violinist & educator

So here’s a quick update… The month of June was full of traveling.  I had gone to Buffalo, Fort Lauderdale, and then finally Lake George, NY during three out of the four weekends.  The two latter getaways were tiki festivals—Hukilau and Ohana: Luau at the Lake—where I participated for the first time as a music vendor and attendee along with my husband and Waitiki bandleader, Randy.  Not having to deal with the stress of performing and traveling with instruments, I actually enjoyed the nice change.  We did surprisingly well in our sales of CD albums, vinyls, comic books, and other related merch.  For those who don’t know, Waitiki 7′s new album came out on June 7th and is selling like hotcakes!  Get yours NOW.  Also available for download on iTunes and Amazon.com.

The weekend that I managed to stay in Boston was also eventful with super nice weather.  My brother who had just moved to Providence, made his visit for the weekend, and that coincided with a visit from my cousin’s family, the Davis’s.

My cousin Cathy is a budding professional photographer, and has her own business: Cathy Clicks Photography. She does a lot of her artistic work in Maine capturing young love and families, but is also interested in traveling and working with musicians and working professionals on the side.  We had a great photo shoot in the North End, which had really nice backdrops for shots. Her beautiful pictures can be found throughout this site.  I hope you like her style as much as I do, and if you do, don’t hesitate to contact her based on my referral.

I’ve also been really happy with the student recitals at Bradford.  The quality has definitely gone up not only in terms of student performances, but also the organization and expectations of teacher, student and families.  Congrats to all my students who performed and I look forward to the next one!

Next stop: Washington D.C.

I was so wired and excited on my solitary ride to my hometown… I was practically speeding down the NJ turnpike!  The four-car caravan soon separated (Zaccai drove his car and met up with us at Gina’s), but we found ourselves together again at various rest stops.  Some people had small bladders, some needed coffee, and some had to stay awake!  Before we knew it, we finally reached our destination in the early afternoon: the Hyatt on Capitol Hill.  We got an awesome deal at the hotel because Randy’s cousin Stephanie is the manager.  THANK YOU!!  We only had a couple hours left before soundcheck at Bossa so we all went our separate ways and got ready.  I had to eat, shower, warm-up, and iron all the uniforms in a short time that I practically went crazy.  A reminder for the next tour: bring a uniform roadie!!

When we were ready to go and managed to get a hold of the valet parking dudes, we set foot into one of the busiest neighborhoods of DC: Georgetown.  Upon entering Bossa, I was at first disappointed due to the size (the stage was tiny!) and lack of seating and tables.  But after everything was set up (sound engineer took HOURS but was pretty nice) and the lights dimmed and people started walking in (my mom and close friends came to support us), the show turned out nicely.

Thank you all who came out to support us and our music!!  This was our first show and it gave us positive momentum to see such a good turn out.  After the show we treated ourselves to some good and cheap Middle Eastern food.  My gyro was yummy!Before we left DC for Philly, we got some shots at the Capitol.  Here is a shot from my car of our W7 caravan…

Next stop: Philadelphia