Life at the Liszt Academy

Hello, it's me again! However this time I'm typing on a Hungarian keyboard so I bet proof-reading this post is going to take me a while... Having pledged you another post before Sunday, I then realised I actually don't have much time before then to get everything down into words! Although I don't feel ridiculously busy, I look back and notice that I've certainly squeezed a lot into the last few weeks. I also noticed I haven't told you much about studying yet so considering it's kind of the main reason I'm in Budapest, here's attempt no.2 to let you know what I've been up to;

Luckily after a few lessons I'm pleased to say I can now keep up with the pace of the BA2 Music Theory class, just about! We've covered harmonic analysis of Classical and Romantic styles of music and now we're learning how to analyse the form - binary, ternary and rondo so far. Sounds a lot like stuff we already learnt at school right? I thought so too but was proved very wrong when we used terms such as "periods" and "sentences" to describe shorter passages and even discovered mini ternary elements within a piece in ternary form - composers continue to amaze me. They are so much more intelligent than we realise when we just scratch the surface in listening to a piece!

Did I tell you students can get free tickets to ALL of the concerts held here at the Liszt Academy? Pretty cool right, so obviously I've been making the most of the opportunity. The highlight concert so far is definitely Máv Symphony orchestra when they played Dvorák symphony no.9 "New World". What a fantastic piece, especially when preceded by Elgar's cello concerto, what a wonderful evening! As we had bought tickets for this concert we had the privilege of sitting behind the stage so I rather enjoyed peering over the woodwind and brass section's shoulders to follow their music...

Piano recital

Despite the unbeatable sound of a full symphony orchestra, I've also been to a piano trio chamber concert (piano, violin, cello) and a solo piano recital as well as other orchestral works. There is certainly a strong theme of patriotism running through the concert programmes given the amount of Liszt and Bartók that is played! Kodály, Dohnányi and Ligeti also seem to be very popular and I just love how music is such a core part of the culture here, not least in the fact the concert hall is nearly always full (take note England) and there are so many streets and squares named after their composers, it makes me so happy!

Oh also, how could I forget to mention the beautiful Grand Hall and its attention to detail? I noticed during the interval of the last concert there are paintings depicting musical terms, as you can see here with "Scherzo", built into each corner for those in the balconies to enjoy! Student seats really are the best sometimes.

So last Friday we had a trumpet masterclass with Bruce Hellmers, former Principal trumpet of the Australian Opera and Ballet orchestra and fortunately for me, it was all in English hooray! I'm not sure how much some of the Hungarian students got out of it but I'm hoping they understood at least some of his expressions and the slightly odd accent... It was really nice to meet some more trumpet students anyway since I had only met my teacher's 3 other students up until then. Although I didn't play in the masterclass, I still benefited greatly from hearing other people play as everyone seems to be playing the same 2 pieces in preparation for the competition in December, myself included. I'm going to be sick of hearing the Haydn and Böhme trumpet concertos by the end of this term!

Other things at the Liszt Academy you might ask? They're all pretty cool too, I just can't go into detail about them all or we'll be here all night. Trumpet lessons are kind of important though and the delights of having 2 a week mean I tend to put in twice as much work as I normally would! They're good fun and generally consist of me playing something (not up to standard 90% of the time) followed by my teacher playing it perfectly and giving me direction to improve combined with mutual translation lessons of a variety of words! Teaching him "diaphragm" was hilarious.

Time to go and practice again and then watch the Budapest Gypsy Orchestra in concert, have a great weekend!

S x

Half of a fortnight

It's been a mixed few weeks. Don't get me wrong, I still love Budapest but I guess now I've settled into a routine the ups and downs of daily life seem more significant than they were! Having said that, an explosion right next to your university isn't exactly what you would call "normal daily life". So that was strange and pretty sad. Two police officers were injured and although it was initially thought to be a gas explosion, later theories are that a home-made bomb was the cause due to a large amount of nails found at the scene and witnesses. You can obviously read more on the media pages but that caused a bit of disruption and a less positive atmosphere over the weekend. Shame to start on a negative but I'm sure prayers for the two police officers would be appreciated.

Moving on to more cheerier topics, a highlight of last week was when my Mum and younger brother, David, came to visit! It was great to see some familiar, British faces and in between my studying I enjoyed showing them round the city I've come to know and love. On Thursday afternoon we walked up to Heroes' square and round the city park, where I went on my own first day in Budapest! As autumn is well on it's way it looked a bit different compared to during the summer. The leaves have started changing colour and there was a festival with lots of stalls selling food and agricultural things which took up most of the castle grounds! They did have some pretty adorable displays though...

