Picking Up the Pieces

It arrived via UPS today! It's published by Sikorski Musikverlage in Hamburg, Germany, so everything is in German. Good thing music is a universal language! Known as " Dance of the Dolls ," "Dances of the Dolls," or "Seven Dolls' Dances," this suite is taken from orchestral arrangements of Shostakovich orchestral works. I don't know which works ... but I will know soon. Just give me some time to research them! This is definitely an easier collection than anything I've played in a long time, and I am thrilled about that. I sight-read all 22 pages tonight (total of seven miniatures), and nothing in it seems too technically difficult. Ah ... but the interpretation is going to be the fun part! And I do mean fun . You can hear excerpts from a few of the selections here . Practiced about two hours yesterday and about three hours today (not including the leisurely Shostakovich sight-read). I'm really working on the relaxation techniques in P

I say that my blog sabbatical is over, but the truth is, I'm going to be computer-less and piano-less all weekend. I'm posting tonight and I hope to post tomorrow, but I won't be able to practice or post again until Monday. So I'll write a really long post now ... to make up for my dismal lack of posts recently, and to give my huge audience (ha) something to chew on for the next few days. :) Enough of that. On to the combined lesson/practice report. My lesson was yesterday. Deborah played me a Ginastera piece she is working on. She's exhilarated at how everything has unfolded regarding her upcoming concert in Asheville. The local NPR station is now sponsoring it as a benefit, and they're going to take care of a lot of the marketing. She's playing an all-Spanish program (composers from the Americas and Spain), with an emphasis on tango. Just a couple of days ago, the Asheville Citizen-Times ran an article on the growing popularity of tango ... so the local N