Friday, March 17th

The National Trumpet Competition, Fairfax, Virginia


Happy St. Patricks Day!   Today was focused on one major event - Bryce's competition.  David and I wanted to hear all of the competitors so we took Bailey and Brady to a very early breakfast before heading to George Mason University.  We ate at a quaint little place called the 29 Diner.  It was straight out of the 30's, complete with a chain-smoking little old lady with bleach-blond hair working the small grill behind the counter and one waitress trying to keep up with the customers.  To watch the cook was a treat in itself. 

Everything started with butter.  I ordered bacon and eggs with toast.  To make that you smere a big dolup of butter on the grill and follow that with a handful of bacon.  Then you scramble two eggs, smere more butter on the grill and pour out the eggs, mixing as you pour.  With the left hand, you feed a couple pieces of bread into the toaster.  It was like a kitchen ballet!  We may go back tomorrow just to watch her work.

After breakfast, we caught the bus to GMU.  We missed the first two competitors at 8:00 and 8:08, but I sat through all the rest, with short 5 minute breaks on the hour.  Thirty one high schoolers performed.  It was interesting to hear each student interpret (or massacre) the music.  It was always a tense moment when the next person started their piece and you waited to hear if this was a real competitor for Bryce or another budding percussionist (if you know what I mean).  I shouldn't joke about any of them because everyone worked very hard to get to this level.  A lot of audition tapes only yielded a "Try again next year" for a response. 

By the time Bryce played, almost 4 hours later, I saw only 1 real challenger.  A high school senior played a gorgeous rendition of the Arutunian Concerto.  Unfortunately, that piece got played 5 more times and the judges grew very, very tired of hearing it.  In fact, they joked to themselves, that the piece should be retired from the repertoire next year.

Bryce was nervous, maybe more than any time before this, but he played magnificently.  When he reached the slow section of his piece, about a quarter of the way through, the judges all leaned back in their chairs, smiling and nodding to each other.  It was truly beautiful even from my biased perspective.   I feel very good about the prospects of making the finals.  We'll know more about that tomorrow night.

We spent the afternoon at clinics and a mini-concert that included the Boston Brass.   Hanna's sister and brother-in-law joined us today to hear Bryce play and hang out with us.  We had dinner together and caught up on the latest news. 

I mentioned the weather was changing, but it didn't change as much as promised.  The temperature dropped almost 20 degrees but the snow they predicted never reached the ground.  Oh, well.  We get another shot at it on Tuesday I guess.  So, in honor of the no-snow day, I've included some picture of local signs of spring.