Trombone Jury

My final trombone exam was on Friday, marking my last official presence in the academy and the closing of an amazing semester. I had a few hours in the morning for a good warm-up with Balázs, Reni and Eszter - four of us playing in one room is pretty loud. The vizsga began at 2pm with a lottery determining which set of orchestral excerpts each of us had to play. I ended up with the first tetél, the easiest, consisting of the Mozart Tuba Mirum, two Brahms symphony excerpts, the khachaturian Sparticus, Berlioz Hungarian March, Rossini La Gazza Ladra and, of course, Kodaly Zoltán's Arany Janós suite, 2nd movement - Hungarian to the core.

After that, most of the time was just spent waiting. While sitting with my friends, I remembered some of the fun times we've had together over the semester. Balázs and I getting chicken and ice cream at random times of the day, playing duets with Eszter, Reni giving me Hungarian lessons over drinks in Rizsa, Adam drilling me on my curses... There are so many. Each of them has been really important to me.

The exam ended on a dramatic note. After everyone had finished playing and Guszti had signed indexes (grade books the students keep with them), Eszter stayed behind and talked with him behind closed doors. I had been worried about Eszter, because in recent weeks I haven't seen źher at the academy much, and hearing her excerpts in the morning, it sounded like she hadn't prepared nearly enough. Now she emerged from the room, trying to hold herself together. I walked with her back to the trombone room and tried to ask what was wrong. She explained in halting Hungarian, and cried as she talked. I was so sorry that I couldn't understand, but did my best to comfort her, just knowing she was hurting. Reni came over soon after and asked me to let them talk it out. I gave goodnight puszi and went to Rizsa to celebrate with Balázs.

I've been asking everyone for a group photo for weeks now, and I finally got a few. The one with Guszti is missing Eszter, and the one with Eszter is missing Guszti. Here's one of them.

Got up early the next morning for another landmark - an excursion out of Budapest with some of the internationals! But you'll just have to read about that tomorrow...