I have not had the best beginning at IHS. This morning I got up and went to get my first cup of coffee. Not being quite awake yet, I managed to trip and fall down part of the hotel stairs and badly sprain my ankle. I actually heard a snap. I got up and hobbled to the breakfast area (had to get the coffee) and then got back to my room and iced my ankle. 

Fortunately the symposium didn’t start until 11:00 AM so I had some time to keep my foot up before I had to leave. I got to my car (thank goodness this was my left foot so I could drive) without too much pain but the problems started once I found the parking lot we were supposed to park in. As is true of almost every college campus I have ever been on, there was no relationship between the parking lot and the building the symposium is in. 

Grimacing in pain I made it to registration and then was able to sit with my foot up for the opening session. The opening session was excellent. There were the usual welcome speeches but they were accompanied by some really excellent  performances setting the stage for the caliber of the rest of the symposium.

My next challenge was lunch. I bought the meal plan back when I signed up and discovered that lunch was in a completely different building and the we had to take buses to get to that building. Guess where the busses were? Yup, back at the parking lot. Well, that wasn’t happening and I went and got Burger King from the student union. That required navigating to the ground floor but at least I didn’t have to leave the building.   

I went to hear Lowell Shaw’s Deserts (single horn) Bipperies (two horns), Tripperies (three horns), Fripperies (four horns), and Quipperies (five horns) for the first session of the afternoon. My horn teacher and I have played a few of  the Bipperies and they are really fun. Lowell Shaw spoke about how he came to write these pieces and then about a dozen of them were played. Again the performances were outstanding.  

After this I got myself to some of the exhibits (barely) and had a few pros play my horn. The consensus is that it is sharp. (Look for another post about this by next week.) By now it was almost 4 PM and I gave up. I didn’t want to miss the rest of the sessions and the evening performances but I was in terrible pain by this time. If I had any hope of walking around tomorrow I had to get off my ankle so I slogged back to my car and went back to the hotel which is where I am now writing this with my feet up. On the way back to the hotel I stopped at the drugstore and got an ice pack and an ankle brace. I’m really hoping that tomorrow will be better.

International Horn Symposium Day 2