An International Cooper Violinist at Oberlin College

The 2015 International Cooper Violin competition at Oberlin College is over and we had to say goodbye to a super competitor and girl extraordinaire Maya Buchanan from Rapid City, South Dakota.

Maya is just 14 years old and has been playing the violin since the age of 3 and is now an Academy Fellow at the Music Institute of Chicago where she  goes every weekend for instruction. She is the youngest first prize winner in the history of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra Young Musician  Concerto Competition. She is also the co-winner of the 2013 Walgreens National Concerto Junior Strings Competition, the second-place winner of the 2014 Music Teachers National Association Junior Performance Competition and the 2015 Junior Strings National Finalist. She has also been featured on NPR's From the Top.

At the Cooper competition here in Oberlin Maya placed 6th out of 21 contestants but she is number one with the guests here at Hallauer House. The video that I shot of Maya's Cooper performance would not upload to this Blog so I've placed a link to the YouTube video of Maya's 2014 performance at the Waxman Carmen Fantasie with Ottawa Chamber Symphony. Enjoy!

As we say goodbye to Maya we wish her well as she continues her studies and goes forth to perform outstanding music on the violin. In 2017 she hopes to return to Oberlin to complete in the next International Cooper Violin competition and we do hope that she comes back to Hallauer House.

International Cooper Violin Competition at Oberlin College, 2015

 
                                        We wish you well, Maya! Hope to see you in 2 years!

Fiftieth Anniversary on Motorcycles!

Saturday morning we said goodbye to two most interesting couples who have stayed with us here at Hallauer House, Clyde and Susie Houser and Tom and Sandy Young from New York state. They roared in on their Harley motorcycles, Clyde and Susie's an apple green and Tom and Sandy's a midnight blue. After about 6 hours on the road they were glad to plant feet on the ground and to take a walk through the gardens.

We then invited them to the pool deck where we presented them with a bottle of champagne to toast the 50th anniversary of both couples! That's right 50th anniversary and their gift to themselves is a cross country motorbike tour from their home in New York state to Arizona with many stops in states and landmarks along the way. We were the first stop on that long and amazing journey.

Both couples were friends in their younger days having lived in the same town. Then as children arrived and Clyde and Susie moved to another town a few miles away they sort of drifted apart but remained acquaintances. Then a few years ago they ran into each other and in their catching up they found that each of them had just bought a motorcycle! A Harley at that! And so the relationship is now sealed in a "Hog" friendship!

Saturday morning was perfect for breakfast on the pool deck so we sent them off with a menu of mango and cherries topped with Greek vanilla yogurt, Hallauer House muffins, Egg Roulade stuffed with peppers and onion and served on organic spinach and topped with a creamy cheese sauce, roasted rosemary potatoes, and crispy bacon. The morning went too quickly and soon the Harleys were brought out of the shed and packed up with bags that would fit into all the luggage spots. When you ride a motorcycle you ride light!

After a group hug and jackets, helmets, and glasses were donned we sent our 50th anniversary guests off to continue their special journey. And by the way Joe figured that 50 years together adds up to 36,362 days!!!! Good luck Clyde and Susie and Tom and Sandy! Stay safe and Happy Trails!

Hallauer House on Flicklr

Pictures tell the story and our picture story can be found by visiting not only our main website, our secondary website, our BLOG, but now our many albums displayed on Flickr.

On Flickr the written words appear only in the description of the pictures themselves. You don't have to read, you just have to enjoy the photos. Here you can browse the albums and explore Hallauer House to see our guest rooms, our common rooms, our Asian Spa, our rec/exercise room, our gardens, our pool, our guests, our local attractions, and our changing decorations.

Nine albums have been added so far but we invite you to check back frequently to see all the new additions! Leave some comments and come and visit! Happy browsing!

Underground Railroad Quilt Part 2

In a previous post, I introduced Kathie Fiedler, a guest visiting us from Michigan who is a master quilt maker. She showed us her fabulous Underground Railroad quilt and in October she and her husband Robert returned and brought with them a wall hanging version of that same quilt which we purchased and now have hanging on the wall in our guest dining room. It has become a very unique and interesting conversation piece among our guests at breakfast and Joe, our resident historian/innkeeper, is very adept at pointing out and explaining what code is hidden in each of the squares.  Now when you come and stay at Hallauer House B & B you can immerse yourself in a new history lesson and we promise there will be no test afterward!

Kathie's Underground Railroad quilt wall hanging.

                  While we were visiting the National Cryptologic Museum at Ft. Meade in Maryland for our daughter's promotion to Petty Officer 1st Class in the US Coast Guard, we found on display a poster showing many Underground Railroad quilt squares and their meanings. Luckily I had my trusty camera handy so I took a picture of each square and decided to include them below. So hope you enjoy reading a little history and we do invite you to come as a guest and see the quilt up close and learn a little about the history of the Underground Railroad and Oberlin's role during this era of our country's history.




As a P.S. - The National Cryptologic Museum is a really fascinating and interesting place to visit when you are in the DC area and it's free. Go there! You won't be disappointed!

Cooper International Piano Competition

This clip is just a few seconds of music from the Cooper International Piano Competition which was held at Oberlin College during the week of July 19-25, 2014.

