Day 4 -5

Yesterday the IES group went to this little village outside of Amsterdam, and visited a windmill museum and clog making demonstration. While it was nice to see what I assume to be a fairly accurate representation of average Dutch life during the time just before the industrial revolution, it was not necessarily my cup of tea. Much more to my liking was going again to a small cafe to hear some real Amsterdamer jazz. Hearing such great music in that amazing setting was what it must have been like to hear live jazz in the 40's and 50's in NYC.

Today we met with our Conservatorie student advisor to select and schedule classes. As it turns out, I was listed in the system as being a "jazz composition" student, as opposed to my declared"a composer who plays jazz". Honestly, I can see the similarity, but now I am attempting to register for classes when most administrative staff did not know I was coming at all! It is a little bit frustrating, but I am continually reassured that everything will fall into place soon enough. As of now, my schedule consists of:

Composition lessons

Composition forum

Music entrepreneurialism

Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky

Live electronic music

Drumset lessons

Some small group jazz (preferably contemporary)

All in all, not too bad of a schedule. Heck, I might even enjoy myself!