I had many orchestra rehearsals this week since we had our concert on Saturday, so I spent a lot of time rehearsing and listening to my orchestral music. In the concert, we played pieces by Czech and German composers including Josef Suk, Bohuslav Martinu and Felix Mendelssohn.
I had a fabulous time playing in the Medicanti orchestra concert! We played at a newly renovated concert hall in Dresden called the Kulturpalast.
This week I bought a very interesting book in German about all of the places that the composer Johann Sebastian Bach lived in or visited in Germany. As a big music nerd, I'm hoping I can visit all of these towns this year!
I did a Halloween-themed tongue twister with my 5th graders this week to help them pronounce "w" in English words. In German, "w" is pronounced like "v." The tongue twister was, "Which wicked witch wished which wicked wish." I even had trouble saying it. I gave a piece of chocolate to any student who could pronounce the whole tongue twister correctly.
We had a holiday on Wednesday, October 31st, but it wasn't Halloween! The holiday is called Reformation Day. Reformation Day celebrates the life and work of Martin Luther (1483-1546), a revolutionary German theologian, who broke from the Catholic Church and formed modern-day Protestant Christianity.
