Well, after I left off, Nicole and I got lots of use out of our umbrellas as we walked in the rain to the Philharmonic Hall. We had warmup times back to back, and I didn’t want to be responsible for getting myself there, so I went early. The warmup went ok.. the one assistant was great, and the other one was in another world….. so I was worried about that for the performance, and was hopeful that the judges have mercy. I had tons of time before I played, so we went to the coffee shop close to the Philharmonic Hall that had free wi-fi.
Eventually it came time to play- I was thankful to talk to Dr. Higdon (one of the KU professors who is on the jury), who told me to just make it exciting, and then met the President of the Jury (Ludger Lohmann) at the door going in, who wished me luck, and that was scary! Anyway, I got to the bench, and handed my sheet of registrations (stop combinations) to Alex, the good assistant so she could start to set the Liszt. The first piece was Bach, and I thought that one went really well. Next was Bohm, and that wasn’t bad. Then was the Liszt. This is where I needed to rely on both assistants.. and was completely scared. This wasn’t my best performance of this piece, as there were some really stupid mistakes, but there were some nice moments. And, because of the lame assistant, some of the registrations were a little off. Finally, was Hakim, and we had to reset all the combinations in between…. And I decided to trust the lame assistant to make sure things were actually set.. and as I was playing, I found out, that they weren’t really set right. There was a place that was supposed to be FF and it was more like piano…. And considering I hadn’t played this piece on that organ since my Saturday warm-up time shortly after I got here, I guess it wasn’t too bad. After playing, and knowing about the background of some of the people here, I knew it would take a miracle to make the finals, and I’m ok with that. I also realized too that most of the problems were beyond my control.
Anyway, after Simon played, we went to eat at a weird little restaurant close to the hotel. I had chicken that was delicious!
Yesterday Simon and I decided to go out and try to find the infamous “Titanic” restaurant. We walked exactly to where it was, and realized that it must’ve closed years ago, or something…. So we settled on the coffee shop with free wi-fi (it’s a chain, and there’s lots of them around). On the way back, we decided to check out the market we saw.. wow. It was unbelievable. It was huge, and a variety of stuff… it was kind of like an outlet mall, but outdoors and in small booths- there was everything from fruit, to sweaters, etc. After that, we walked back to the hotel and I went over to the mall across the street to use the free wi-fi and people watch. It was interesting, a lady who I’m pretty sure is a beggar, was sitting near where I was counting change.. it looks like begging for money is a pretty productive business here!
Eventually, Simon and I headed back to the Philarmonic Hall to listen to some playing, but stopped to eat at a restaurant called “Pizza Club” (yay English) on the way. We made it to hear the last two people play, both were very interesting players.
There was an awkward amount of time to kill in between, so we went to the coffee shop with free wi-fi again before heading back to catch the results. Anyway, none of the three of us advanced. I’m totally ok with not advancing, because that means that we get to go to the Baltic Sea for a free and fun day with the jury, and other competition organizers. I’m really looking forward to that! Whereas, the finalists have to stay here and practice… so, I think we’re getting the better end of the deal!
Last night when we got back to the hotel, we met up with a person from Finland and one from the Czech Republic and hung out for awhile, which was lots of fun. We decided to have a “not making the finals” celebration.
Now I’m getting ready for the trip out to the Baltic.. stay tuned to hear about that adventure. It’s hard to believe how fast this trip has went! Monday afternoon I’ll be on my way back to the U.S., arriving in Kansas on Tuesday morning!
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