Quick update!

Hi, everybody!

This will be a quick update, as I am headed off to London in a few minutes!  Matt and I are going to visit our friend Rachel, who is living and working in London this term.  I am SO excited to see her as well as to visit all of the AMAZING literary sites in London!  (I apologize in advance for all of the pictures of authors' homes, graves, manuscripts, etc. that I will for sure be posting in a few days).

This week has been filled with concerts!  On Sunday, we had the opportunity to hear the Vienna Philharmonic perform Dvorak's Biblical Songs and Josef Suk's Symphony in C Minor.  The sound of the Vienna Phil was absolutely breathtaking - outside of my beloved Cleveland Orchestra, I have never heard such a brilliant sound emanate from an ensemble.  We also saw two operas this week - Poulenc's "Dialogue des Carmelites" and Gounod's "Faust."  They were both incredible - I am definitely becoming hooked on opera!

The other highlight of this week was our first student recital.  Everyone played wonderfully, and it was great to hear my fellow FSP-mates perform!  I have linked below to a video of my performance of the Poulenc Clarinet Sonata in case anyone's interested.  I have many goals for the next recital, but one of them is to work to alleviate my "stage fright" a bit and relax into my playing!

Shannon - Poulenc

Well, off to London!  More soon!