Week 2: Return to Warsaw

After 9 days in Wrocław, a city near the Czech and German border, I returned to Warsaw yesterday after a 7 hour train ride. It was a long ride, but my LDS friend and fellow Fulbrighter Ryan Boudwin and I, had a whole compartment to ourselves. We were able to stretch out and be quite comfortable. While in Wrocław we had full days of classes on Polish history, politics, and language mixed with touring. This orientation was sponsored by the US-Polish Fulbright Commission. Wrocław used to be part of Germany before WWII. We saw a castle, several old churches with beautiful organs (we even heard a short recital), multiple war monuments, and many other important historical sites. 

On of my favorite sites was where Johannes Brahms conducted the premier performance of his Academic Festival Overture. He was given an honorary doctorate and composed the piece for the graduation ceremony. Several other famous musicians of the day were also awarded doctorates in this hall. Their names are listed under this picture of Brahms: Hector Berlioz, Clara Schumann, Niccolo Paganini, etc.

An interesting monument is placed in the city center. It is a monument to Dietrich Bonhueffer, one of the only German-Lutheran ministers who openly apposed Hitler during the Third Reich. He was from Wrocław and was made a martyr for his defiance agains the Nazis. He bust is also present in the cities halls of famous Wrocław-ians.

Another of the busts in the hall of famous people is of Joseph von Eichendorff. He was a famous poet and interesting to me because Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms set many of his poems to music.

Wrocław is home to many bridges that cross the cities 2 rivers. The main bridge to Cathedral Island has been covered with pad locks. When I first saw these, I though they were meant to be a kind of memorial for the deceased. When I looked more closely, I saw that each one had some kind of love inscription written on it's face. Each day as we crossed the bridge on our way back to the dorms, we saw gaggles of young girls cooing over them and seemingly hoping for the day when they would lock their love on the bridge. It mad me miss my beautiful wife every time I crossed.

This morning I was finally able to attend the Warsaw 2nd branch of the LDS church. It was really wonderful. From what one of the 8 missionaries in the branch told me, it is the strongest and best attended branch in the country. There were around 80 people there today. We meet in a nice office building that has been transformed nicely into a chapel with several classrooms and offices. The branch president, a missionary who has been serving there with his wife for the past year, was released. They are being transfered to another city where the branch has only 12-15 active members. The new branch president is an American who is in Warsaw working for the US Embassy. He is one of 2 or 3 men in the branch who work for the Embassy and are here for a time with their families. All of the meetings are held in Polish and English as about 1/3 of the members are American. It was really enjoyable to get acquainted with the saints here.

This evening was my first Mass performance with the Musica Sacra choir at the Praga Cathedral in Warsaw. We perform in mass once a month. The cathedral was completely destroyed in WWII, with about 85% of Warsaw, and rebuilt in the following decades. It is a magnificent building in the New Gothic style with a very new romantic organ. The acoustics are quite amazing. Singing in that space made our good amateur choir sound much more professional. The most striking part of the experience was to observe the congregation. First of all, it was packed. There must have been over 300 people filling the pews with at least 40 more standing in the back for the entire duration of the hour long service. They all rose and sang together without hymn books on multiple occasions. I had heard how devout Poles were in the Catholic Church. It was really neat to witness it.

Tomorrow begins my first full week in Warsaw and my last week before school. It's time to crack the whip and get working. I have many pieces to write for commissions, competitions, my dissertation, and other projects. I also have another choir performance and will attend the rehearsals and premier of my teacher's first symphony. It is the first of many concerts of his work at the National Philharmonic where he is composer in residence this year.

I'm trying my best to stay busy working so I don't have to think about how much I miss my family. It doesn't help that my internet connection is pretty lousy. So far we have not been able to Skype very successfully. Hopefully I can get my service changed soon to remedy this.

Happy Sunday from Warsaw!!!

