Navy Symposium

As my first real blog post on here, I thought I would write about my recent trip to Washington, D.C. to perform at the Navy Band Saxophone Symposium! 

My lovely AVIDduo counterpart Brittany Primavera and I met in D.C. on Thursday afternoon. After arriving at the airport at roughly the same time, we went to pick up our rental car. Thanks to Brittany's thorough inspection of the cars cup holders, and a thick southern accent, she was able to woo the rental guy into a "luxury" upgrade.  I was definitely sporting a brand new VW Beetle all weekend. 

I would not own for myself, but it was super fun driving around for the weekend. Especially since it was a rental. You can treat them like a toy, right?

We stayed with my MPE sister Jackie Geldert and her husband Dan, both UNT alumni. It was a great time! I had possibly the best tofu of my life, found 3 bottles of wine for $12 (deal!), and met a golden retriever that I taught how to dance on two legs. I am a dog whisperer.  

 Friday morning/afternoon we gave a little AVIDduo performance at Robinson Secondary School where Jackie teaches. The kids got a preview performance of our Navy Band program followed by a little question and answer. Then we sat in and played with them! 

Friday evening, I had my solo recital followed by a great concert by the Navy Band. All the performances were pretty good, but Jonathan Yanik killed it on the Saint-Saens Capriccioso. He knows how to play the saxophone.

Saturday morning was our duo performance. We premiered a new piece that fellow UNT alumni Chris Reza wrote for us titled Synergy. It is a fantastic piece with quite a catchy little melody. The performance went well, and we look forward to several more performances of this piece we have planned for later this semester!  

There is a sneak peak recording Brittany and I made before the premier on SoundCloud. Here.
We will have a full recording up on our website later this semester!

That evening we ate some more amazing food that Victoria, VA had to offer. A great place called Rustico. Their pizza was super delicious and their truffle french fries only continues to prove to me that adding truffle oil to anything instantly makes it better. I wish I had thought to take a picture of the food or this place as both were very attractive.

Sunday afternoon I returned to a much colder Minneapolis after 11 hours of traveling. Due to some delays in Milwaukee, I had the great pleasure of sitting around in the airport all evening. That was not near as exciting as the pilot needing two tries to land the plane (not kidding). Thanks AirTran!