Vegetable train!

With my mother on a boat in front of
parliament.

The following day we took a sight-seeing boat up the Danube, stopping off at Margít Híd (St Margaret Island) so my visitors could see the main sights of Budapest and we enjoyed a lovely lunch of Lángos - basically deep fried dough served with a variety of toppings. So unhealthy but so delicious! During their stay we also trekked up to the castle district to see Buda Castle and the wonderful view of the city and just generally had a great time catching up. Although I haven't really missed home, it's always nice to see your family again!

Since I'm doing 2 weeks in one go I'm struggling to remember everything I've done in that time so this will likely be highlights and may have another post to come shortly covering the other half/study-related parts!

Now this Saturday just gone was the 1st October. I wore shorts and sandals and had a wonderful day in the sunshine with my girl friends Ellé and Salina. Today, October 5th it was 10 degrees celsius and I had my warmest scarf and boots on. How on earth does the weather change so rapidly?! At least it's predictable. And it's not raining, unlike England. Anyhow, we went on an adventure to Óbuda Island, which required taking a suburban railway train! It's a bit further up the Danube and a lot more natural due to the lack of mainstream tourists. I even had a lovely paddle in the river, which I definitely wouldn't do in the Thames. Continuing the nature theme we then headed to Városmajor to hop on the Cog wheel tram, which took us up into the Buda hills and enabled us to reach Normafa - a fantastic viewing point with various trails leading off into the woods, it felt like we could have been deep in the countryside! I do love getting out of the city into the beautiful nature that is all around us and I'm so thankful that Budapest provides such an easy access way of doing this.

360 rooftop bar

Final thing for this post as it's getting late, I went somewhere cool on Friday night - yes, another cool place in Budapest, who would've thought? Following our Erasmus welcome meeting (including free food!) we went out to celebrate a birthday in the group and headed to the 360 rooftop bar. As the name suggests, this is a bar on a roof with a 360 degree view all the way round of Budapest. Because it was dark when we arrived, we only saw the lit up parts of the city but that was pretty cool anyway and it would be strange going to a bar in the day time, right? Sadly my phone memory has been filling up quickly so I don't have any pictures of the view but here's one of the cute set up.

Well, I've booked practice at 9am tomorrow so I'll have to shoot off for some shut-eye but I'm going to pledge another post to you before Sunday as there has been lots of musical excitement happening as well! Hope you're having a wonderful autumn.

S x

View of the Chain Bridge from
the boat.

Part of Buda Castle I hadn't seen
before.

A Brit in Budapest

It's now the 18th September and I've just got home from lunch with church friends. I'm pretty sleepy as I got up to practice before church and I'm going to a concert later, maybe I'll have a nap after writing this...

Liszt Academy Grand Concert Hall

The weeks are flying by! I realised on Wednesday that it was nearly 2 weeks since I last blogged and just can't keep up with where the time is going! However, that means I've had significant progression in terms of sorting out my timetable and getting settled into some sort of routine and it's lovely to be feeling settled into the Academy as well now. My first proper Monday with classes was a shocker - 4.5 hours of music theory with only half an hour break! Yes, that was intense. Luckily I won't have that every week as I'm only going to take one music theory class and I can go to the other one if I want to practice simpler stuff or learn solfege. Thank goodness Erasmus allows for freedom in that respect! I am also really fortunate to have 2 individual trumpet lessons per week - that's definitely a motive to practice regularly! My teacher plays with the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and really seems to know what he wants so lessons are challenging but also very rewarding when I've put the work in. We're currently working on the Haydn trumpet concerto and I had never before realised how difficult it is to play well! Technically it isn't that hard but style is key to creating a good performance. I will also be learning the Böhme trumpet concerto in preparation for a competition against trumpet students from all over Hungary in December - scary but exciting!
I experienced the Liszt Academy main concert hall on Thursday - Hungarian Radio Symphony orchestra performed Brahms symphonies 1 and 3. The acoustics were fab and you can see how beautiful the hall is itself!

Of course, alongside all the studying I have had a bit of time for socialising and eating in many different, lovely places. About a week ago I went with my good friend Ellé to a small Hungarian restaurant near the Liszt Academy main building.We each tried a typical Hungarian dish with "noodles" - Chicken paprika for Ellé and Beef Goulash for me - and we each had a drink. TOTAL price was 2745Ft, sounds a lot right?
But when 330 Ft = £1, work it out... We couldn't believe it either.
Mind. Boggled.

