Category: life

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!

life, percussion

Concerto is done!

christinahopgood
Well last Friday I finally performed my concerto.  Thank goodness it’s over!  It was video recorded (unfortunately the video was small and cut out my lovely accompanist!) and I uploaded it to youtube.
It went well!  I did fluff some bits and I did make some bits easier for myself (by taking it at a slightly slower tempo etc.).  But the most important thing is the music, and communicating that to the audience.
More than being just a performance, it was actually an exam worth about 25% of my final Honours mark.  I had three panel members!  I was nervous!
It was really wonderful that so many friends came to see me play.  Even though I feel lonely and sad a lot of the time without Charles, it’s a reminder that people do care for me.  I appreciate every member of the audience!  Particularly my old piano teacher, who actually has WHOOPING COUGH and sat right at the back and waved to me from afar so I wouldn’t catch it.  Isn’t that crazy!
So here’s the recording!  I particularly like the second movement, but a lot of people said that they liked the third.  All up it goes for about 24 minutes!
Movement 1 – Water Running in High Mountain:
Movement 2 – Reflections and Dreams:
Movement 3 – Walking on Clouds:

life

Library Changes and Protests

christinahopgood
As most of you know, I work in my university’s Music Library.

Here’s me at the library a couple of years ago.  Shelving some CDs, wearing a skirt!  Photo taken by the wonderful Lisa.

ANYHOW

Recently there’s been a proposal approved to move the Music Library up into the Art Library space due to financial problems.  Obviously there’s a lot of upset over the proposal, because it would be super inconvenient for us music students to walk to the Art Library to get our stuff, and because the new combined library will have to house twice the amount of books and twice the amount of students.  It’s simply not going to work.  Anyhow there are lots of reasons why I think it’s a bad and shortsighted idea.  I won’t go into it here.

We had a fun “study session” protest the other week where all the Music and Art students crammed into the Art Library space to show how crazy it is and how it won’t all fit.  We music students all brought big scores to “study”.  It soon became clear that it would never work as a library for two sets of students – and that was without all the extra materials in the library itself.   Then people made speeches and there was cheering etc.
Pictures!
Here’s my friend Yvonne (of Professors in Dresses) studying a giant score that is more like an ironing board.  She’s wearing the original collar – the one I made the replicas of!  And there’s my laptop about to get trodden on.
So many people!
Even more so many people!
There was a video taken of the protest that has been put up on youtube.  
Now the challenge is to keep the protests happening to alert the public to what is going on.   We have a new Vice Chancellor so hopefully he’ll disagree with the merge and take steps to keep the libraries separate.  We need to make it clear that SOME THINGS ARE WORTH PAYING FOR.