Hello, everyone! My name is Grace Erie - I'm a junior with a music major and religion minor. I sing in Collegiate Chorale as an Alto I and take voice and organ lessons. Other musical activities I partake in are playing organ and piano for church services in my hometown area, and I also play bass for the FOCUS music team at Luther (a student-led worship service that takes place on Sunday nights). Other instruments I play are piano, guitar, drums, violin, mandolin, ukulele, and a little bit of banjo. Outside of music I enjoy photography, which this trip has given my plenty of photo-taking opportunities!
Today in class we discussed Gamelan music which originates in Indonesia, and we had a fantastic opportunity to actually participate in a Gamelan workshop and play a song together. The sound we all created together with our various Gamelan instruments was a new and fantastic experience! I really enjoy learning about music in other cultures, and this definitely emphasized that interest in me. In the other half of our class, I had the honor of presenting on Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" with my fellow presenter, Tani. We then got to see the ballet performed at the Royal Opera House this evening. It was by far my favorite ballet out of all of the others that I have seen. Everything was well done, and I'm always amazed at the thought of how much work these performers put into this production. The set design and transitions were especially impressive! And, of course, the orchestra did a wonderful job - everything was lined up and unified beautifully.
Between class and the Gamelan workshop, we went to the Museum of London, which had many interesting exhibits on the history of the city - starting at the beginning of its history, and ending with life in London today. There were a lot of things I discovered here that I never knew about before - for example, the great fire of London that occurred in the 17th century. The thought of a 4 day fire is difficult for me to even begin to comprehend...
After visiting the museum we went to the Gamelan workshop which I mentioned before. Our workshop leader is very gifted in this type of music, and it was awesome to be able to have her share that with us. In case you are not familiar with Gamelan music, I recommend looking it up! It is mainly composed of bell-like, percussion instruments that, together, collaborate into a unique and fantastic sound.
Finally, I ended the afternoon with eating dinner with my classmates and friends at Stockpot, which served great food for a very reasonable price! After eating we went back to the flat to get ready for "The Nutcracker" performance, which we followed up with stopping to get some very tasty Gelato.
This experience has been overwhelmingly awesome, and I look very much forward to the next couple of weeks. Thanks for reading!
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