When it rains, it pours! At least, that's what they say, and I have to admit it often seems true! This year when Easter rolled around I didn't have a whole lot planned for the next few months. But that changed drastically.
In the throes of one of the most horrible colds I've had in a while, my dear colleague Joachim Dreher in Dillenburg called and asked if I could jump in and sing in a concert in May. He'd had a soprano soloist all lined up (most likely a year in advance as is his wont), but she had called and said she was no longer able to do the gig. He remembered my offer in October that if he should ever find himself needing a soloist at short notice that he should turn to me. Not having a whole lot lined up for 2012 and being a quick study means that I could be what saves a concert if someone gets sick. Well, at least I had a few weeks notice for this concert. But more on that later.
But first the performance at the Herrenhäuser Chortage 2012 in Hannover by Raggio-di-Sol. That's the small vocal ensemble (10 singers), that I sing with. As per usual, we sang a few pieces during this choir festival. A whole weekend featuring choirs from Hannover. We performed on Saturday afternoon. We did "Pastime with Good Company" by Henry VIII, "Pedro y bien te quiero" (anon.) "When David Heard" by Thomas Weelkes, "Luci seren e chiare" by Claudio Monteverdi and "Magnificat anima mea", by Alfredo Ihl (our director). We did adequately. I say adequately because Alfredo made everyone nervous about the Weelkes by harping on one small section way past the point of no return. A pity, because it would've been just fine. As it was, there was no complete breakdown, but at least one person lost their way. Oh well. The rest of the pieces went quite well! That took place at the end of April.
This past weekend, May 12-13, took me back to my old haunt Dillenburg again. This time to sing Bach cantatas. Joachim had stitched together a wonderful pastiche of pieces of various cantatas and organ pieces to create a program he called "Bach and in Honor of Bach" ("Bach und Bach zu Ehren"). The church choir, a small baroque orchestra (with a few members I know from previous performances), a bass soloist and me performed from 9 different cantatas and an organ soloist performed works by Liszt, Rinck and Karg-Elert on themes from Bach pieces. It was a wonderful program and the orchestra and choir were in fine form. I'm quite satisfied with my performance, although it wasn't perfect, when is it ever? And I don't think there was anything that anyone but a professional musician might have noticed. Maybe not even then...
17 May 2012 I flit off to Hong Kong! My dear friend Albert is (finally) getting married! I know Albert from choir at the Episcopal Church of Christ the King in Frankfurt. After he left Frankfurt he spent several years in the US and then returned to his home town Hong Kong where he met Natalie. I am so pleased for him (and her!). And he asked me to sing at his wedding, offering to pay for my flight! How could I say no?!? The wedding date being 20 May 2012 meant that it fit just perfectly between the concert in Dillenburg and Magnus' grandmother's 90th birthday celebration in Bussolengo on 27 May 2012! I'm flying to HK by myself. The boys will be alone for 5 days! Unfortunately, because travel time is so long to HK I'll only be there from midday Friday to midday Monday. But I'm sure it will be an amazing experience. One set of friends from Frankfurt (Jen and Patrick) will also be there participating, so I'll be able to hang out with them. Unfortunately, the one other person I know in HK (Solveig, from Voices Found) will be in Paris that weekend! Figures!
I will be singing The Lord's Prayer by Mallotte and Bist Du Bei Mir by Anna Magdalena Bach during the ceremony. At the reception Albert has hired a jazz band and requested I sing a few numbers. I've chosen At Last and Summertime and he requested Skylark. Oh, this will be so fun!
So that's what's been going on and what's in the works.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Presenting Hildegard von Bingen - IWAH General Meeting 17 April 2012
A couple of years ago I offered to the then Chairwoman of the International Women's Association of Hannover (IWAH) that I could do a presentation on Hildegard von Bingen for one of the monthly General Meetings. A few months ago, 2 Chairwomen later, I was asked to make good on that offer.
It happened yesterday. I've never done a PowerPoint presentation or really any type of public speaking before, although as a professional singer, it's not that far removed from performing in public. When I arrived at the venue, the venue IWAH has been using month in and month out for years and years, apparently a photographer for the kindergarten kids had been installed in the large meeting hall that we always use. And he refused to move. Well, there are a couple of much smaller but none-the-less large rooms upstairs which were offered to us. Luckily, the room we used was just big enough to hold the 30 or so members who came to hear me speak (and sing).
