Concerto

Throughout the fall I've been playing with the Collegium Musicum Almae Matris, which is the orchestra of the University of Bologna. I tried out back in October when I had about a month of Italian under my belt. I was able to find a trombone out here for a suspiciously cheap price, so I went ahead, bought it and began rehearsing a solo piece for my audition. The audition went well, and before I knew it, I was a card-holding member of the Collegium! My old Italian director Giancarlo Aquilanti would be so proud.

The piece we worked on most this fall was Requiem by Luigi Cherubini. This movement (Dies Irae) was my favorite:

Last Saturday, we performed Requiem and two other pieces, a Christmas tune and some choir song that didn't need the trombones to play. A ton of my fellow students came out to hear the concert which was really cool for me and the other SAIS student in the orchestra, Aurelien.

The concert's venue was in a spacious hall in the city that was kind of echo-y but had an magnificent and grand atmosphere. The opportunity to play music with Italians has really change up my normal routine of classes and studying and I've really appreciated it. Hopefully it'll continue to be awesome in 2011!