New violin tunes! 2

I have decided to join a local community orchestra! It is an all volunteer orchestra for people of any level that has two concerts a year. I used to be a very very good violin player from the age of 6ish until the end of high school– almost always in the top two violins. However, since high school, I have not sight read anything new. So I am quite nervous about getting back to playing my violin!

Today I printed out the sheet music and got my violin out. I put Hestia on a shoulder leash and started playing! I started off with Ashokan Farewell, which has always been one of my favorite violin tunes. I am very excited to get to play it in an orchestra! I was able to sight read it pretty easily since I knew the tune, but I definitely need some practice as I am a bit rusty! Next I played the Vivaldi concerto for strings in D major, which looked to be the second easiest piece. I had never heard it before, but I got through it pretty well. I am really happy that my sight-reading seems to be coming back.

Hestia was overall great! She didn’t mind my playing at all, though she has heard it before so that wasn’t a surprise. She didn’t mind being leashed to me, but she didn’t quite get that I wanted her to not explore around, so I ended up stepping on her leash so that she would just sit (or down or stand) next to me. She seemed to enjoy listening to me near the end when I went back and played Ahsokan Farewell again and was more in tune and warmed up.

Brad is still really really exhausted from our trip, so he wasn’t able to get out his camera and take fancy pics. So I had him take a couple of pictures from my cell phone. I apologize for the poor quality! I am wearing my blue butterfly dress, sitting in a folding chair with a metal music stand in front of me. My violin is dark chocolate (when it was made in the 1700s it had a cherry red finish, but that has oxidized). Hestia is a small black and white dog with googley eyes sitting on the floor on my left side. I have my back to the camera. In the first picture I am playing my violin, and in the second picture I am looking over my shoulder at the camera and smiling while holding my violin.