After feeling a bit lethargic yesterday, today was really quite wonderful for a whole combination of things. Rather than trying to convince myself that running was a good idea in the dark, I went at the much better time of 9am after my first hour of practice. I ran a long way, right round to the church then up into Hastingleigh the back way and coming back to Elmsted in one big loop. Alas, I didn’t manage to run all the way, as the road was really icy down by the church and then the final hill up to our dairy was a real killer. Still, it was a lovely time of the morning to be out, and I had a great time despite the sore legs.

Muffins – not my prettiest baking creation but still quite yummy.

In the afternoon, I finally got round to baking some muffins, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Grandma gave me a rather nice flexible tray at Christmas, and so I made dark chocolate and raspberry muffins with the hope of taking them to class tomorrow. I’ve got slightly mixed feelings about the result – they taste nice but didn’t come out of the tray terribly well and have misshapen bottoms – but had lots of fun in the process. There is something infinitely relaxing about rubbing butter into flour!

I still managed to fit in a good five and a half hours of practice around all this, and it was much better than last week. It’s my turn to propose a warm-up tune tomorrow, as well as directing the exercises that follow. I think I’m ready! My warm-up tune is the opening flute solo (2nd passing to 1st) of Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye, since I’m currently writing a program note for it for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s 2015 Discovery program.

Then there’s all the rest of the things to prepare. Our repertoire for tomorrow is Schubert’s Trockne Blumen Variations, which are monumental as flute works go. While yesterday’s practice on it was rather average, today went quite well. I’m not sure whether it’s my fingers remembering the work I did on it three years ago, all the scales we’ve been doing or a combination of both, but it all felt quite comfortable and I’m not too stressed about playing it in class tomorrow. I just need to remember to be expressive and play dotted rhythms correctly!

Finally, I spent an hour before our walk doing some of my listening project for the week. My chosen topic is the American flautist (or should I say flutist since he’s American?) William Kincaid, and amoung Trevor’s CDs I found an absolute gem. It’s a retrospective of Kincaid’s career with the Philadelphia Orchestra, originally for radio, with lots of really old recordings of him playing orchestral, chamber and solo works. Despite the presenter being awful (something of an old recordings collector by the sound of it, but really needed a script), the musical snapshot was fantastic, and the background information helped to put it all into context. Kincaid’s playing is stunning, particularly in the orchestral pieces. There was the Entr’acte from Bizet’s Carmen, Debussy’s Après-midi d’une faune, a really rather delicious rendition of the Daphnis and Chloe (Ravel) flute solo. I can easily say it’s the best CD I’ve listened to so far from Trevor’s collection.

Now I’m sitting here with a cup of chamomile tea, listening to David Francey’s Belgrade Train (it’s awesome!) and thinking that it’s days like today that really make the experience here at the flute studio. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a time and space like this again, so need to make the most of it. And of course practice scales!