Fame, Fame, Doin' it for the Fame, Fame

 Written at 5:30am on 10/23

            This morning the Sarajevo Philharmonic leaves for Italy!  We are playing two performances of the “Sconcerto” (the piece we played for the MESS Festival) in Pordenone, a small town outside of Venice.  I’m so excited that I woke up a few minutes before my 5:00am alarm, and am already packed and ready to go a half hour early.  I’m a little bit behind with my blogging, so I decided to use this time to catch up.

            On Friday evening, the American quartet had an interview and photo shoot with a journalist from a Balkan news agency.  I’m not completely sure about when/where the article will appear.  We felt like big stars, hahaha.  I didn’t realize that we would be photographed, so I was in my usual jeans, sweater, and a ponytail for the photo shoot. First, the journalist took pictures of the four of us sitting in the reception lounge around a round table.  I think we probably looked pretty awkward.  Then it was time for individual shots.  It sounds like they’re going to crop the picture into a headshot, so I hope I look okay.  After taking the pictures, the journalist said something like “don’t worry, we can fix it with photoshop”, which isn’t exactly comforting!

After all of the pictures were taken we sat down at the round table again, and had a recorded interview.  The journalist obviously had a good knowledge of classical music, and he asked us very interesting questions about how difficult it is to find an orchestral job and about our time here in Sarajevo.  The interview last nearly an hour.  Afterward, the journalist thanked us, and then told me that he wants to learn the oboe!  He’s buying an instrument later this month and hopes to take a few lessons with me, so maybe I’ll have my first Bosnian oboe student soon.

The American quartet went out to dinner with Alisa, from the orchestra’s administration, after the interview.  She showed us a very good chicken and pasta place, and then we went to a nearby bar called Cheers.  We had a lot of fun dancing, drinking, and meeting some of Alisa’s friends.