Anniversaries

Well, it’s been a few weeks since the last blog, life as they say is “going on” and on Monday it is a year since my first arrival in Trujillo.  What a year!  Getting started at the Conservatoire,  and  getting established in Trujillo,  getting serious with Nick, meeting Maestro Alvarez, developing a sound working relationship with the Trujillo Symphony Orchestra, taking a holiday in Colombia, joining Arpegio ………

The pictures in this blog are all taken from the "63rd annual Festival of Spring"  - Trujillo being the city of Eternal Spring!  The festival brings some 250,000 people to the city for the grand, chaotic three hour long procession.   Nick and I were a little late in trying find seats  - people put chairs outside their houses and sell you a seat! We bumped into a guy who was "selling"  his seats in the Pilsen Trujillo VIP stand,  he was selling as children were not allowed into the stand (yippee) because alcohol (Pilsen Trujillo Beer) was to be served (double yippee!) he was asking for S.10 (£2.50) per ticket. We happily paid and he then escorted us to the stand and we were admitted as "his friends".  On stand we were obliged to wear Pilsen Trujillo tee shirts and caps, BUT in return we got the best view and a constant supply of free beer and amazing food, all in all making it a wonderful afternoon.  Even if during the middle of it aloud speaker burst into flames causing a minor commotion.

Today,  sadly, maddening-ly, and frustrating-ly a flat I had hoped to rent has fallen through, and so have to shortly buy a copy of La Industria and start searching again, bit of a blow as the flat was within the right part of town and these are few and far between, so have had to widen the net a bit.  Have decided to try for a rather nice area of the city, which is about a 15 minute walk from the Conservatoire and maybe 20 from Arpegio.  The community known as San Andres,  which has the a large hypermarket a one extreme and the up-market supermarket Wong very central, there are also lots of open areas, quiet and well kept.   

I am/we are looking for what is called here a mini-departamiento, which is basically a one or two bedroom flat.  The norm is for three or four bedroom, so these smaller places are at a premium.  The second difficulty is that I need somewhere semi-amublado  (part furnished), I also need internet, cable TV, some form of hot water , an independent entrance and security.

I have managed to save enough money to buy a cooker, fridge/freezer, TV and have sufficient funds for bedding, crockery, kitchen stuff etc.  but the budget will be tight. Although great savings are going to be made by simply cooking at home and not eating out as I do currently two times a day every day!

Nick plans to join me around the end of November, which is going to be just great.  So another criteria is that we need an area of town convenient for Nick to get to work.

After almost three months with Arpegio I am still minus a contract and the promised visa is also stalled because of the lack of a contract, this is now my number one priority and need it to be sorted within the next 4 - 6 weeks.

At the moment I am in the midst of rehearsals for four concerts happening in the next four weeks, two with te Symphony and Two with Arpegio. Now, the most pressing of which is my  Trujillo Symphony Concert next Friday.  Entitled “Sonoridades” the blurb for it reads

Sonorities

300 years of orchestral sounds and textures

British conductor Michael Glenn Mott directs Trujillo  symphony orchestra in an exceptional concert of music spanning from baroque masters Vivaldi and Handel, through the 19^th and 20^th centuries to the ultra contemporary with works by three Peruvian composers..

With works by Handel, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Sibelius and Shostakovich are contrasted with first performances of works by Elizabeth Gil Diaz, Alberto Quispe Cardenas, and Teofilo Alvarez Alvarez this concert aims to show the breadth of musical expression capable as the orchestra developed in range and size over the past 300 years. 

Also featured for the first time in Peru is the charming Cello Concerto in g minor by Monn, played by Francis Alarcon.

All these selected works explore the possibilities of using the orchestra to paint pictures in sound, through, melody, textures and infinitely changing sonorities.

Michael Mott said “This is my third concert with the Trujillo Symphony Orchestra and it is an honour and a pleasure to be invited to lead them in this diverse programme especially as almost all the works are new for the orchestra.  The opportunity to give three first performances in one night is both exciting and challenging.”

It has been a bit frustrating for me as the rehearsals suffer from Peruvian time keeping and in one a two cases a seemingly lackadaisical approach to professionalism.  Somehow they have a got into a bit of a habit of only playing “good enough”  although when I can fire them up they do appreciate working hard and producing better results.  I really want them to achieve the very best, for themselves, for their audience, for me and for the music! On the night they always play better, but I so need that higher standard to apply at the rehearsals so that the concert can be EVEN better!

But I am so lucky in that their resident conductor and my good friend Maestro Alvarez is happy to provide me every opportunity to work with the orchestra and introduce them to new music, new standards and “new ways of doing”. So poco-a-poco (little by little).

At Arpegio things are slowly taking shape, I have made a couple of enemies, deflating egos, and again trying to get the orchestra on an even keel. But you cannot make an omlette without breaking eggs! It will only be in the new year that I shall start to make my presence felt so that by next April and the start of a new Academic Year we will have structures in place…….

So tomorrow is my anniversary of being in Trujillo, and on Tuesday Nick and I go out for dinner to celebrate our relationship’s first year of discovery and growth. 

So it’s been a year of some successes some failures, some frustration, some confusion but I would say that overall I am very happy and content and you can’t ask for more than that.

And now more local news:

Last weekend I was a juror for the IV National Singing Competition and spend three nights listening to 21 participants from all over Peru sing a Peruvian song and then an aria from an oratorio or opera. Great fun but very taxing especially as my fellow juror and I were listening for very different things, despite have a common marking pattern, so we had some very interesting discussions when we retired to consider our verdicts.   

However, in the end, we arrived a some very satisfactory winners and hope that this competition will aid the finalists in their future careers.  The tenors especially all wanting to emulate their fellow countryman Juan Diego Florez.

Yesterday night Nick and I made two impulse purchases for the new flat  (there was a sale on in Wong)and are now the proud owners of a very nice “Ships decanter” and a cocktail shaker. Two slightly frivolous purchases, but items we hope will get much use!  :-)

OK, and now I am off to buy a copy of La Industria and a good study of the flats for rent classified adverts.

More soon.