Performing Mahler's 5th

On the 15th of March I performed in Mahler's 5th Symphony with the Salt Lake Symphony in Libby Gardner Concert Hall at the University of Utah. Although it was a very hard piece of music and a challenge for me, I'm glad that I had the experience and took the time to play this piece.
The thing I want to comment on is our director and how amazing he was at bringing the orchestra through this experience. I first must disclose that we didn't perform this piece perfectly. We were far from it. And while most directors would be extremely stressed, pushy, and possibly even downright grumpy, Dr. Baldwin had a great attitude through the whole thing.
I especially noticed all of this during the dress rehearsal. The first thing we did was a complete run through! Now that may not sound all that amazing to many of you. But when a director is stressed about a difficult piece, usually the last thing thing they want to do at the last minute is a run through; they want to hit the hard spots. So we did a run through and Dr. Baldwin was disciplined enough not to stop us (much.)
After the run through he complimented us sincerely, not on our perfection, but on his faith that from hearing what we'd just done he knew that we would be able to make it through tomorrow without crashing. And that gave us all what we probably needed most, a little confidence (myself included.)
Then we spent the second part of the rehearsal working on spots he had noticed during the run through. And it was amazing, he had a system and he stuck to it. He would tell us the section, and what we needed to fix. Then we would play through it, and it wouldn't go so great. Then he would say one more thing, we would play it again, it would improve, and he would compliment us on the improvement and give us something to help us remember tomorrow. He didn't beat any one spot to death, and he didn't ever sound like he'd given up on a spot being the way he wanted.
After the rehearsal he saved time for a pep talk (some directors would go over time running spots, and then be like "oh... see ya.") And his talk was quite insightful for me. I must admit by that time I was extremely tired and didn't really want to play the concert the next night, so the pep talk was what I needed.
He paraphrased some other people, and he let us know that he was.... so I'm passing that on to you readers. Anyway, he said that there is a trend now for smaller orchestras to play Mahler, and the big works like that. The reasoning Dr. Baldwin stated was that there is power in this music. That even though we can't play it as well as say, the New York Philharmonic it still has power for the audience and (especially) us as musicians.
This meant a lot to me, because the reason I play the viola still is that I love playing in symphonies. I've felt the power of great music at least since I was in 9th grade and played the New World Symphony by Dvorak. And it made me grateful for the opportunity to play another great piece of music and experience that greatness again at a new level. It made me want to come back tomorrow and play the concert, even though I didn't know of anyone who was coming to see it.
At the end of his talk he complimented us for all of our hard work, and told us to think back to the first rehearsal and how much we had improved. And I must say the contrast was quite amazing, especially after only six rehearsals.
The concert the next night went well enough. I enjoyed playing, and I played better than I had the rest of the rehearsals (you gotta love adrenaline.) We only had a minor train wreck where the french horn came in the wrong spot, but we just went back to his entrance and everyone was able to figure it out and we got back together. It was a good experience, and now I'm glad that I didn't chicken out and take a break for this concert.

What is Family History?

I've been pondering the question, "What is family history?" and also, "What is family history for?" Especially as I've been trying to decide where I want to start and what direction I want to go in looking at my family history. I've come up with three answers (in no specific order.)

1. Documentation or Record Keeping
   This includes things like keeping and collecting birth and death certificates, searching census records and making copies, looking for headstones in cemeteries and taking pictures, and finding military or immigration records. It's anything that provides proof (especially government) that this person actually lived, that they existed, or proves important events in their lives. This part is when I'm glad I have my husband, a history major, to help me out. You definitely need an organizational system for this so that the sheer amount of documents doesn't overwhelm you.
   
2. Temple Work
   My second part of Family History is mostly applicable to members of the LDS church. We believe in doing temple work for our deceased ancestors. This is what I thought the only reason for family history was for a long time, and I still know it's very important. But you don't need as much information for this purpose. The other two purposes: Documentation and Journaling, can lead you to help and more information for this area, but mostly you just need names. I would personally prefer to have more information on a person, but at least finding names for Temple Work doesn't overwhelm me as much as it used to, now that I understand I don't need copies of all of the documentation listed above to be able to do someone's temple work. And it's probably the part that most motivates me in terms of past people. I'm excited for the church's new FamilySearch program to come online in Utah! The thing that was most difficult for me last time I tried to submit names to Temple Ready was that most of my relatives had their work done 10 or more times, and I was frustrated at the inefficiency of it all.
   
