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I graduated from Gnessin college specialising in cello, and joined the fourth year at the same college, specialising in theory of music. I decide to see if I can get a place at the Gnessin Academy of Music, as a cellist.
As you would expect, we rehearse with the accompanist. I’m talking to someone in the corridor after one rehearsal. S. B. walks by, announces he is now teaching history of music at the Gnessin Academy of Music and that’s why he’s abandoned our class. After that I somehow no longer felt like applying for a place as a cellist there.
A few days later, I was late for an exam and played reluctantly, without any feeling. They barely asked me to play anything anyway, just a few bars from Bach’s Partita and the beginning of Pezzo Capriccioso by Tchaikovsky. I got a D. On my w
