In the student dormitory, Demire quickly made new friends. She is closest to her roommate, a French horn player. They would gather with other students on the stairs of Lenfest and sing choral music for fun. After attending a party her first week, she joined a group and organized a holiday costume party of her own.
During the semester, she also completed a string quartet she started on a flight from Turkey. As she rehearsed, she realized how open she was to how her music changed in the hands of others. This is the kind of lesson that can’t really be taught in a classroom. “It reminds me,” she says, “that everything we have in music is about perspective.”
Curtis has few students Really a month off between terms. Demire, who returned to Ankara, read Kant’s works and watched films, but also continued composing music. Gleason started the spring early, taking on a conducting project at the Dallas Opera. At least Zhang made time to see friends and family in Seattle and ski.
Scott had a tough time following the end of the fall semester, which he found exciting in its intensity. Life at home was like a “vacuum,” he said. At first, he didn’t sleep well because he felt like he should do something. A few days later, while taking his dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Nandy, for a long walk, he felt himself relaxing.
Tachino returned home to France, but as resident coordinator, he had to return early to prepare for Lenfest in the spring semester. She also took a trip to Florida, which she had never been to. She saw more crocodiles than she expected and the weather was hot, but when she returned to school she auditioned more and landed the lead role in Poulenc’s one-act opera Mamels di Tiresias She felt refreshed.
