workers have this incredible ability to give you an instruction like “go to the gate and they’ll fix it there,” but when you arrive at the gate to have whatever it is fixed they tell you “oh they never should have sent you here (sigh and frustration).” I have a feeling, there is very little real communication between the different people working in an airport… This leads me to my next important lesson…

2. You must always be confident, but friendly when you travel with a cello. There are a couple of obvious and not so obvious reasons for this. First of all, people who work for airlines have pretty stressful jobs when it comes to customer service. I can’t imagine how many people throw fits over window seats every day. When a cello shows up it’s just another huge opportunity for customer complaint (ie seat changes, having to be on a different type of plane, etc). They are already on the defensive, so antagonizing them just doesn’t work. I’ve found that smiling the entire time does wonders for the smoothness of my travel. Even when they give you bad news like “the cello can only be in first class on this flight and we can’t put you or your cello in first class” smiling and being willing to work with them (while still confidently refusing to let your cello be checked) makes them much more likely to bend the rules for you or possibly put the cello in the closet (as they did for me on this trip). Being friendly is one of the few things you can control when you fly and it makes a huge difference.

The other less obvious reason for being friendly is a personal one for me. When you travel with a large and recognizable instrument like a cello, it’s like wearing a sign that says “hey, I’m a musician, I’m strange and exotic and you should ask me all about it.” While, that can often be annoying, it’s also a huge opportunity to draw people into the musical community. If a person has a friendly conversation with a random cellist, I would like to believe that they might be more willing to support a musician in the future or attend concerts. A fun way to deal with the annoying aspects of it all is to notice the repeated questions and keep a tally. On this trip, Heather and I have decided to keep track of two questions:

          “Don’t you wish you played the flute (or piccolo or harmonica)?”

          “Is that a guitar (or bass)?”

We’ve already gotten 2 of both :)

There are lots of other things that factor into flying such as how to safely pack your cello, what airlines are more cello friendly, gate checking, and flight cases. It’s a mess, but it’s all worth it because here I am in beautiful Montana preparing for our first concert!

~ Jen

Distance Practicing

When Jen and I met we were in the same place for almost two weeks.  As you can imagine it was not difficult for us to spend time together, practice, and plan.  However, once we went back to our respective homes on opposite sides of the country things became a little more difficult.  Not only were we planning a concert tour, we were also commissioning new pieces from three different composers from across the country.  Of course there were many phone calls and emails to put together our plans but, how were we going to practice?  We decided that the best thing to do would be to practice in 4 steps.

Step 1:  Jen and I practice at home on our own and learn the music really well. 

Step 2:  Jen sends me a recording of her playing with a metronome:  When I listened to the recordings, I decided to call Jen to ask a couple of questions about the tuning and timbre of her cello, specifically whether she was using equal temperament.  She described how strings and instruments with adjustable pitch are by nature not equally tempered, so that while she had chosen to tune her strings with equal temperament, she wasn’t tuning all of her chords, etc with equal temperament.  That was very important information for me, as I adjusted my intonation between her recordings and my piano.  I practiced with the recordings and then recorded over Jen’s part and sent it back to her so she could get an idea of my phrasing.

Step 3:  Jen and I talk on the phone about tempos:  It was important for us to get a head start on musical priorities and basic ideas before we began rehearsals in Montana.   Jen and I also had conversations about the extended techniques she would be using like sul ponticello and (especially) harmonics.

Step 4:   Coming soon…

-Heather

PS.  If you’re interested in learning more about temperament you can check out this website.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/190596/equal-temperament

PPS.  Here’s a video of Jen playing a piece Mischa Salkind-Pearl wrote for her that uses a lot of extended technique for the cello.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm6MgkWkfbg&feature=channel_video_title