The music being played by this performer was, to my untrained ear, astonishing and superb and sounded completely flawless! She is just 13 years old but has the confidence and poise of a mature adult. She even placed flowers on the road to apologize to the composer Franz Liszt for the mistakes she made while playing his music! We just heard perfection in her playing!

This performer that I am speaking of is Miss Allison To who, with her mother Stephanie and teacher Ethan Dong, spent the 10 days of the competition with us here at Hallauer House. She advanced through to the 40 minute Concerto Round where she played Chopin, Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op.11, Allegro maestoso, Romanze-Larghetto, and Rhondo-Vivace. We were so thrilled for her performance but were sorry to  learn that she did not advance to the recital finals but, the good news, she says she will be back in two years for the next Cooper Competition!  

As I mentioned above, Allison is just 13 years old but she has performed at The Beverly Hills Hotel in California, the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Utah, and concert stages in Tennessee and Ohio. She has performed a solo recital at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Yamaha Salon in New York.        From Oberlin she will return to her home and then make a journey to Germany for another piano competition. The New York Concert Review described Allison as "one of the most refined and artistic players for her age and perhaps any age."

It was also a great pleasure to meet Allison's teacher, Ethan Dong who is a concert pianist in his own right and who is more than willing to share his talent with the next generation. And Stephanie, Allison's mom, is raising a remarkable daughter. Her daughter is a talented competitor but still centered and grounded as a normal teenager.

The International Cooper Competition at Oberlin College will bring in talented violinists next year and then in 2016 we hope to welcome back our Allison To. Good luck in Germany and all the other competitions between now and summer of 2016. And remember, we'll keep the lights on for you! You rock!  Stay in touch! See you soon!!!!

              

The Underground Railroad Quilt

People often ask us what we like most about owning a bed and breakfast and our response is always the same. It's the people who come and stay and share a part of themselves with us.

This past week we had guests from Michigan, Kathie and Robert Fiedler, who found our listing as an Underground Railroad house in Ohio. Kathie is an accomplished quilter and came to our area in search of quilting fabric in historical patterns. Before leaving she showed us her remarkable Underground Railroad quilt of patterned squares that were codes to help slaves escape the bonds of captivity and travel the treacherous trek from the Southern states to safety in Canada before the Civil War. It was through Oberlin, Ohio that many of these slaves seeking freedom came to pass through. And our B & B, with the basement hiding place and floor plug above could have been one such place of safety and refuge.

Kathie gave us a very knowledgeable explanation of what each of the squares coded message meant such as the Log Cabin square hung out meant "Safe House." The Shirt Pattern square meant that clothing could be found here. Arrow in a pattern pointed north to freedom. The Bow Tie square was a symbol indicating that one needed to don a disguise and seek clothing that reflected a person of higher status.  And more squares too numerous to mention because I didn't take notes! You could tell that as she talked she was telling us about a labor of love. Her heart and soul is reflected in the work of her accomplishment and we are so thrilled that she shared this with us. The pictures below show only a small part of the loving labor that is reflected in this fabulous quilt. Thank you so much Kathie for sharing it with us. Someday maybe we will have a small wall hanging of an Undergound Railroad quilt!

Danish Guests on World Tour

Yesterday evening at 7:00 P.M. we received a call asking about that nights availability and with Janurary being a slow month we did have a room ready for guests. When I went out to greet our new guests, I did a complete double take as they disembarked from a small, uniquely painted, and highly decorated car with advertising logo and a foreign license plate. Nina Rasmussen and Hjalte Tin were extremely glad to have arrived as the car was about out of energy. The car, it turns out, is ALL electric, and they were at the end of the charge! After showing them around the B & B they asked if they could recharge the car in a 220 outlet. The only 220 plug available just happened to be in the laundry room for the electric dryer. No problem as Hjalte had an extremely long extension cord and by moving the car into the garage, he was able to quickly convert the pigtail plug and use the dryer outlet. The car needs 9 hours to recharge the batteries.

The next morning at breakfast we learned all about their adventures. They left Denmark on June 25, 2010 and are making an around the world trip (adventure!) in their 100% all electric car. Their journey has talken them already to Scandinavia, Estonia, Russia, Mongolia, China, and now they are traveling across the USA. They will continue on to Canada, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Britain and Germany before returning to Denmark on May 1, 2011. The car will be shipped from New York and arrive in Spain where they will meet up with it again after it's 30 day journey on the high seas.

The car is Qashqai Electric developed and produced by AfutureEV in Denmark and is 100% electric. The Moto Mundo World Electric Tour is the ultimate test of electric car range, durability and performance as it is being driven in all different kinds of road and weather conditions.  They have driven on long, endless highways, in the dessert heat, on the jammed streets of China, and of course the cold winter temperatures of the US, and some would say, freezing Ohio! They are also testing a unique satellite receiver positioned on top of the car that gives them broadband internet. That is how they found our B & B!  The car will travel 60 to 65 mph but Hjalte likes to keep it around 45 mph so they can go further on a charge. They can travel about 100 to 125 miles between charges and are planning a stop near Youngstown tonight. I hope they can find a super B & B to which to stay the night!

Joe & I were so thrilled that we could be a part of this super adventure and meet such fascinating people who are so greatly involved in moving the world to greater sustainability. They are truely the new pioneers of the 21st century and we're glad that we met them! For more information about the adventures of Nina and Hjalte you can go to their website, http://www.moto-mundo.com/.