TSO's Romeo and Juliet with Stéphane Denève

Mom and I went to our first TSO concert this season.

Stéphane Denève conducted 139 musicians from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra.  81 of them were from the TSYO.
I have never seen so many double basses on stage at the same time before!

I have seen Stéphane Denève  conduct the TSO before and I think he is amazing. I had no idea that he worked with younger musicians too!

My favourite piece from the program was the Marche Slave, Op 31 by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was spectacular! I could listen to it over and over again!!!

Nicola Benedetti was our Violin Soloist. She played Dmitri Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 99 (1955 revision of Op. 77). It was super cool! It had an unusual structure... It was "slow-fast-slow-fast" instead of the normal "fast-slow-fast". It was the first time I have ever heard the celesta do something that was not light and airy. I have learnt a lot about Stalin and the way he treated artists and musicians. It must have been very hard for musicians like Shostakovich when he didn't like them.

Nicola Benedetti was wonderful! And she even performed an arrangement of the original Auld Lang Syne for us as an encore! It was short but it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard.

I loved the excerpts from Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. Of course my favourite part of it was the Montagues and Capulets. It's so much more dramatic in person with the full orchestra! I can just imagine what it would be like with a full ballet!

After the concert, we got to meet the conductor!

He was very nice and we talked a little about the instruments that I'm learning how to play.

Toronto Get Out and Vote!

Today, I went with my Mom when she went to vote. She decided to vote in the advance polls.

Election Day is October 27th and adults who are Canadian citizens and who are residents of Toronto can vote. (Advance polls are open until October 19th.)

When we went in, they looked at her ID and her voter information card. Then they sent her to an election official who gave her the right ballot that had the candidates for Mayor, Member of City Council and the School Trustee. (There are different ballots based on the school board. There is the Toronto District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the Conseil Scolaire Viamonde & the Conseil scolaire de district catholique.)

The ballot is quite big! There were tonnes of names of people running for Mayor! There are 65 Mayoral candidates.

The election official explained how to mark the ballot and then put it in a secrecy folder so she could keep her ballot in private. There is a place where she could sit and mark the ballot.  She wouldn't even let me see how she voted. 

After she voted for who she wants for all three positions she put it back into the secrecy folder and carried it to the Tabulator. The tabulator scanned the ballot and it said vote was accepted and it even said 'Thank you for voting' afterwards.

I can't wait to see the election results!

Here is the website about the Toronto Elections:
www.toronto.ca/elections

Here is a FULL List of all the Candidates:
http://app.toronto.ca/vote/candidateListAll.do

It's been a long time!

It has been a really long time since I blogged but I've been super-busy!

This weekend Mom and I did a First Aid Course.
I did really well!

A long time ago I learnt how to use an Epipen and I practiced on a piece of fruit. I don't have any allergies but some people I know do. It's part of the reason why I wanted to learn First Aid.

I got to volunteer a lot and do a lot of scenarios.
We practiced CPR on adults, children and infants and we learnt how to deal with choking. We also learnt about burns, poisons, diabetic emergencies, bleeding, splints & slings and lots of other stuff.

The best thing about doing the First Aid Course is that I'll know what to do in an emergency and I will be able to help if it's even to call 911 or find an AED.

My parents are super-proud of me!
Happy Thanksgiving!