Wood carving, photo
credit; Elle Crowhurst

I love trying new food, especially when it's cheap, but this stuff was cheap and absolutely delicious and I'll definitely be going there again! Or maybe every week...

Anyway just yesterday some friends and myself decided to be cultured and we went to Bela Bartók road in search of a Polish festival we had seen advertised. Unfortunately the weather was miserable and in true Hungarian style, no-one had any idea what was going on... Never fear, we wandered around and found a wood carving place so decided to have a go, but we didn't anticipate how hard it would be! Following this, I had my first experience of a Hummus bar and I was pleasantly surprised.

I'm not usually a huge hummus fan but when coupled with mushrooms and lots of pitta bread I was very satisfied! Following this we visited the Sweet Days Chocolate Festival held outside St Stephen's Basilica which looked and smelt amazing. I only had a little pot of melted chocolate but there were so many different types including donuts with a variety of chocolate toppings, YUM.

That's all for now folks, time to head off for some more practice and a possible nap I mentioned... Have a good week!

S x

CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL!

I have survived 2 weeks...

Funnily enough, I have more than survived, I still feel like I'm on holiday!

Reality has almost hit in that I'm actually getting prepared for studying hard now, but how can I not be happy when I'm studying at such an incredible institution? The past week has been intense but such a great learning curve for what to expect over the next 4 months (well, 3.5 months now). Choir was all in Hungarian, except when he gave bar numbers to start from if he was feeling kind! I don't profess to be a singer and sight-singing at full speed on it's own usually proves to be a challenge. Add to that a completely foreign language where 's' is 'sh', 'cs' is 'ch' and 'a' is 'o' and my mind is truly boggled. Luckily, I've made friends with some native speakers and some fellow Erasmus students, so I can ask for help simultaneously struggling in good company! Lots of practice to be done and I've not even started the trumpet lessons yet...
However, they will start on Friday and after hearing some of the students warming up yesterday, I'm definitely cramming in as much practice as I possibly can before then. I really can't wait to get stuck in and motivated, it's like starting university all over again! (I have already warned my parents there's a strong possibility I might stay here forever.) The only thing I'd need to get used to is the laid back atmosphere, which I have experienced even more of. I suppose it can only be good for you though right? A relaxed attitude leads to a relaxed mind or something like that.

Speaking of relaxation, if you're ever in Budpest you should go to the Citadel, simply for the view. We went just before sunset and saw this beautiful city in daylight and also after the sun had dropped behind the mountains and the main buildings and bridges were lit up. If you're able to hike up lots of stairs, 100% would recommend.
I continued my adventures at the weekend mainly on the Buda side of the river. Here I headed up to the Castle district to see St Matthias church, Buda Castle and Fisherman's Bastion with the last being my favourite because of it's beautiful views and charming appearance. On the way back home I stopped by St Stephen's Basilica and although I didn't go inside, the outside is pretty cool to look at. I also had a fantastic time with 2 new friends being big kids at the water park on St Margaret Island (different place to last time) where they had 4 big slides, a lazy river and a wave machine! I'm so glad I made the most of the weekend as the weather turned for worse on Monday, boooo. But I suppose my English mind had been deprived of rain and I'll appreciate the sun more when it (hopefully) returns tomorrow.
I haven't taken any pictures of food unfortunately, but trust me when I tell you it's great. Maybe I'll do a whole post on food at some point mmmm.

S x

Fisherman's Bastion

Statue at the Citadel

St Matthias church

St Stephen's Basilica

Buda Castle

Prepare for excitement overload in 3, 2, 1...

Budapest is AMAZING!


Seriously, just look at it!
More photos at end.

So I arrived on Tuesday evening and first impressions were average, and got slightly worse when I ended up buying tomato purée instead of pasta sauce and sour cream instead of natural yoghurt. Note to anyone going abroad; learn food words in the foreign language or take a dictionary to avoid disappointment!


Dinner disasters aside, Wednesday is when it all really began with tourist mode switched on; map and camera at the ready! Naturally, the Yorkshire in me decided to head towards greenery first so I walked up to the city park - Városliget - to enjoy the weather a bit (clear blue skies and up to 30 degree heat so far). Being greeted by lovely fountains was wonderful but I was amazed by Vajdahunyad Castle and it's fairy tale-like qualities. An absolute gem. I also had the delight of a short Bach organ concert in the chapel at lunchtime!
I somehow managed to spend just about all day in and around the park, seeing other famous tourist attractions such as Heroes' square and spotted the zoo (but I'm saving that for a day trip with friends).

