Costa Rica Through Glass

Back in January, the Cornell University Wind Ensemble returned to Costa Rica and Panama for its fifth service and performance tour. On this trip, we stopped at music schools throughout both countries, gave lessons (in Spanish), performed concerts, and donated instruments. This was a really wonderful end to my time at Cornell.

While on the trip, I really wanted to try Word Lens in action. Although I took Spanish for a few years in middle and high school, I am still far from having a real conversation. This app would be super helpful while exploring the cities on our downtime.

After a few minutes, I realized a huge oversight: I didn’t have a data connection while traveling. Although there was a lot of wifi coverage in our hotels and hostels, using Word Lens out in the cities wouldn’t work. That was unfortunate.

Nonetheless, I recorded our musical activities through photos and videos. The first (below) is me leading a clarinet masterclass in Pérez Zeledón, Costa Rica. We worked on the basics: strong tone production, articulation, scales, and the like.

Here are masterclass recitals in David, Panama. CU Winds worked with these students for about an hour before performing these works.

While in David, CJT led a conducting masterclass. Below you can see their conducting and her feedback.

In San Vito, Costa Rica, the students requested a jazz improvisation workshop. Led by our drummer, Colleen Clark, CU Winds members taught the basics of improv and provided an impromptu concert. Here is Blue Bossa.