Week 1: Warsaw and Wrocław

After a very long day of travel, I finally arrived in Warsaw. The airport is called the Chopin Airport. It is the only airport in the world named after a composer. How cool is that!! My new friend Lukas, who is the assistant of my teacher, picked me up from the airport and took me to my apartment. My landlord happens to be the sister-in-law of my teacher. She and her husband were extremely helpful in showing me around the neighborhood and getting me settled. I live in the center of Warsaw and am within walking distance of the Chopin University and almost everything else. It's a perfect location. On Tuesday, after the first night in my new place, I was walking around town and I saw a bunch of posters advertising a concert coming this November by my favorite jazz artist, Pat Metheny. I got quite a few weird looks from passers-by for taking a picture of a bilboard-like advertisement, but I was so excited that I couldn't help myself.

On Tuesday night I had my first rehearsal with the Musica Sacra-Praga Cathedral choir. It was run completely in Polish. Thankfully there are so many familiar Italian musical terms that I did not have any problems following along. We are preparing the Mozart Requiem along with several Mass performances. My teacher will be in Los Angeles for 2 weeks at the beginning of October and has asked that I run the rehearsals for him in his absence. I'm a little nervous because of the language barrier, though there are many in the group who speak English quite well. Thankfully, we all speak "music" so I think we'll get along just fine.

After an orientation at the US Embassy and lunch at the Polish Ambassador's residence on Wednesday, all of the Fulbrighters traveled together to Wrocław for 9 more days of orientation and beginner Polish language classes. Wrocław is about 6 hours south-east from Warsaw, very close to the German border. There are about 30 of us all together, students, researchers, English teaching assistants, and senior lecturers. To my great surprise, I discovered that there are 3 other Mormon Fulbrighters here this year. We have had a great time getting to know one another. There are also 3 other musicians; a composer, a theorists, and a musicologist. So far it has been really great to get to know everyone and learn about their research and respective specialities. This is quite a talented group!

I had a bit of a scare today. A friend and I had gone to the main train station here to get our tickets for the return journey to Warsaw next week. In our taxi ride back to the University dorms, I accidentally left my wallet in the back seat. I did not realize that I had done this until I returned to my room. I quickly spoke to our guide and he began calling the taxi companies to see if they could radio the drivers and hopefully locate the wallet. For about 2 hours we had no luck. So, I got on the phone to the states and reported all 6 of my credit and debit cards as lost/stolen. During the final phone call, I heard a knock on our dorm room door. It was the taxi driver. He had been driving 3 Polish men when one of them felt it in the seat. They looked through it, saw my ID. They reported it to the taxi company who in turn reported it to us. The taxi driver himself drove all the way back to our dorm and returned it to me!! What a blessing! Unfortunately I still have to wait for my new cards to come in the mail, but all of my money and other wallet stuff was in tact. Hopefully I will not have any more heart stopping occurrences while I'm here.

So far things are going really well. Though, I must say, I don't think I've ever been quite this homesick. I never really got homesick when I was a missionary for 2 years in Chile. But I didn't have a beautiful wife and three perfect children then as I do now. Thank goodness for the internet which makes the distance much smaller.

I would say "that's all for now" in Polish, but that is way beyond what I'm able to handle right now. Hopefully I can work it up for my next post. Take care everyone! Good night from Wrocław!

Studying in Poland

Welcome to my blog!! On this page, I will document my travels and activities during my time as a Fulbright student at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Poland. This coming Sunday, September 11, 2011, I will fly to Poland. I'm not sure that I picked the best day to fly; the 10th anniversary of the Twin Towers attack. Hopefully there will be no problems, though, I am expecting airport security to be more intense than usual.

While I am in Poland, I will be studying with composer Paweł Łukaszewski. This is a great year to be studying with him because he is the composer-in-residence with the Polish National Philharmonic. He also has many exciting premiers this year including one from the King's Singers. I will sing in his cathedral choir and help run rehearsals at times. My most recent choral work, "Ave Redemptor" will be featured on this year's CD project of sacred women's chorus pieces.

Needless to say, I'm very excited to be living and working in Poland with such talented people. I will miss my family a ton, but they are in good hands at my parents home in Utah.

More to come soon!!