Music

So far culture-wise in Germany I have been experiencing two extremes - the fact that so many things are universal and the fact that so many things I thought of as definites really aren't.
My experience with music here has sort of embodied that.
Right now I'm in the college orchestra, but typically, I'm not playing flute part, instead I'm doubled on 2nd oboe (still playing flute of course), since they still had all flutes from last year. What makes it funnier is that we're playing Der Geschöpfe des Prometheus too, which I played in Oberlin's college orchestra last semester (on second violin part). Nevertheless, I love love love playing in an actual full size orchestra for once and it's a really relaxed setting.
So music is universal, the pieces are universal, and the labeling of rehearsal letters as words is also universal. My conductor tends to use B as in Bertha and E as in Emil - I can't really remember any others.
However, when it comes to specifics, music is different. Through the translations are almost all direct, the fact that there are different musical terms has been challenging because you forget how many there are (even something simple and ingrained like quarter notes I have to relearn). One interesting difference is that instead of saying sharp, they add "is" to note names, so it's "Cis (=C sharp)," "Fis," etc. I guess that happens with flats too but with a different ending which I haven't run across in rehearsal yet. I believe we are tuning at a different frequency as well.
As for music in college, German universities normally don't have a music school and at least mine has some different ensembles and a few lessons and church music. I have been slowly searching for a flute teacher which may just happen in spring now. The few practice rooms are also not as public, so I haven't played piano in a long time which is frustrating. Instead of music departments within unis, there are separate music schools. This is the same with fine arts, since we only have art history (no studio art) at my uni.
As for concerts, Erlangen is a smaller city so there is not quite so much going on with large scale music performances and it is strange not having Oberlin's conservatory to offer tons of concerts. However, what's quite common here is church music. Lots of the local churches have performance series, and I went to one for the first time Sunday - it was great hearing live music again :)