Diploma Exam

Last week, I defended my thesis and my "Rondo à la Flûte" festival from May in front of a very difficult jury and need I remind you it was all en français. Preparing for the presentation that needed to be convincing and studying for an article that was to be drawn out of a hat was hard toaccomplish especially when French isn't my first language.


The dossier turned out to be 90 pages in French, all wrote by me but corrected by a nice friend. The presentation in front of the jury went great, except they asked questions about French copyright law. I tried to hold back saying, "I don't know", and say something like "it seems to me that ..." but the answer "je ne sais pas" just kept coming out. I thought for sure they were going to tell me that I failed.

But I passed! I got a 10/20 - don't freak out that doesn't mean a 50%. It means average, there were quite a number of other people in my class who got around the same grade and also there were students who didn't pass about 30% out of the 20 or so that took the exam.

I am really proud of myself and cannot wait to tell anyone that I have a Masters in French.

Hope that you check out my new posts about my exciting projects to come!


 

Project Update

Last week was my final project for my Masters, the flute festival for those of you who didn't know. It wasn't much of the festival I wanted to do, because of some last minute situations, but the turn-out was great as was the flutist, Heidi Pintner Alvarez.

For those of you who don't know her personally, she is the Professor of Flute at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY, USA, home of the Corvette.

Here is a recap for those who missed out the concerts:
27 may : Concert Baroque at the Saint Rita Church located in the 15th arrondissement, a small  church with very interesting decorations and Saint Rita in real human form in a display case in the back of the church. The acoustics were great and the Bach and Telemann sonatas sounded amazing.  Even though, there was a small crowd of 20 people, the music allowed everyone to share an intimate moment together whether it was a recollection of the melodies or a lesson on baroque style.

28 May : Contemporary Flute Concert at 38 Riv located in the 4th arrondissement. A small concert hall located in a cave or basement of a building, a nice quiet and warm environment. The only negative comment both the flutist and I had was they decided to clean right before the concert and the smell of the cleaning supplies and the cave didn't mix well. There was a little larger crowd than the previous night, mostly friends and family of mine. This concert included a premiere of Michael Kallstrom's "The Falling Cinders of Time, Michael is the Professor of Composition at WKU, as well.

Hope you can join us for our next festival edition, details coming soon!