Saturday, January 17, 2009

She did great !


I meant to blog last night but I was WAY too tired and too busy wrestling with Ingrid to do it. Anna was enjoying some very silly Youtube stuff that another organ student was talking about so there was much giggling while I was attempting la la land.

Her audition was Friday morning at 8:30am. We got up at 6:00 and were at the school for her to warm up by 7:30am. Warming up had two meanings. It was only 8 below zero in Bloomington as compared to 19 below in South Bend but certainly cold enough that her feet and fingers needed some warming up before she warmed up her playing on the organ. Brrrrr......we have a knack for picking politically correct weather. (You know that extreme weather is a result of global warming don't you???? Even though as a kid this was considered normal weather) Last spring it was unusually warm when we visited. Her warming up had its glitches thanks to nerves I think. We left for her audition at 20 after and Dr. Fischell and Dr. Young greeted her warmly and in she went. Ingrid and I were in the hallway outside. You can hear everything through the doors. After a tiny bobble in the beginning, Anna sailed through her pieces beautifully. I was busy pacing with Ingrid, trying to concentrate on praying for her (it is hard to pray while listening to a prelude and fugue did you know that?) and also thinking about how incredible Bach's pieces are to begin with. Her other piece was some Mendelssohn sonata which also went very well.

She had to sight read a hymn and she tells me that the professors told her to pretend the pastor gave her a new hymn on Monday to prepare for Sunday. This to a girl who looks up the hymn for Monday evenings on Monday afternoon. She believes she just smiled and went ahead and played. I could only hear a little bit of that and had never heard that hymn before but it seemed to go fine.

We had many conversations with the organ professors after that which I at least found helpful. I am always full of questions so I can understand what is going on. She should know in a month, the result of her audition but considering our conversations and the fact that they seem to be building their organ program, I am optimistic she will get in.

We had dinner with the organ students last night and they impressed me as a great group of young people who seemed very down to earth and serious about their studies. One grad student has two children so she would not have to miss little people all together as they come to all their events. Their names are Carolina, and Annaka. The name Annaka they told me was in the same name family as Nancy. Who knew - sorry Mom, I didn't know...... We got back to the hotel close to nine and I hope to get on the road around nine this morning. It is Benjamin's birthday so I need to get stuff around for him. Perhaps we won't be able to pull off cake till tomorrow but who knows.

It was a great experience overall so we push onwards to the next thing in the Horner family.

3 comments:

Rev. Rick Stuckwisch said...

Way to go! Congratulations! etc.

sarahlaughed said...

Wonderful!

Happy B'day Benjamin!

Presbytera said...

I am so glad that she did well -- not surprised though that her hard work ethic paid off!