Northwestern University Highlights

Seriously, there is so much to write about our trip, and I don't know where to start, so I'll just make a super long list.  None of these things are in any particular order.

1.  Flying.  We made all of our flight connections.  Thank goodness.  We didn't check a single bag.

2.  Rehearsals.  We sat in on the craziest orchestra rehearsal.  The concert was the following evening, and the rehearsal was completely devoted to the concerto winner, a clarinetist.  First off, this guy was very kooky looking--there's no way to describe him.  However, I had no idea that a clarinet could be played the way that he played it.  Fast, crazy, high.  The orchestral accompaniment, while difficult and obviously challenging for all involved, sounded like a combination of 80's horror movie and the "Psycho" soundtrack.  I told Mark that I felt like I was living in the head of a serial killer after listening to that for two hours.

3.  Relief.  Of course, there's nothing like a pretty girl to wipe away all that weirdness from a teenage boy's mind.  On the way back to the car, and discussing the craziness of the piece, a gorgeous girl overheard us talking about it.  She decided to just walk with us.  Turns out, she is a junior, and a violist.  Surprise, surprise, she has blonde hair.  What's up with all the beautiful, friendly, blonde violists?? :-)  Anyway, she answered every question we had about the Bienen School of Music and was a pure delight.

4.  Distractions.  When we were almost to our car, I was distracted from our conversation by two things:  a parking ticket, and a dead squirrel.  I looked across the street to our car and was dismayed to see a big purple parking ticket on the window.  I had checked to make sure that we were parking legally.  What was up with that?  At the same time, I looked down and saw the dead corpse of a squirrel.  I know, gross right?  This was beyond gross.  I don't know if it was black because it had black fur, or because it had been mauled or frozen and turned black.  It was frozen solid.  As Mark put it, it was the most random thing ever.  Of course, neither of us let on that we saw it, nor admitted our fascination with it with the beautiful violist around.  However, Mark went back afterwards and took a picture of it.  Please don't think less of us :-)

5.  Thankfully, the parking ticket ended up being a pamphlet for a senior center in the area.  Whew...

Gail Williams

6.  Audition.  Mark had a great audition.  I heard several horns in the practice rooms, and I could hear bits and pieces coming out of the studio.  He sounded better than everyone I heard.  He says he made several mistakes, but sitting around the corner, I didn't hear many of them.  Gail was so smiley after his audition (which I hadn't seen after the others), and the crazy thing?  There was a Master's student (who was auditioning after Mark) who came up to me during Mark's audition and asked if Mark had gone to Interlochen.  Yes. Why?  Turns out, he had been one of Mark's counselors at Interlochen during Mark's first year there (when he was an Intermediate).  Mark tells me that he had actually pulled out a horn duet book back then and played some duets with Mark.  As he went into his audition, Mark was coming out and they were able to reunite right there in Gail Williams' studio.  She thought it was all very entertaining.  She wished us safe travels.

The details about the audition?  Mark played his two solos (Mozart and Bernhard Krol).  Gail could see that he was still struggling with his initial attacks and had him sing parts of the music.  When he played again, it was perfect.  A good sign that he's teachable.  Too, he only played one etude (Maxime-Alphonse) and two orchestral excerpts (Brahams and Til Eulenspiegel).  It's obvious that she likes Mark.

Mark went in prepared with two questions:  are the kids pretty cut throat with each other (like many are at Interlochen), and do the horn kids have any other interests, or things they do besides music?  She said that she makes sure that they get away from music for some time, and her favorite way to get them away?  Take them to a Northwestern football game.  Woot!  She then shared a story with Mark which showed her opinions about cut throat individuals.  In a master class once, a senior was very critical of a freshman's playing.  Gail told him that if she ever heard anything like that from any of the seniors, she would take all of the seniors out of the orchestra and put them back in band while taking the freshmen they would be replacing and letting them play in orchestra for the rest of the year.  Done!  That's what we're talkin' about!

7.  Helicopter Moms.  I'm awfully glad I'm not a "helicopter" mom.  I think I could be if I didn't care what my kids would think, but I do, so I'm not.  Mark showed up for his audition a few minutes early, and he didn't want to stand outside the door and listen.  In fact, to NOT hear a horn, you have to travel quite a ways away.  So, we headed down to the end of the hall and I pulled out "Blue" on the iPod.  Not having brought headphones, it was just on the speaker.  Not very loud, but loud enough that we could hear it.  Mark started dancing.  All of a sudden, this mom rushes up to us and tells us to turn it down.


Was she serious?  I could hardly hear it, and I was holding the darn thing.

We turned it down, Mark finished his dance and we headed back.  6 doors down, I saw the woman, her entire body leaning against the door of the studio where her daughter was auditioning with her ear pressed up against the wood.  Oh, heaven help her.  I couldn't handle that kind of stress, and I'm glad that I trust my kids to handle things on their own.

8.  Giordano's Pizza.  If you've been to Chicago before, no more explanation is needed.  For those of you who haven't been, or never tasted this pizza, it's an experience to treasure.  It's called "stuffed" pizza, and it's literally layers and layers of cheese and toppings in a pie crust.  It's what fudge is to chocolate, but with pizza.  We headed there for dinner.  While waiting for our pizza to come out, I noticed that Mark kept looking out the window.  When I finally asked him, he pointed out this big guy in a big, puffy yellow jacket and yellow earmuffs who was running by the window every couple of minutes.  The jacket would have been crazy enough, but the yellow earmuffs?  Mark mentioned that they guy had one crazy running outfit.  After watching him run by, I realized that he was a valet--silly Mark, thinking he was running laps around the block!  He would park the cars and then run back to the drop-off point.  He must have run by 20 times in 30 minutes.

Finally, I realized that Mark was just fascinated by him, and it became kind of funny to watch for him to come again.  Knowing that I would be posting about him, I told Mark to take a picture.  We waited twenty more minutes without him running by, the whole time keeping our phones poised and ready to take the photo.  Here's a video of Mark, describing the situation better:

Wouldn't you know it--just as we were about to leave, and we had actually stood up, he goes running by again.  We sat right back down and waited.  We both snapped a picture the next time he came around, but he was pretty fast!  As we walked out of Giordano's, I told Mark that I would just walk over and take his picture.  Yes, stalker fashion.  So, I pretended to be taking a photo of the restaurant behind him, but I finally snapped a shot of him in all his fashionable glory :-)  If he only knew how much of a celebrity he is in our eyes!

1980 Honda Civic Hatchback

9.  Nissan Versa.  Okay, for my kids, here's a bit of a trip down memory lane (that Mark already heard).  My first car was a 1980 Honda Civic hatchback.  When I looked up photos for Mark to see it, I could hardly believe how ugly it was.  It didn't seem that way to me when I actually drove the car, but now...  I loved that car, and it definitely deserves its own blog post at some point.  Anyway, I have always loved little cars.  They make it easy to navigate traffic, they're easy to park and they get great gas mileage.  When Ethan left for school, I was more than eager to sell the van.  Although my Volvo is definitely smaller, it's not a small car.

I loved my rental car.  It was a Nissan Versa, and it was basically seats on wheels.  When all my kids are gone, I definitely need to invest in a smaller car!






10.  Prayer.  I think that's it.  It was a great trip.  Mark would love to go to Northwestern, but we'll have to see.