What to Practice When I'm Practicing Orchestra Music

I sort of had to drag myself into practicing tonight, but when I did, I got so absorbed that I lost track of time. I also worked my alertness level back up to the point that it's going to take me a while to settle my mind down and think of going to sleep. 

Part of what I was doing was going through some orchestra music and making mental notes of things to ask Ms. L. about. These include:

• How to play really quietly and slowly, with good tone. I can play with good tone when I play with a certain amount of volume. It's much harder to play with good tone when you're supposed to be fitting your sound (along with the rest of your section) under another part of the orchestra. I just hear myself in rehearsal playing with a rather constipated tone in spots like that, and would like to remedy that. 
• How to play loud tremolos without tension. In the seconds we have a few spots where we have loud, long tremolos. I find myself clenching my whole right arm when we get there. That can't be good.
• I'd also like to ask her to listen to me play through a couple of spots where intonation is a work in progress. When I am practicing, I can make adjustments. But I really need to have another set of ears--a better set of ears than mine--help isolate the trouble areas. In rehearsal, I have found that I cannot hear myself well enough in those sections to notice little intonation issues, though I'm sure they are there. I have work on my own to get those right and then let muscle memory take over to some extent when playing in the group.  

It's a whole different set of issues now!