Shameless selfie

Day 2 was more of the old one foot in front of the other because Budapest is a relatively small city (compared to London anyway) so it's possible to walk to most places from where I'm staying! I don't think I really had a plan in mind except to eventually end up at the river Danube, so I walked A LOT. It was really great to explore and I just loved seeing all the amazing architecture around the city! I found the main Liszt Academy building which is pretty incredible, the Opera house, walked through the Jewish district, stopped off to dip my feet in the fountains at Erzsébet tér - Elizabeth Square - then made it to the river and where the Parliament building is! Ok, so I know Westminster is on the river and looks quite grand but when you compare it to Budapest, well... I've still yet to see it at night, but I cannot wait.

So Friday was basically more touristy stuff too, BUT I found a Tesco on my way home and managed to buy some yoghurt, hooray! Yes, I now have a list of essentials translated in my handbag, classic Brit.

I had a bit more of a rest on Saturday and then found a huuuuge shopping centre near my flat so spent some time there and was amazed by the number of familiar shops I found! Oh I also had my first "Brexit" comment - Hungarian forints used to be over 400 to the pound, now they're 330. Let's not dwell on that slight negative ay?  To be fair, both numbers aren't the easiest exchange rate to work with!

Sunday (today) was a great day and I am now super ready to get enrolled tomorrow and get stuck into studying. I had a great time at Danube International Church and even met someone who is also going to the Liszt Academy! Lunch in a Greek restaurant, great conversations and a beautiful walk home through Budapest is more than I can ask for.

Lots of touristy photos for your amusement (check out the giraffe hedges) and I will report back next week!
Apologies for all the exclamation marks, you were warned of excitement.

S x


 

Heroes' Square

Opera House

Vajdahunyad Castle

P.S. I'm really bad at formatting pictures, any advice on how to use blogspot to make the layout better? Thanks!

The Trip of a Lifetime

So it's been a while since my last post and now I've finished second year at Trinity Laban with a very pleasing set of results... and now I'm going on the trip of a lifetime!

Many of my friends and family already know but Tuesday sees me off to Budapest, Hungary to study at a top class Conservatoire for one semester -excited doesn't even cover it! I think the best way to keep everyone in the loop and show off all my adventures and progress is via the internet so I look forward to sharing more on here in the coming months.

Yes, I have learnt a bit of Hungarian and I will endeavour to improve that as I go as well! For now, I need to finish packing and saying goodbye to people (party tonight!)

Szia!

Helloooo 2016!

And Helloooo to January exams, deadlines and more crazy weeks! Yes, the new year is wonderful in so many ways - resolutions, new goals, reflecting on the past year etc, but sadly for Conservatoire students with it comes the daunting prospect of the dreaded "Orchestral excerpts exam" and other deadlines depending on your year. For me this meant the Applied Musicianship arranging assignment, which you'll understand more about in a short while... I have also been up to loads of other stuff I hope you'll enjoy hearing about.


Due to the messed up order of my blogging recently, you'll find more information about the orchestral excerpts exam in the post entitled "Back in the swing of things".


As for Applied Musicianship, well I actually quite enjoyed this assignment apart from the fact it was to be assessed... I love arranging music and writing the occasional piece (usually a fanfare) so when we were asked to write a theme and variations I was quite excited. Using the theme from Mozart's Voi Che Sapete (an Aria from his Marriage of Figaro Opera) - look it up if you don't know it - we had to employ a range of different textural ideas throughout at least 4 variations composing for 4 instruments or more in the Wind and Brass department. I chose to compose for brass quintet as I know the capabilities of these instruments well. Before the assignment began we were taught a few techniques to arranging this style of piece so had some ideas to get running with so I incorporated things like giving the melody to the bass, modulating to the relative minor, embellishing the main tune, turning it into a waltz and also exploring the different possibilities for the harmonic basis. I was quite pleased with the outcome and you never know, you may hear my brass quintet playing it at some point!


You may remember I work with and old people's group called "Young at Heart" on a fortnightly basis and this term I am involved again, however this time we have been working on a collaborative project with a special needs school. This has meant going to both centres to work with the groups individually on some musical ideas, then recording and sharing them. I played my trumpet to the children in the first session and they loved it! I don't think they'd ever heard one live before so it was truly amazing to see the joy on their faces. Returning to the elderly people, we took a Samba kit in with us last week and I could not believe how much they enjoyed themselves - it was mainly the deaf ones having a go to be honest!


Recently I've taken on a temporary private student as well, covering for another teacher while they're away - more experience on the cards and a lovely student to teach, looking forward to seeing him progress!