3. Journaling and Stories (his stories)
   The third part of family history is journaling. It's what most people do in their scrapbooks. It also includes oral interviews, personal histories, and personal journals. The only thing in this category that used to excite me was journals. I have over 10 volumes now. But since I've been married I've been more excited about keeping a record of our life, and having a way to record our future children's lives. Especially since my husband likes to take pictures.
   Scrapbooking in general has overwhelmed me since I'm not very crafty, so I've started thinking of it as a journal with pictures, and since then so many options have seemed to open up. One option is blogging, which I've really enjoyed beginning in many different ways, and that was validated for me in an article entitled, "Scrapbooks Move Into the Digital Age." Also, I learned from a family history fair that you can make a 12x12 page on the computer on Photoshop and have it printed at Costco on photo paper, and then just slide it into a book. For me that is SO much easier. No cutting, pasting, coloring, stuff that scares me. Just make it with the undo button right there handy, and print... high quality.
   And, of course, this overlaps as you find journals and pictures of relatives and learn more about their lives and stories.
   The thing I love most about the Journaling is the stories. Our lives are full of many interesting things. If they aren't recorded they can't be remembered. I'm still looking for a small journal my grandmother left entitled "Memories with the Grandchildren." She only made a few entries in it. But I remember loving to read them when she was alive. And it's a possession that now, after she's passed on, I would like to remember, record, copy, and share because they're her stories, and stories keep memories alive, and create memories by being shared.

Each of these categories can overlap, and as they do their findings in one area help with progress in another. As you decide to get census record copies for ancestors, you may find the parent's names and someone you hadn't been able to track. As you do an oral interview of a relative you may find the names of other relatives that no one else remembered.

I must add that I am no where near perfect in all of this. I'm just starting. But the breakthrough for me was the ability to categorize, and realize how much I'm already doing in an area, and which area I want to start working on next; instead of feeling overwhelmed by an overall concept of "Family History" with no idea where to start.

Grandma's Wedding Dress

After my mom, my aunt, my husband, and I went to the regional family history conference we were all determined to do some more with our family history, and preserving our stories and our past. So one project that I'd put off for more than a year was my Grandma's Wedding dress.
The story is that as I was preparing for my wedding over a year ago I tried on all of my relative's wedding dresses, because I didn't want to spend the money to buy one myself. None of the dresses fit very well, except my Grandma Beulah Simmons' (my mom's mother) beautiful silk wedding dress. But at the time I felt it looked too old fashioned, and not "princess" enough for me. And also my aunt found a bag of beautiful fabric for $3, and my mom can sew wonderfully, so I was able to have my own dress, which I love.
But as they were trying to convince me to wear Grandma's dress, mostly for sentimental reasons, (and to save my mom a lot of work) they took it to a dry cleaner to prove to me that it was clean and in great condition to be worn. Well, after I was married we found out that you don't dry clean silk. So in talking to people about how to preserve it, now that it has been dry cleaned, they said to take pictures of it, and find a model who fits the dress to take the pictures of. So they asked me to come model the dress for pictures, since I'm the only person that can fit into it.
My Grandma was married Sept. 3, 1947, so this is a vintage 40's silk wedding dress. She sewed it by hand herself, for her own wedding.



The veil I'm wearing in this picture is actually mine from my wedding. The jewelry was my Grandma's jewelry (but not from her wedding.)

This is my Grandma's original wedding ring that I'm wearing in the picture below, it fits me perfectly. My mom (Grandma's youngest daughter) now wears that ring. I love the points on the sleeves

We were told to preserve the dress we should take measurements in the photos to show the construction of the dress as well. I love the ruffle/small train down the back of the dress. It was really hard to get a picture that showed it at all.

And the last measurement they had to take was the waist. Probably to mostly prove that at one point I did have a 26 inch waist, and so did my Grandma when she was married. The dress really does fit me perfectly. It's fun to know I'm so similar to my grandmother in build and shape.

I have put a copy of my Grandma's original wedding pictures on this blog.