Thank you to all for attending our Berkeley Piano Club concert. It was more than sold out and all of your donations are greatly appreciated. The Club's venue is the perfect setting for chamber music and the energy from the audience and back was felt during the entire performance. We are all flying back to Ohio today and now we begin our final semester at Kent State. We already have our first concert review by Stephen Smoliar of the SF Examiner. 
Lots of fog and rain rolled in during our last hike in Aspen. It was cold, but worth it when we jumped into the hot tub after wards. We are getting in our ethnic foods before we leave Colorado. We've eaten Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Mexican all in the last week. When we arrive in Kent tomorrow evening, it will be either home cooked meals or hamburgers. Can't wait.
Our finals days in Aspen have been amazing. We performed at a beautiful house on Monday, set up by our sponsors, Susan and John Rothchild. We've had the privilege of meeting some wonderful people who have shown us incredible support. There have been some challenging hikes including Aspen Mountain and Crested Butte, and early tomorrow, we are heading towards the mountain trails again. Our final masterclass was today with the American String Quartet and we all head back to Ohio on Monday.
It was Eric's birthday on the 29th and Andrea bought a giant cake that took us about 5 days to finish. We've been having a great time working and relaxing in Aspen. We are in our last month of summer before we head back to Ohio. We have a few gigs coming up playing for restaurants and churches, but other than that, we are busy with our new repertoire.
We've been having a great time in Aspen. It is amazing to be surrounded by musicians that we have grown up admiring and listening to. Just today we had a coaching with András Fejér from the Takács String Quartet and watched Joshua Bell perform Mendelssohn Concerto. We are also having regular coachings with Earl Carlyss and learning from his experiences with the Juilliard Quartet. Our first performance at the Aspen Chapel on Thursday went pretty smoothly and we might possibly have another next week as well so we have been busy. 
It's been mostly rain and cold here in Banff, but we have been enjoying ourselves and getting ourselves educated from our fellow musicians and faculty. Our teachers so far have been Mark Steinberg from the Brentano Quartet, Henk Guittart from the Schoenberg Quartet, Don Weilerstein from the Cleveland Quartet, Denis Brott from the Orford Quartet, and Alisdair Tait from the Belcea Quartet. 