On Saturday I played "Prince of Denmark's March" for a wedding - good practice in preparation for my Trumpet and Organ concert in August, did I tell you about that?!


Just realised I must dash as I have a meeting with the careers advisor to help update my CV and create a suitable one for my Erasmus application - have a great day!


S x

What happened to the end of 2015?

So much happened in the last few months of 2015 - here's an attempt at summarising!

Remembrance Sunday; the day/week when every trumpeter ends up playing the Last Post somewhere - Department for Education at Westminster for me!

Engaging Audiences/Supersonics Workshop; prepared and performed a 40 minute interactive concert to a class of primary school children as part of the Reception & Interpretation module as a second year at Conservatoire.

RAF in Concert; I got to see my favourite band performing at Cadogan Hall again!

Album Release; played in the backing group for Dave Bilbrough's latest album release in Brick Lane.

Admin task; I was employed by my Head of Department to complete an admin task involving orchestral excerpts and a LOT of printing, I'm glad that's over!

Recording; the band "Little Blue Light" asked me to record the trumpet line in one of their tracks for the new album. Lovely group of people, nice tunes!

Tchaik 6 concert; on the same day as the recording I helped out University College London (UCL) in their symphony orchestra concert where we performed Tchaikovsky symphony no.6 (my favourite symphony by Tchaik!) at St Pancras Church.

Carol concerts; the December carol concert total this time was 9...2 in brass quintets, 2 as solo trumpet & organ, 1 in the local church mix of brass and woodwind, 1 in a brass band and 3 where I was allowed to be part of the audience/congregation! I think I did my fair share of carols. Oh, we also went carol singing around the village to raise money for Save the Children!

Luckily things calmed down a bit after that and I was able to relax after Christmas before returning to the mayhem of London in the New Year! I've noticed that a lot of what I ramble on about actually isn't Conservatoire stuff directly, but it's all related right? Hope you've enjoyed this whistle-stop tour of my trumpet student life during November and December and I'll get you up to date with January very soon!

S x

Back in the swing of things

Wow I didn't realise how long it had been since I'd posted! So much has happened since November as you can imagine so the next few posts will probably be a bit disjointed or working in reverse chronological order - hope you can keep up!

Performing Trumpet Tune at
 Carols by Candlelight with
Philip Wilby

Yesterday I had my orchestral excerpts exam (mid-year minor assessment) and I'm very pleased to say that it went fairly well. The extracts I played were; 1812 Overture - Tchaikovsky, Ravel's Bolero and his Piano Concerto in G major, Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel Overture & "Ralalala" and Beethoven's Symphony no.9. Now if you remember, back in November I was looking for a D/Eb trumpet to purchase and I'm delighted to say that a great deal popped up and I jumped at the chance so I was able to choose and play excerpts on my new D trumpet! It's been challenging but very exciting learning to play a new instrument relatively quickly and it means I can expand my repertoire and range of styles further. Over the Christmas period I was also fortunate enough to perform with Philip Wilby at a few local church events. His daughter had arranged "In the First Light" for choir, piano and D trumpet (signifying the angels), in which I was asked to play. Philip and I also performed Handel's "O had I Jubal's Lyre" and Purcell's "Trumpet Tune" for trumpet and organ along with some descants to the carols during the services - quite a lot of playing in the end! It was a joy to work with someone as talented, professional and down to earth as Philip, whose brass band compositions I have experienced on several occasions.

Before I start waffling on even more, I'll let you know that in a few weeks I will be starting a new blog about my CoLab project (15th-19th Feb) called "Dans le Noir" so look out for that!

Now then, what else to tell you of the many things I've been up to? I suppose the biggest thing to do with Conservatoire life currently is that I've applied to the Erasmus scheme which means I may be studying abroad for a term next academic year! I had an interview today with the programme leader to find out if I'm a suitable candidate and apparently I am (yay!) so the next step is to create an impressive recording and send it with an application to my 3 choices. Aarhus in Denmark is my favourite place from the research I've done, hoping to study under Kristian Steenstrup whose Breathing exercises and teaching methods are said to completely change your outlook on playing the instrument. There are loads of ensemble opportunities and the Academy regularly plays with the Resident professional symphony orchestra as well as a military band who are always asking for student deps (ideal for me as I want to join a military band after graduating!). It would also be sooo cool to live in Denmark for a while and experience the different culture and no doubt they speak better English than we do... Hopefully you'll be hearing more about this so I'll make sure to keep you updated with where I'm at! For now though, I need to practice something that's not excerpts to return myself to a relatively sane state. You'll hear from me soon!


S x