Atlanta

I had such a great time in Atlanta with Trio Nova Mundi, premiering Elisenda Fabregas' Triple Concerto for Piano Trio and Orchestra!

The first night we stayed at the lake house of Maestro Ramirez and his lovely wife Carol.

My flight came in hours before the others so I had plenty of time to practice on this lovely refurbished Steinway, with a spectacular lake view.  Later after we rehearsed a bit, Carol taught me to make corn tortillas from scratch, which I had never done before.  Yum!  I'm hooked!

Here's another view of the lake at sunset.  I couldn't really get over this place, it was so gorgeous!

Lake Arrowhead.... the Georgia edition.

The following day Elisenda arrived and also came to the lake house--it was our first time meeting her, although we've been playing her music for years.  We all hit it off famously and had a riot of a time!  In the afternoon we went over the concerto with her and with Maestro Ramirez, hashing out our notes, making small corrections and changes, and working out the kinks so we'd be ready for the orchestra rehearsal the next morning.

Saturday afternoon after the orchestra rehearsal Elisa and I went with Elisa's friends Doug and Mary for the rest of the day.  We had a lovely lunch, visited the impressive Atlanta Aquarium.......

..... enjoyed some of Atlanta's beautiful public spaces.....

.... and basically had a wonderful time!  After a tasty dinner Doug and Mary took us back to Kim's house, where we were staying in Atlanta (she is one of the violists in the orchestra we were playing with).

The concert was a big success!  The piece went better than rehearsal and the audience received it very enthusiastically.

We've posted a few highlights from the concert on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJeT4bWu0Po

I wish I had some pictures of the party following the concert--Kim hosted it at her house, and many of the symphony players came to celebrate with us.  We had such a fun time!  In fact, my stomach was literally killing me from laughing so hard!  (....That would actually characterize the whole weekend, now that I think about it.)   Maestro Ramirez had made a Mexican feast for us including homemade tortillas, multiple salsas, frijoles, and most importantly, his famous mole, which the others enjoyed over baked chicken.... and I just ate like soup.  :-)   Later in the evening we were coaxed to play the trio version of Ramirez's Huapangos, which he played with us on the guitar.  So incredibly fun!  Others also played and sang after us, and it was pretty much an all-around rocking party!  (The neighbors even complained about the noise from the porch and the police dropped by to tell us to pipe it down a bit.....  we almost felt like teenagers!)

The next morning as we were all packing up, Maestro Ramirez came to Kim's and made breakfast for us.

Everyone else was leaving mid to late morning, but my flight wasn't until 10pm so I traipsed around with Maestro Ramirez all day.   He very obligingly ferried me to do my various Stateside errands.  This involved finding an REI so I could stock up on backpacking fare for our upcoming trip to Torres del Paine, hitting a grocery store for our favorite brand of power bars....  all the various things we weren't sure we'd be able to find in Chile, and which we had indeed discovered we could not.

I had also sent Elisa on a grand treasure hunt in our house before coming to Atlanta so she could bring me some essentials--mostly things that we (inaccurately) assumed we'd have in our furnished apartment in Santiago.  Although the things she brought didn't take up much room, I had her bring a full-size duffle bag so that I'd have an extra piece of luggage going back to Chile.  I was able to pack it to the max with all my Atlanta purchases, which are all consumables and will presumably be gone in a few months.  In addition, we'll now have some extra space for bringing things home in April.

After carting me around for most of the morning, we returned to Ramirez's Atlanta house where I was able to take a nap and make some phone calls while he taught a student.  We then went with their son David (who is a fine cellist, just breaking out onto the job scene) and had some dinner before they took me to the airport.  On the way out the door, I spied an enormous collection of drying peppers in Ramirez's studio.  He has nearly every surface covered with peppers from all over the place.  Maybe these are some of the secret ingredients in his famous mole!

What a fun and amazing weekend!!