Burning question: When will winter end??????!!!!!!!
I went for 2 concerts (concert 3 and 4) from the Piano Landmarks concert series today (similar to Singapore's Piano Festival, but in one day instead of over 4 days), and it was just awesome!
We had Bach's preludes and fugues and 3-part inventions, etudes by Benjamin, Bartok and Stravinsky, Beethoven's Sonata Op.110 No.31 (my all-time favourite Beethoven sonata, especially the 1st movement), 2 concert etudes by Liszt, 2 Chopin pieces (I think they were mazurkas) for encore..........and not to mention a thunderous series of preludes by this guy called Sitsky (written in 1973). Which resulted in a massive round of applause for the wonderful pianist who attempted it so flawlessly......plus a broken string in the piano! The pianist was even cooler - he simply stopped at Prelude No.4 of the Sitsky series, ripped the broken string off the piano, and said nonchalantly, "By the way, we're at Prelude No.4." The whole audience just went crazy! After that he simply sat down and continued with Prelude No.5. He got an encore from us, of course.
I guess the Sitsky series was the highlight of today's concert series - at least for the ones I watched. It was like a massive thunderstorm - low and high dissonant chords across the keyboard, fast passages........it was just so fiery and full of energy! Hard to comprehend, but at least it was something new. I'll never forget the pianist's reaction to the broken string, and his flawless, enthusiastic attempt at such an immensely difficult series. And not to mention - his stamina! He was just.......high........!!!!!!!!!
This is the second time I'm seeing this pianist play. The first time was sometime in April, and he played a Prokofiev concerto, which was also really virtuostic, and he nailed it spot-on! He never fails to impress us!
I'll definitely be going for next year's Piano Landmarks! It's just so cool! Maybe I should go for the entire day next year! To make up for the 2 Piano Festivals which I missed.
Anyway, about a fortnight ago, I fell really sick - a serious bout of cold presumably from the entire college or something. Nasty cough, clogged-up ears (which remained clogged for quite a while and made me feel like Beethoven), runny nose..........and talking about runny nose - check out how much tissue I actually used over the entire week! The whole bag is literally chock-full with tissue!
On a side note, one of my awesome buddies put her Western Bulldogs scarf on her door and I could see it from across the courtyard! Pardon the horrible quality of the camera, but there's this blue scarf hanging on the door closest to the left......
Cherry blossoms are blooming now! I wonder if there's any other place in Melbourne that has more cherry blossoms! I would really like to bring my dSLR there and shoot as many pics as possible!
Also saw this really beautiful rose blooming in uni...
And talking about uni, say hi to Jumpy-Grumpy-Froggy-Smiley!!! We were experimenting on him - to investigate the effects of vasopressin (a hormone involved in water control) on cane toads. Here he is - sitting calmly in the container. He was so well-behaved!
I guess that's about it for now! Will post pictures of Piano Landmarks soon! Meanwhile, thanks lots for viewing and sorry for the delay! :)