more masterclasses and a very diplomatic reception... (191/365a)

great fun giving masterclasses this morning. they were like individual lessons, but attendence was mandatory so the audience at these kind of private lessons were quite large and the students were quite nervous. they mostly needed help with the very basics of playing, although several of them were playing very complicated pieces. we didn't have enough time for any of them.

one of the students asked me if i could "put a new string on her viola" ... i told her that of course i could do that. when she got out her instrument however, there were no strings at all on it, no bridge, and no sound post. i felt very sorry to have to tell her i really couldn't help her.

we were supposed to have dinner with the students, but somehow, without our knowledge that changed, so we waited outside for a while until the driver came and took us to the opera for more catered dinner by ourselves. i took this picture of the sea between a building and its reflection. a police officer came and yelled at me, for taking a photo of a government building. he was not pleased with me.

the Mediterranean 

we were scheduled to play at the Austrian Embassy that night in celebration for Austrian National Day (which is actually in a few weeks) ... we arrived very early, and for the first time we were quite cold. The ambassador and her husband informed us about the results of the Austrian Election, and we were very subdued by the news.

election numbers

after we played the austrian national anthem and two of our concert pieces we were free to eat, drink and be merry, mingling with military attaches and diplomats from all over the world. mostly we were surprised by the terrible misogyny and class-ism that is apparently accepted even by people who are not actively participating. since we had missed most of the real food while waiting to play we replaced those missing calories with wine, which was, in retrospect, a rather poor choice.

highlights from the diplomats:
"i cannot support music because i am an honest capitalist"
"du da! die bratsche mit den blauen augen!"
"i wish my job was to be surrounded by beautiful ladies" (like klaus, of course)