Time-lapsed Blogography Day: Twenty-Five Years Ago Today

Twenty five years ago today, on January 27, 1996, I was at Virginia Tech for my music major audition.

My parents and I arrived on campus around 11:30 and walked around for a little while. I then got a private tour of the Squires music building by a music volunteer, likely a Delta Omnicron member although I wouldn't have known what that was at the time.

For my trumpet audition, I performed Alexander Goedicke's Concert Etude and Carl Hohne's Slavische Fantasie for 9 music faculty that (at a minimum) included Drs. Bachelder, Easter, Widder, and Dave McKee. I played on my cornet and did pretty well without a pianist. Afterwards, the panel interviewed me about my entire composition portfolio which consisted of 8 whole pieces diligently printed on my state-of-the-art HP LaserJet printer and put into a three-ring binder. They closed with the standard question, "Do you have any questions for us?" I pulled out a single sheet of typed questions to which Dave McKee chuckled and said, "Watch out for this guy! He's got questions for US!"

Because motels were "a waste of money for such a short trip", my dad drove us home to Alexandria in the same day, making it a 12-hour trip from end to end. I then wrote the following in my journal:

At the time, I had my eye more on William and Mary (which turned out to be awful for both halves of my double major) and felt like Tech was too far away (it was).