Reporting in from the French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts as part of Camp America, the second entry in the diary of Music Scholar Hannah Ost…
So the first of my three, three-week sessions at camp has come to an end. I can’t believe it but I’m now halfway through the second! Each day seems to pass by so slowly but looking back I can’t believe how fast it has actually gone.
Both of the shows for which I am Musical Director have opened and closed and went down very well with each audience. The little kids in Snow White were very cute and even though some of them are only eight, we still managed some two-part harmony with them! James and the Giant Peach was fantastic – I played Keyboard in the pit orchestra for that as well which was tough since I didn’t have much time to learn the score. It all came together in the end though and we had a fabulous three-night run during the festival weekend at camp.
Moving onto this session, I am the Musical Director for a show called Junie B Jones and along with my other MD, we have taught just over half the show in twelve one-hour rehearsals! Our dress rehearsal is next week; I am busy learning the piano score for the show as I will be playing in the pit for that show too.
That’s about all I have for now. I will bring another update after this session ends!
Read the first entry in Hannah’s American Diary here.
It’s been almost a month since I landed in the US so I thought I would update you on what I have been doing at French Woods Festival here in New York!
Amongst the visitors filing through the doors of the music building were people from Somerset, Devon, Northamptonshire, Surrey, Hertfordshire as well as from London and Kent itself; however, the prize for the Visitor from the Farthest-Flung Shore went to a lady from Paris.
The performance was the culmination of the ensemble’s five-day visit to Canada, which also saw them give a 
The programme opened with a fiercely committed reading of Brahms’ Sonatensatz, alive to the drama of the turbulent opening, followed by a finely-crafted performance of Beethoven’s Sonata no.10 Op 96, in which both violinist and pianist were alert to every nuance. An exquisite rendition of Ravel’s Pièce en forme de Habanera opened the second half, which concluded with Franck’s epic Violin Sonata, an impassioned delivery, emotionally generous and brilliantly executed.
Saturday night saw a performance of music combined with live image- and video-projections by Deputy Head of the School of Biosciences, Dr Dan Lloyd, and Your Loyal Correspondent, set amidst the photographic exhibition accompanying the project, which has been on show since Tuesday and lasts until 1 July. The live piano works performed included John Cage’s hypnotic In A Landscape, the mesmerising Opening by Philip Glass, and pieces by Debussy and Tarik O’Regan, alongside hi-resolution spectroscopy and images drawn from the scientific environment.
The audience enjoyed pre-performance refreshments and a short introductory talk about the project at the University, before the performance. Uniquely amongst the various incarnations of the project which have previously taken place, this one saw both performers sat surrounded by the audience, creating a highly intimate atmosphere, with each piece prefaced by an informal Q&A session.
