Spring Break was the week of March 3-7. Far too early for it to be called "spring" anything in Northeastern Nebraska, but I digress. I spent the majority of that vacation in the car, having gone to Lincoln for Nebraska Bandmaster's association the first weekend, then working the Wayne State Middle School Music Festival on Tuesday, then driving to Iowa City to visit my wife, and finally heading to Omaha for a concert on Friday then back to Wayne that evening.
A bit about that concert... I got a plea over TubeNet a couple of months ago from a member of a band called Slavic Soul Party! who desperately needed a tuba or sousaphone for their Omaha gig on Friday, March 7. I agreed to bring one of Wayne State's sousas down and they promised me free tickets to the show. It was an amazing experience. SSP, to boil it down, take the Eastern European brass band tradition and blend it with aspects of modern music (funk, rock, jazz, etc.) and the result is surprisingly spectacular. Anyone who digs a good groove would like SSP. Check their website out.
The following week I got to attend Tubonium6, at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. Tubonium is a tuba/euphonium convention hosted annually by Paul Budde, Professor of Tuba and Euph at GAC. I've attended Tubonium for the past few years and each year has been a fantastic experience. This year's guest artists were Dan Perantoni from Indiana University, Brian Bowman from North Texas and John Stevens from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I returned home from Tubonium late Saturday evening and immediately began preparations for John Manning's recital here at Wayne State. Being my most recent former teacher at Iowa (and just a great guy) John offered to do a recital and masterclass here. Naturally I accepted, and so on Monday (St. Patrick's Day) John presented a recital and asked me to play on some duets. We had a great time, as you'll see from the photos we took:
(In case you're wondering, that's my M-W gang sign, for the brand of tubas I play: Meinl-Weston.)
So basically, I've been running myself ragged over the past few weeks. In addition to that, the water heater died at my place over the Tubonium weekend and so I was bathing 18th century style, using hot water from a pot I heated on the stove. So the crazy schedule combined with no hot water combined with a brief return to winter temperatures conspired to make me pretty sick, which is where I am now. I took one day off (all I'll allow) to recover which, sadly, hasn't totally happened yet. When I got to take a hot shower on Wednesday (my first one since Saturday) it was a near religious experience. I stayed in for like 20 minutes, which Lauren will tell you is a LONG time for me.
Speaking of Lauren, the best news of all from the previous few weeks... she gets to keep her job at Percussion Source! She'll be able to work remotely from Wayne, which means out financial outlook is quite good at the moment. The next step is buying a house, and we're closing in on that, too.
Hooray for progress!
