Saintes, JOA, Lille and the journey

I returned yesterday evening after being in France and coincidentally Brussels for two weeks. The coincidence occurred because I took a train from Lille, a northern French city, to Brussels and was supposed to change trains to one going to Cologne. The train to Lille came late from Marseilles and so we arrived 20 minutes late to Brussels and I'd already missed the connection. They put me on a 5:30 PM train but I had the feeling that I'd not have a connection to Detmold, so I called Frederika (my Belgian cellist friend who lives in Brussels with her Italian boyfriend, Alessandro), but she was unreachable due to a master class at the conservatory. Thankfully, I had the number of Alessandro and phoned him; normally he is working in Ghent during the day, but he happened to be home and in front of the internet, so he looked at all the connections, informed me that I'd have 3 minutes to catch the train in Cologne = not happening, and invited me to stay the night at their place. Frederika arrived home a few hours later, surprised (pleasantly, I think!), and invited Mathilde and Benoit (my other Belgian cellist friend from my first year in Detmold, and her boyfriend) for dinner. It ended up being a great night - just goes to show that everything really does happen for a reason. I spent the first week in France in Saintes, a beautifully coastal city about 4 hours southwest of Paris. I was playing in a classical period orchestral festival with a French conductor (he is actually half-American) named Marc Minkowsky. The orchestra was called Jeune Orchestre Atlantique (Atlantic Youth Orchestra), or JOA, and it's part of a year-long series of courses in early music. Phillippe Herreweghe, a celebrated Flemish conductor, is the artistic overseer of the whole organization (called Stages), and conducts during Saintes' summer festival (Festival Saintes) in July. That was originally the course that I'd hoped to do because it's during the heart of this great festival, but with Ajay Bhaiya's wedding and all, I knew it wouldn't work out, so I chose to do this Stages program instead. We stayed in a beautiful old monastery where we also rehearsed and ate, and enjoyed 2 days out of 4 there with nearly 70 F (20 C) temperatures! These four days were crazy with nearly 7-8 hours of rehearsing daily. Yoga saved my back, I must say. The last three days consisted of concerts in Saintes itself (in the beautiful large Gothic church of the monastery), Chatelaillon (about 1 hour from Saintes and right on the beach, so I collected oyster shells during our break), and Paris (Salle Gaveau - they also put us up in a very expensive hotel on the Seine River for 1 night after the concert). We played Mozart's Haffner Serenade, the Concerto for Flute & Harp, and Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, all with gut strings, classical bows, and 430 tuning. Gut strings are literally made from the insides of an animal as opposed to what we use today (steel or synthetic strings), so they are much more difficult to control/stay in tune. The classical bow is an early predecessor to the modern one, but with different balancing properties, so it is also much harder to control simply because you have to feel it a bit differently. 430 tuning is basically a 1/2 step lower than the normal pitch (generally between 440-443), and musicians' highly trained and 440+ accustomed ears have a hard time with it at first. After the festival, I restored my quasi-period instrument back to its normal state with modern strings and played with my modern bow, and it took me a good hour to get used to 440 pitch again. All in all the experience was positive - some of our mentors weren't my favorite people, but I did learn a lot and the people in the orchestra were lovely. Mostly French, but there was also a large number of Spaniards and a few Dutch, English, American, and Swedish people. I made some good friends there, and in fact will see the two Dutch girls in Utrecht in a few weeks! After the concerts, I headed to Lille to see Cristina (my Spanish violist roommate) and Pierre Emmanuel (her French bassist boyfriend who plays in the orchestra in Lille). We spent a fun & relaxing three days together, and I enjoyed seeing Lille again. Some of you may recall that I was already there last spring during our semester break, but I enjoyed Lille more this time - probably because during the first time, I was only there for a day. All in all, the travels were interesting (photos to come: www.geetaabad.shutterfly.com - also Bremen, London, China, and India - I have A LOT of uploading to do) and my comprehension of the French language great improved (rehearsals were about 60% in French). I'm here in Detmold for my birthday (this Friday the 7th) and then visiting my cousin Shashwati for 5 days until the 13th...and then it's off to Utrecht, Holland and then TURKEY!