Viola Weekend

Hey there, friends!

So I wanted to share with you a little bit about the worship at my church, New City Fellowship. There are a lot of refugees and immigrants from Africa who go to New City. One of the things this church is very intentional about is reaching out to these and other immigrants and ethnicities. They believe the reconciliation of races is extremely important and something God has called us to as Christians. Because of this, they do things such as print the passage the pastor preaches on in French as well as English. There is also a seperate auditorium that those who prefer can go to to hear the sermon preached in French. Before the congregation splits for the sermon, however, we all worship together. Because of this multicultural aspect of the church, we sing a lot of songs in African languages with English subtitles at the bottom. Here is one of the ones we sang last Sunday. It really affected me...the simplicity and beauty and joy of it. The main chorus says "He sees me." Just thinking about that...that God SEES me when I'm happy and when I'm sad, when I'm here and when I'm in Oregon, when I'm rejoicing and when I'm hurting, when I'm faithful and when I stray...it's so beautiful and comforting to me. Here are the lyrics and a link to a site where you can hear it.

http://www.kampala-ministry.org/Site/Songs_files/nitamwimbiaBwana.mp3

Nitamwimbia Bwana:

vs. 1:
Nitamwimbia bwana
kwa kuwa yeye ameniona (repeat)

chorus:

Ameniona (ameniona) Ameniona (ameniona)
Ameniona (ameniona) Ameniona (ameniona

vs 2: nitamrukia bwana
vs 3: nitamchezea bwana
vs 4: nitamsifu bwana
vs 5: nitamtangaza bwana
vs 6: nitabariki bwana

Translation:

vs. 1:

I will sing to Jesus
Because he sees me

chorus:

He sees me, He sees me

vs 2: I am going to jump for him
vs 3: I will dance for him
vs 4: I will glorify him
vs 5: I will tell others about him
vs 6: I will bless him

On Friday we had a very special music department seminar, at least for the viola section. :) A man named David Dalton and his wife came and gave us a presentation on William Primrose. For those of you who don't know, there are very few virtuoso violists in this world. William Primrose was born in the early 1900s and died in the 70s or 80s, and he was pretty much the first and greatest viola virtuoso that has ever lived. David Dalton is the foremost expert on this man: he lived with him and studied under him for many years and has written several books on him. The presentation he gave was AMAZING! Oh my word...you guys need to watch this video of William Primrose playing Paganini's caprice no. 24 for violin on his viola. It blows my mind every time I watch it because his technique is SO perfect. After watching it I always think to myself "Why do I do this again?" Hahahahaha. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zBAZlbPn8E

Apparently, David Dalton also started the biggest viola library in the world at BYU, where he teaches. So I'm thinking a road trip on Spring Break is in order for the viola section! :)

Here's a picture of some of us UMSL violists with Mr. Dalton. He is such an incredibly nice man and talked with us all after his presentation and answered all of our questions and told us more stories. His wife was also very kind and gave us some insight into Primrose's domestic life, as she took care of him for several years while he lived in their home.

(From the left: Me, Stephen, Ingrid, Mr. Dalton, Tess, and Anne)

This weekend was really full of viola. After hearing Mr. Dalton's presentation, that night the five of us violists you see in this picture piled into Stephen's car and drove a couple hours to Jefferson City (in the middle of Missouri), where Stephen lives. We all spent the night at Stephen's house and met his mother, who was so hospitable and sweet. The next day, we drove a half hour to Columbia to watch Stephen play the first movement of the Hindemith "Der Schwanendreher" concerto in a masterclass for Donald McInnes, who is the viola professor at University of Southern California and also studied under William Primrose. We all learned a lot at the masterclass, and much to our delight we were invited to have lunch with Mr. McInnes afterwards! I was a little bit starstruck, to say the least. :) I also met the head of the Missouri Viola Society, which was just founded this year. Hopefully I will be able to keep some of these contacts in my network for when I'm looking for a job! :)

Here's a random video of our car ride back to St. Louis from Columbia. Five violists in a car for two hours....there's got to be a joke in there somewhere. :)

Saturday night Erin stayed the night in my dorm room with me and I watched "The Little Rascals" for the first time! According to Erin, the only reason I haven't seen that movie is because I was homeschooled, because you can't pass the first grade without it. :)

After spending the night Saturday night, Erin joined me for church Sunday morning! This made me very happy. She really seemed to have a good experience at New City compared to churches she has been to before. Please be praying that I would be a faithful witness.

Monday night was our first orchestra concert! We didn't play the whole concert...we just played a symphony by John Donald Robb at the end. Apparently he was the father of a woman who is very influential here at the university, so the whole event was a tribute concert to him. Since we didn't play until after intermission, we were backstage during the whole first half. There was standing room only in the theater, so we couldn't watch the performances before us....so we chilled in a green room and the bass section and I made fun of each other.

Here is my friend Kristen and I backstage:

Wednesday was viola class, but Joanna took us to a pilates class to work with a lady SLSO musicians. That was pretty rad....I think I might start doing pilates regularly. Joanna is so cool, and such a great teacher! The rest of my week since then has been pretty typical...get up, go to classes, run around, practice...

Anyway, I slept in a bit today, so I should probably go start knocking some schoolwork out of the way. :) Please pray that I would line my priorities up with God's priorities and that I would seek hard after Him every day. It's so easy for me to get caught up in everything else. Thank you all so much for praying about my loneliness. God has given me a lot of amazing people as friends since then, and I haven't been really lonely in a long time. I do still lack Christian fellowship, however. I've been slowly getting to know people at the church, but I don't REALLY know anyone other than the Rice family and Mario yet. I'm going to try out one of New City's house churches that meets this coming Thursday. Please pray for guidance in that. Thank you all so much for your love, support, and prayers. They mean the world!

I love you all and look increasingly forward to being with you over Christmas break!

Grace and peace,

Maren