Luisa Rosina shares her summer musical experiece at Norfolk

As I write this blog it is the final days of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and I will soon be flying back to London.  I cannot believe how quickly 6 weeks can pass.  I have had a wonderful experience which will certainly stay with me forever.

In November 2008 I auditioned in London for an English Speaking Union (ESU) Scholarship.  Each year the ESU award scholarships to musicians in the UK wanting to take part in a prestigious music festival. As I expressed a strong interest in chamber music in my audition, I was delighted to accept a place at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.

After receiving the news that I was coming to Norfolk this year, I immediately started investigating the festival on the internet. Yale has a fantastic reputation in the UK so I knew I was onto something good, but when seeing the familiar names of the faculty members I was so excited to be coming here. I would actually be able to meet and work with some of my musical heroes – Richard Stoltzman, Frank Morelli, and David Shifrin, who’s recording of the Copland Concerto is one of the most played CD’s in my collection.

The main focus of my time in Norfolk has been playing in a wind quintet. Before coming to Norfolk I had very little quintet experience, mainly because I wasn’t entirely convinced by the quality of repertoire so I was concerned that I might be playing music for 6 weeks that I didn’t really enjoy. Luckily I was completely wrong.

I met the fellow members of my wind quintet on the first day here – a very nerve racking experience knowing you are going to be spending many hours, many days and many weeks together. My four colleagues are all current or ex-students of Yale and we hit it off immediately.  The first couple of weeks were spent swatting the hundreds of mosquitoes in our practice studio, laughing at each other’s accents (well, mostly mine actually) and learning a new musical language. There was always a lot of giggling in rehearsals when I was asking about crotchets (quarter notes), minims (half notes) and asking if we could ‘start from the 2^nd time bar (2^nd ending)?’  We were asked to come up with a name for our group and after many days of hearing some of the most ridiculous names ever (Arctic Winds, Deep Wood Winds?!) we called ourselves New England Winds - we were a New group, in New England, with someone from England – perfect!

When I first spoke to the Director of Norfolk, Paul Hawkshaw, about the festival he told me that I’d be very busy, and he wasn’t wrong. The New England Winds thought it would be a great idea to play Ligeti as our first piece.  In retrospect I think we were completely mad doing this, but we really pushed ourselves and rehearsed for about 8 hours a day.  Our brilliant coach Humbert Lucarelli spent hours with us in order to get this difficult piece together.  Luckily the hard work paid off, and we really enjoyed our first performance – at that point we realized that we only had 5 weeks left here and wanted to make the most of it.  We decided to work as hard as we possibly could, learn lots of repertoire and try to perform every week. Having the opportunity to perform in such a beautiful venue with such wonderful acoustics is not something you want to let pass you by.

Reflecting on what I have learned here is difficult as I’m not sure where to start.  Having the experience of learning so much repertoire, learning so many notes, finding time to do individual practice, trying to sound good when you have played so much you can barely move your mouth anymore! The experience and pressure of learning pieces quickly and efficiently, performing to a high standard after learning a piece for only four days. Having expert coaching from an international faculty of musicians, and then being able to watch them perform every week.  From our hours of quintet rehearsals learning how to work with people, learning how to disagree with people and learning how to not hit your colleague too hard when they have a mosquito on their head.

Being in Norfolk is such a privilege – there is nothing in the UK like it so I am extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to be here.  I will definitely be recommending to all of my colleagues at home to come to Norfolk as it is an experience that you will truly never forget.