The Mighty Mississippi

This week­end, I’m play­ing with the Dubuque Sym­phony, just across the Mis­sis­sippi River from the Wisconsin/Illinois bor­der. I’m play­ing con­tra­bas­soon (and a lit­tle bit of Bas­soon III) on an all-Shostakovich con­cert — Fes­tive Over­ture, Suite from The Gad­fly, and Sym­phony No. 10. I drove over and back for rehearsals on Tues­day and Thurs­day, then came back Fri­day after­noon for the week­end. We have one con­cert tonight and another tomor­row afternoon.

My Room at Shalom

The sym­phony is putting me up for the week­end, in a place called the Shalom Retreat Cen­ter. It’s an inter­est­ing place. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but from what I can tell, it’s a Chris­t­ian non-denominational meeting/spritual healing/retreat space. None of the inte­rior doors lock. When I arrived last night after rehearsal, I punched in the code for the com­bi­na­tion lock on the outer door, found a card with my room assign­ment on the front desk, and ven­tured out to find my room. I didn’t see a sin­gle per­son, even when I ven­tured out later to find an alarm clock that had been going off for quite awhile. I found the clock in the cafe­te­ria in the base­ment of the build­ing, turned off the alarm, and went explor­ing. There must have been peo­ple there some­where — the park­ing lot was full. But, I saw no sign of any of them. Bizarre. Stand­ing in my room, it was so quiet (after I found and silenced the alarm clock) that the sound of blood flow­ing through my ears seemed incred­i­bly loud.

Star Brew­ing Company

Today after our morn­ing rehearsal, I ven­tured out to explore the town a lit­tle bit. I bought a cou­ple of clas­si­cal records from a lit­tle thrift shop, then ven­tured down to the Mis­sis­sippi. I passed the National Mis­sis­sippi River Museum & Aquar­ium. I didn’t go in, but I walked around out­side to look at some of the river­boats they have on dis­play. I walked along the river for awhile, then ran into a cel­list from the sym­phony who also hap­pens to live a cou­ple of blocks away from me in Madi­son. We con­tin­ued up the river, and checked out a cou­ple of his­tor­i­cal build­ings — the Star Brew­ing Com­pany, and a Civil War-era shot tower. Shot tow­ers were used to pro­duce lead shot with the aid of grav­ity and sur­face ten­sion.
After walk­ing along the river, we parted ways and I then walked back up to the down­town area. I’ve been parked in the Mis­sis­sippi Mug cof­fee shop for a cou­ple of hours now, drink­ing tea, lis­ten­ing to live jazz, work­ing on a travel grant pro­posal, and surf­ing the web. But, the shop closes soon, and I should get back to Shalom to don my tux, any­way. I didn’t bring my real cam­era, but I shot a few dig­i­tal pics. Click the thumb­nails above, or check out the rest of the gallery here.