Earlier this week, I got a very nice note from the folks at myauditions.com, wondering if I planned to continue this blog. Thinking back, I realized that the last entry I’ve made was at the end of May! Oops-- my bad.

At the time of my last entry, the 2004-2005 HSO symphony season had come to an end and I was looking forward to a little rest, then starting my summer project: painting the house.

As luck would have it, my vacation was not to be. In a word, work. I knew there was to be a two week, seven performance run of “The Pirates of Penzance’, which ended today, but I didn’t count on a choral festival (Vaughn-Williams ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’, a side-by-side event with professionals from the HSO and talented students including an up-and coming 13 year old bassoonist, James Perlman), a trip to Maui to play with the Maui Pops for the Fourth of July. Next week we begin a two performance run of two one-act Menotti Operas (The Telephone & the Medium), and at the end of the summer, a run of ‘Coppelia’ with Ballet Hawaii. Additionally, I took on some bowing jobs for the symphony library, and that was time consuming. I can’t ever remember a summer in Honolulu having so much work- not that I’m complaining. There IS a mortgage to be paid!

When you work intermittently that means filing for unemployment every time you stop working- which has been every other week this summer. Each time you file, whether it’s for a year’s worth of work or three day’s work, is a new claim as far as they are concerned. Same questions, same answers, always takes too long. Oh, well. We depend on that money given that the season here is only 30 weeks long.

Now that I look at my calendar, I see that it really has been busy.

Son Colin was home from his freshman year in College Park, but had to take a summer school class and left on July 9th, so we made sure to spend extra time with him. We actually went to the beach! Mainland folks don’t believe it, but most of us local folks here in Hawaii are too busy scratching out a living to go to the beach all that often- plus, we get pretty thin-blooded, so in the winter it’s too cold for us! (I never forget my shock my first year living here, when I was freezing cold, turned on the car heater and then drove by a time/temperature clock that announced it was 70 degrees. When it’s always 80 degrees, 70 seems awful. Sometimes it even goes down into the 60’s and then everybody complains and actually has to put on jackets. What a bother!

Daughter Meghan turned 16, got her driver’s license and now drives herself all over the island with her little blue truck. My chauffeur job is finally done. No regrets there.

I finished a course of physical therapy that started in September ‘04 for De Quervain Tenosynovitis, a work-related repetitive stress injury that is similar to tendonitis, but is an inflammation of the tendon sheath in the wrist, as opposed to inflammation of the tendon. Liberated from twice a week sessions!I did bowflex workouts, electronic stimulation, deep tissue massage, the works- all done!- but no, upon the therapist’s suggestion, I’ve joined the local Y and am now working out 4 times a week, trying to prevent a recurrence of the problem.

We all got sick with the flu or some such stomach ailment- first time in years since we’ve taken the annual flu vaccine. A couple of weeks earlier I had a sinus infection. Nothing more miserable than being sick in the summer.

I bought new car! A Honda Civic Hybrid. It’s really cool to only have to fill up the tank every 400 miles, and then it’s only 12 gallons. Gas is expensive in Hawaii!

That’s just some highlights of my summer so far, and it explains why I hadn’t even noticed that it’s been two months since my last blog entry. And the house remains in need of a new coat of paint.

(I haven’t mentioned the annual summer reed-making frenzy. Certain things should not be discussed in polite company.)

I’m going to try to make more frequent, shorter blog entries in the future. This every two months thing does not a blog make. Apologies to the good folks at myauditions.com.

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Speaking of auditions, a bit of news from the HSO website, which lists the winners of the auditions held in May. There’s a couple of other last-minute openings that are still to be filled, most notably violin positions.

Congratulations to:

 Section 1st Violin: Emma Philips
Section 2nd Violin: Sasha Margolis
Section 1st Violin (one-year): Virginie Gagné
Per-Service Viola: Chihiro Fukuda
Per-Service Viola: Elizabeth Jaffe
Section Cello (one-year): Joanne Choi
Per-Service Bass: Tyler Goodwin
3rd Oboe/English Horn: Jason Sudduth
Principal Horn: Wade Butin
Associate Principal/2nd Trombone (one-year): Kirk Ferguson

Wade Butin has been our fourth horn player for a while, his brother is our principal violist. He’s married to HSO violinist Laurilyn Butin; they just had a baby last winter. (How do you prepare for an audition with a newborn baby? That’s a feat in and of itself!) What makes this appointment especially interesting is that the horn section has had two other members of the section play principal for one-year positions. Wade has been appointed principal in a permanent, tenure-track position. Good luck to you, Wade. It speaks well for our horn section that everyone in the section is strong enough to compete for the principal job. Congratulations to all of the HSO horn players, and best wishes for a successful (and peaceful!) year to come.