Spring Semester 2013 Activities

This spring has been a super busy semester of classes, lessons and coachings, collaborations, recordings, community engagement projects, and more! Here are just a few highlights so far:

We have done quite a bit of recording, and after days of intense moments, James needed a little break:

We have also had a fantastic time visiting 3rd grade classes and orchestra classes at Maxey, Sheridan, and Lakeview Elementary Schools. We made 13 trips in total. Thank you to all of the teachers and students who made this such an amazing experience! Below are various pictures from our trips.

We even received some wonderful fan mail/thank you letters!

We also played for a Lied Center announcement: the Cleveland Orchestra will be coming during the upcoming 2013-2014 season!

A cherished memory from this semester was a reprise of the Mendelssohn Octet in an historic old courthouse at the Grand Manse with the Chiara Quartet!

Fall Semester 2012 Activities

We are finishing up a busy first semester of our doctorates at UNL! Here are just a few of our experiences over the last couple of months.

We played at the dedication of the new Lied Commons at the Lied Center for the Performing Arts.

We performed for the Sing Around Nebraska Festival with a talented youth choir. Here is a picture of the audience in the Lied Center:

We performed at another Chancellor's pre-game tailgate, this time we played the Orange Blossom Special!

One of our best memories of the semester is our participation in the Xi'an Jiaotong University Week. We met lovely new friends from Xi'an, China performing in a Chinese Folk Ensemble.

The students gave us these lovely gifts from their University:

Here is a sneak peak of our next project:

We Are Officially Cornhuskers!

We just started our studies at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and we are having a fantastic time already! We had the great honor this week of playing Mendelssohn's Octet with the Chiara String Quartet for the Hixon-Lied Concert Series in Kimball Recital Hall on the UNL campus. Here is a picture of Skyros+Chiara after the concert:

We are thankful for the wonderful opportunities in our musical lives right now!

The week before the concert, we visited The Mill Coffee and Tea in the Haymarket district of Lincoln to promote the concert on the Friday Live broadcast of NET 91.1 Nebraska's PBS and NPR Stations. Here we are with Rebecca Fischer from Chiara Quartet at The Mill:

We also checked out what The Mill had to offer!

Other highlights from September included playing for the Chancellor's State of the University address, and the Chancellor's pre-game tailgate! Pictures below.

 

We also enjoyed our first Husker's football game!

Skyros Kitties

As many of you know, Sarah and Justin are the proud parents of two cats, Phineas and Theodora. They are five years old, brother and sister adopted in September 2007 from Austin Veterinary Hospital.

Phineas.                             Theodora.

After a summer without pets, Willie realized he really wanted a kitty too. So Sarah and Willie took a trip to the Lincoln Cat House, a no-kill adoption center that has hundreds of fantastic kitties looking for homes. In the end, it came down to this little guy, named Peanut.

Rory, (formerly known as Peanut) is settling in to his new home at Willie's apartment this week. Rory is named after this guy:

This is Rory Williams, a character from one of the Skyros's favorite TV shows, Doctor Who. 

Rory is an awesome kitty. He's only a year old so he's got a lot of young kitten energy. 

Moving to Lincoln

After two years in Austin, (six for Sarah), we've packed out bags and headed north. 800 miles, almost due north. That's right, folks, we have officially moved to Nebraska.

Many thanks to Sarah's parents, John and Pam, who flew from Seattle to Austin and drove a giant moving van filled with all our earthly possessions. We could not have made this move without their help.

Sarah has been taking pictures of the trip, our new homes in Lincoln and exploring the new city. Here's some of the images she took:

The caravan: Moving van, Willie's car, Justin's Car

 Willie on the front steps of his apartment building. The large window on the left is his bedroom. It was unbelievably cool for May 31st, only in the mid-60s, perfect weather for moving boxes.

The former lightning rod factory where Sarah and Justin now have a loft.

Kitties always are good help when moving. Boxes are the best.

O Street, the main boulevard in downtown Lincoln

 Yia Yia's Pizzeria on O Street

Looking forward to settling in to our new homes, a new city, a new school and many new adventures to come.

Introducing James Moat

Beginning May 16, 2012, Canadian violinist James Moat will join the Skyros Quartet. We are thrilled to have his talent join our ensemble as we head off to Lincoln, Nebraska. James and Justin met at Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario), where they studied violin together under Jerzy Kaplanek. After auditioning several candidates last fall, we invited James to become our new second violinist.

Recently employed as a section violinist with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, James Moat has also played regularly with the Kitchener/Waterloo, Sudbury, Ottawa, Kingston, Gatineau and National Academy orchestras. An avid traveler, James ventured overseas to pursue a Masters degree at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in Limerick, Ireland. The year provided James with several exciting opportunities, including performances abroad in Paris and Amsterdam, and a research trip to visit the home of Jean Sibelius in Finland.

Prior to receiving his Masters degree, James spent a year studying at the Interlochen Arts Academy under Paul Sonner, and he worked with Jerzy Kaplanek of the Penderecki String Quartet to earn his Bachelor of Music from Wilfrid Laurier University. James spent his summers partaking in various music festivals, including Casalmaggiore, Meadowmount, and International School for Musical Arts founded by Atis Bankas of the TSO. He also spent several summers playing with Boris Brott's National Academy Orchestra in Hamilton, Ontario. James is a native of Calgary, Alberta.

Explore UT

This Saturday was UT's annual open house, Explore UT. Kids of all ages come from all over Central Texas to for demonstrations, presentations, and activities from every department on campus. We were glad to represent the Butler School of Music at the Texas Memorial Museum in a "Music Expedition" through the museum. We gave a small presentation about every 25 minutes, playing Haydn and Vrebablov. It was a really fun event, with kids, families, and some of our students from String Project circulating through the audience. It was the first time any of us have performed in a room full of fossils and dinosaurs!

This photo was taken by Evan Leslie, the outreach coordinator at the BSoM. Many thanks to Evan for all that he does for everyone he does for our school!

Here are some more pictures that Evan took of the other performances at the museum on Saturday.