Week 3: Mix and Mingle

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Sunday, June 18, 2023

By:

Emily Pavasars

Welcome to the end of week 3! I definitely need to take more pictures because I don't have a lot of good ones for this week. 

 

The highlights of this week definitely are the ExCom mixer and the National Orchestra Institue (NOI) performance. I have never been to a mixer before so I was a little nervous but it turned out really well. I loved meeting new people and learning how they have used physics in different ways than pure research. There were a couple past SPS interns there so it was interesting to hear their experiences and what they are doing now. 

The NOI performance was beautiful. They played three pieces by Gerswhin: The Cuban Overture, Second Rhapsody and, of course, Rhapsody in Blue. Then a piece called Dreamwaltzes by Steven Stucky and 1920/2019 by Joan Tower. The Gerswhin pieces were special because they were as close to the original scores as possible. Scholars worked very hard to piece together from different sources what Gerswhin originally wrote for these pieces. The Dreamwaltzes piece was a more modern, chaotic piece. 1920/2019 was written to honor women's contributions to the music world and the composer Joan Tower was there! She spoke about her journey and her piece. 

 

This week I continued to work on the SOCK! I wrote my first demo writeup and started on some information cards that will be included in the kit. I continued to prepare for Astronomy on the Mall which is next Saturday!! If you are in the DC area, please stop by! Brad, Mikayla and I had a meeting to discuss the demos that we will be having. We will review them again this week and then I will teach the interns so we are all prepared. 

 

Till next week!

Emily Pavasars