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craft, life, percussion

Photo from the radio peeps!

christinahopgood
Last Thursday, some lovely chaps from ABC Canberra’s local radio station came and did some interviewing, recording, and photographing of a rehearsal for the Harrison Organ Concerto.
They took a great photo of me playing my boxes (and a bass drum): 
These are boxes that my dad hand crafted according to instructions in the score.  They took him ages and ages to make!  They are cubes, 21″, 16″ and 11″ (not that I usually use Imperial, but that was the specification).  The striking surface of each cube is a thinner gauge plywood.  It took a lot of calculations and measurements and tricky pre-drilling of holes, but we made them and then my mum varnished them.  Aren’t they good?
My dad is the best.
Yay craft!
life, percussion

2 Concerts on Friday!

christinahopgood
It was a dark and stormy night… on Friday the 13th…
On Friday the percussion ensemble met at uni at 9am to begin our giant day of concerts.  We had two to perform in the one day – one in the High Court, and one in Albert Hall.
Each concert was to use a giant percussion setup, none of which overlapped at all.  We hired a truck and started packing for the first concert, which needed lots of cymbals, two marimbas, two vibraphones, and a giant tam tam, amongst other things.  We played that first concert with Synergy Percussion, which was fun.  They played a great piece called Good Medicine which I really liked.
After that concert, we packed up all our stuff and shoved on over to Albert Hall.  Gary took some boys in the truck back to uni to get the rest of the gear (sooooo much stuff…) and left us girls to set up what was left.  Eventually everything was there and we set up for the concert.
It sounds so easy when I write it down!  It was super exhausting.
Then we played the concert, with a huge re-set in the middle.  Photos:
 This is the first piece we did, you can juuuust see me in the back there.  This was the Lou Harrison Organ Concerto we played with the amazing organist Calvin Bowman.  It says on the website it was with Synergy, but it was NOT.  Every time it says “DRUMatiX”, that’s us!
 Next piece: Carmen, as arranged for small string orchestra and percussion ensemble.  More gear!
After the concert, the organiser said “We need to have the stage clear in 20 minutes… there’s another concert on” so we had to run around like hairy goats trying to pack everything down.  Then it was back to uni to put everything back!  Two truck trips!
So we eventually got to leave at about 10:30pm after starting at 9am that day.  Long day!  But it was good fun to be with my percussion friends all day!
cooking, life

Lego cake!

christinahopgood
My friend had his 21st birthday party the other night and we threw him a surprise party with a Lego theme!  He’s really into Lego, which is awesome, because Lego is the BEST TOY EVER.
I was given the task of a Lego birthday cake.  I’d seen a few on the internet which looked amazing, but mostly used fondant icing which I don’t like.  So I made do with buttercream icing (sooo delicious – I always make too much on purpose).
First I baked two vanilla cakes – a rectangular loaf cake and a square cake.  I cut them into pieces, after planning it out.  I made a 2×4 block, a square 2×2 block, and two 2×1 blocks.
Here are the bits of cake prior to putting the knobs on.  That pile at the back is my offcuts!
Nobbly bits cut out of cake.  They were a bit uneven but that’s what happens when you’re not a baker.
Finished product!  Looks a bit homemade, because I had trouble with the icing not wanting to stick to the cake.  But gosh it tasted delicious!

I like making themed birthday cakes!  The birthday person is always so thrilled!
life, percussion

Canberra International Music Festival – Concert 1!

christinahopgood
Today I played in the first concert of the Canberra International Music Festival.  It was mostly a choral concert, but one piece had 4 percussion as well.  It was the three first-year boys and me.  My teacher wanted me to be principal percussionist as a learning experience.  I felt like I was their mother.

The piece we were in was Requiem by Peter Sculthorpe, a renowned Australian composer.  It was for a large SATB choir, timpani, 3 percussionists, organ, and didgeridoo.  The choral parts were fairly straightforward – lots of “kyrie eleison” and “sanctus” and stuff.  Percussion parts were nice and easy and we worked them up well in only one rehearsal.

The composer, Peter Sculthorpe, was there for the concert and made a little speech too.  He’s a really old lovely man, and quite famous.  My workplace, the ANU Music Library, has so many Sculthorpe scores.  People love it.

As Principal Percussionist (or maybe just as the one with a car) I was the driver for the boys – that meant a lot of driving over the last few days.  I also made sandwiches for them today.  Once, I made a musical suggestion to one of them.  And that’s how you be a section leader!

Lots more concerts coming up for the festival too.  On Friday we have 2 big concerts on the same day and then we have another in a couple of weeks.  It means lots of rehearsals and lots of packing and unpacking trucks full of percussion!