Cliburn 2009: May 22 - June 7
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closeFriday, Jun. 05, 2009
Home away from hall
By BARRY SHLACHTER
dfw.com
FORT WORTH -- Laura Bruton, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s principal violist, found a practical solution to avoid a 60-mile roundtrip commute to her home in the Denton County town of Argyle during the Cliburn competition.
She’s spending her off-hours in a trailer -- actually her family’s 22-foot Cougar SL camper that’s parked in a tiny RV park just off 7th Street on the city’s near west side.
"It’s my second or third Cliburn that I’ve camped here," said Bruton, who left her three children back home in the care of her husband, Don Little, the orchestra’s retired tubist who is now a professor at the University of North Texas. "My kids are out of school and they can come around when they want."
She likes the Fort Worth Midtown RV park’s handy location
"Here, I’m close to the park. I have SuperTarget close by where I can get milk for my cereal. And it’s a five-minute drive. It’s nice, very tranquil. You can barely hear the train. Just a nice little getaway."
The travel trailer has a small but complete kitchen, air conditioning, bathroom, cable TV, master bedroom at the front and a room with bunks in the rear.
And it’s cheaper than taking a motel room for the duration. Midtown RV costs her $36 a day, with utilities, including cable.
It also gives her a place to hang out betweeen exhausting rehearsals, which began last weekend, and performances.
"The schedule is so hard and you never know if you can make it or not. On Wednesday, we finished rehearsals at 5:30 p.m., and had to be back at 8:30. And there’s nowhere to go. There’s just two couches and everyone rushes to get one."
"And I’m sipping a glass of wine while you’re driving back to Dallas," she told a visiting friend, Adriana DeCosta, principal second violinist.
BARRY SHLACHTER, 817-390-7718
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