Such a nice audience

Now it's a while since we've written anything here at Dolce blog. At the moment we are sitting at a sports bar in Barcelona and will soon move into our fourth week on the boat. It is no longer so confusing to navigate around the boat and we start to get used to our new habits. Last week  Sofia's parents came visiting. Very nice to have friends and family on board. Sofia had a chance to explore the various ports and Henrik and I continued with training. This week the safety training continous. Yesterday, we learned basic first aid and this week we will learn how to operate fire extinguishers and in Palma jump into the sea from deck 4 to learn how to turn a liferaft. Although the training takes a lot of time is quite interesting and important to learn. Since Sofia has spent much time with her family, Henrik and I had many meals together. On Friday we were dining at "Moderno". Moderno is a Brazilian meat restaurant. They have 10 different meat dishes, great salad buffet and sides for the meat. One is equipped with a card with a green and a red side. When you want more meat you turn your card to green and then a waiter will come and cut off a piece of meat. It was an evening of a lot of food because you want to taste all meat types. It was incredibly good! We will definitely recommend Moderno to all who plan to visit the Norwegian EPIC. We are often asked by visitors and those working on the ship if we feel comfortable and enjoy working there and the answer is that it is the nice people on the ship that makes the whole experience. This week we had a fantastic audience. They make all the work worth it. This week we got our first tip and a small gift from Japan. Next week is the Nicelodeon week at the ship and Spongebob and his friends will be going around everywhere and entertain 2,000 children. Here are a few pictures of our last experiences.

Sofia and Beatrice in Naples for the first time. Our "home" in the background.

Sofia tasting real pizza in Naples

A typical sidestreet in Naples and also the pizzaretsaurant we visited.

The Epic celebrated it's 1 year birthday last week and arranged a crew party in the Manhattan Room.

A happy trio celebrating Epic's Birthday.

-Bea

This is an security announcement

Dolce Trio is continuing their security and emergency training. We now have knowledge of Crowd Management, How to handle an emergency situation, how to interact with guest and how to treat and respect other crewmembers and guests.  Among the crewmembers we have 72 nationalities.  Today is a sea day (sailing from Naples to Palma di Mallorca) and our first day off. Tonight we hope to get at table at “The Manhattan Room” or “Taste” and eat dinner there.  If you want to check out the deck plans on the EPIC you can go here.  Yesterday Sofia and Bea went to Napoli and had their first slice of Italian Pizza. No time for sightseeing this week, but next week we will explore the city and maybe Pompei. Henrik (also know as Henrick) took the opportunity to practise in the Manhattan Room during portday. Tomorrow we will be playing in the Atrium and visiting Palma. Vamos a Laaa playaaa!

The repertoire

During spring we have been preparing music and deciding our repertoire. This is an example on how that process can look like:

I´m sure our hard work will pay off.

-Sofia

Landau t-shirts also arrived

"Welcome to my office". Our agent at Landau Music sent us some t- shirts to wear during our work period in the Mediterranean. They kindly asked us to send a t-shirt picture of our trio at our future destination. Maybe it will qualify as "picture of the month"on their webpage soon? Well, first we have to get there. T minus 11 days...

We couldn´t wait to try them on

-Sofia

Practicing and tryout for our new arrangements

Yesterday Dolce Trio met  to practice. It's always a pleasure to play together and we have loads of fun.

Henrik is now going back to Newcastle and will not return to Sweden until June. Until then we will have to finish almost all the music, practice on our own and fix all the final preparations. To be able to communicate in Italy, I started with my "learn Italian in 15 Minutes " course, and for my birthday I got a Spanish phrase book.

I must just mention that Henrik has made ​​a wonderful arrangement of Brahms Symphony 3, 2 mouv. I can enjoy the lovely clarinet solo, and it was almost as I got tears in my eyes at how beautiful it was. Sofia has transcribed Mozart Church Sonatas and Bach obokonsert. Our repertoire is so beautiful and we are really looking forward to perform this summer!

-Bea

Videochat with our Agent

We are very excited after having a one hour skype meeting with our agent Clint. It was really nice to finally see and talk to him (screen to screen). We got some answers to our questions and now we are even looking more forward to our Cruise Contract.

The last weeks we have tried to fix with our medical exams.  These day's we have arranged some new music and now that Henrik is back in Gothenburg we will have time to practise. A tip to all of you is to attend one of Henrik's concerts:

Thursday 7th april - VASAKYRKAN, kl. 12.00

Sunday 10th april - S:T PAULI KYRKA, kl. 18.00

Tuesdag 12th april - SLÄPS KYRKA (Kungsbacka), 12.00

Thursday 14th april - CHRISTINAE KYRKA, kl. 12.00

-Bea

Dolce Trio ready for a EPIC summer

Now it's set! Dolce Trio is going to spend the months from July to October at the world's third largest ship, Norwegian Epic. Our road to get this contract was not simple. We had to change our original pianist, record a new demo and take new trio pictures. But now we can finally look forward to going on this adventure and to present some good music. These days we are arranging a lot of new music and will this weeks start practicing the new program. Henrik is back from Newcastle to perform concerts in Sweden and also audition for Solo Master education. Sofia will be back from Spain and will likely be more tan then the rest of us. (Jealous!!) Follow our journey on the preparations for Norwegian Epic and our adventure on board.

-Bea