Summer Teaching
Ah, I always think my summers are going to be laid-back and easy (an idea I probably got from summer vacation when I was an impressionable eight-year-old), but it always seems like I’m actually way busier in summers than in the “regular” concert season. This past month I’ve been completely swamped with finishing up my CD (I swear CD production must be akin to having a child: it’s a hundred times more work than you ever thought it was going to be, and you vow to yourself during the process that you’re never going to do it again, but, a year later, you’re thinking along the same lines of “wouldn’t it be great to…?” again…) and also teaching at a wonderful music camp down at Gustavus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.
I’ve been teaching at Lutheran Summer Music Academy, which is a month-long camp for high school musicians. I have to say I had the best time teaching there! My students were absolutely wonderful, and I’ve had a lot of fun teaching students who were bright, creative, interesting, and very amenable to new ideas. This has been the final week of LSM, and I spent the last couple days at Gustavus listening to student recitals; my students performed quite difficult music (Mozart concerti and some of the French conservatory pieces) in a very short amount of preparation time, so I’m very proud of all their hard work! The only thing I’m not sorry about leaving behind is the obnoxious 75 mile commute from Minneapolis, although I did rediscover my love for the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan en route.