I spoke about Hildegard's life and work, showed some of the illuminations from her books of visions, and other pictures and sang a few excerpts from various songs and one complete song (O quam magnum miraculum est). Luckily, after all the illness I've had and travel I've been doing, my voice held out. I had intended on recording the whole talk with my iPhone, but someone called me in the middle (argh!!!) and I didn't get it started up again properly. So, I've only got about 10 minutes of it.
Although the audience was more knowledgeable about Hildegard than I had expected, I don't think anyone quite realized just what an amazing woman she was and how many kettles she had in the fire. The title of the blurb I wrote for the IWAH Newsletter really is true: Hildegard von Bingen - Nun, Mystic, Healer, Poet, Composer. What I really wanted to accomplish - to bring her to life for them - was accomplished I hope.
It happened yesterday. I've never done a PowerPoint presentation or really any type of public speaking before, although as a professional singer, it's not that far removed from performing in public. When I arrived at the venue, the venue IWAH has been using month in and month out for years and years, apparently a photographer for the kindergarten kids had been installed in the large meeting hall that we always use. And he refused to move. Well, there are a couple of much smaller but none-the-less large rooms upstairs which were offered to us. Luckily, the room we used was just big enough to hold the 30 or so members who came to hear me speak (and sing).
I spoke about Hildegard's life and work, showed some of the illuminations from her books of visions, and other pictures and sang a few excerpts from various songs and one complete song (O quam magnum miraculum est). Luckily, after all the illness I've had and travel I've been doing, my voice held out. I had intended on recording the whole talk with my iPhone, but someone called me in the middle (argh!!!) and I didn't get it started up again properly. So, I've only got about 10 minutes of it.
Although the audience was more knowledgeable about Hildegard than I had expected, I don't think anyone quite realized just what an amazing woman she was and how many kettles she had in the fire. The title of the blurb I wrote for the IWAH Newsletter really is true: Hildegard von Bingen - Nun, Mystic, Healer, Poet, Composer. What I really wanted to accomplish - to bring her to life for them - was accomplished I hope.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Review: A night at the Met in Hannover, Germany
Recently, I became aware that one of our local cinemas participates in the live broadcasts of select performances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The Met has been broadcasting about 10 performances per season for several years now. We were in London when I first heard of it in 2007 or 2008. But I hadn't realized until now that they were doing it in Hannover. The Met broadcasts the live performance via satellite in HD and includes exclusive interviews with the performers in the intermission.
Saturday (14 April 2012) was the last broadcast of the season and we saw La Traviata, one of my favorite operas (and a lot of people's too, I know). The music is stunning and memorable and emotionally laden. I know it quite well because we did the opera when I was the Opera Props scholarship recipient at the UW-Madison. I got to sing the thankless role of Annina, because as a 21 year-old Violetta was naturally way beyond my ability, but it was a great experience none-the-less. Regardless, I was quite excited to see a Met production of it as well as to hear a singer I admire sing Violetta: Natalie Dessay. I'd never heard of the other soloists, but the opera is a vehicle for Violetta anyway, it lives or (and) dies with her.
However, Dessay should not have sung that performance. Apparently, she missed her first performance on Monday last week because of illness but sang the second on Tuesday. I imagine she didn't want to miss out on the Live in HD performance, but she should have bowed out. She was clearly not well vocally and it got worse and worse. From the very beginning you could hear that she was protecting her voice, which in my opinion was probably worse than just singing full out and not worrying too much about weaknesses. Long delicate notes cut out more often than not and the money note at the end of the first act was a real struggle. Unfortunately, we, the audience members of the broadcast got a close-up of the struggle. There was one redeeming thing in the first act and that was tenor Matthew Polenzani who sang Alfredo, Violetta's love interest. Wow! What a fabulous, rich, open and expressive voice! A wonderful actor as well, who brought tears to my eyes in the duet in the first Act. Too bad he doesn't have a more prominent role in this opera. Finally, someone whose Italian (and I imagine any language he sings in) is understandable! This was unfortunately, not the case with Dessay and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who sang the role of Germont. Although, I'm not sure, had Dessay been well, if she would've darkend the vowels quite so much. Hvorostovsky's performance was additionally marred by the wheezing, gasping breaths he took between each phrase. Was he ill as well? Or is that a hallmark of his singing? Quite distracting in any case.
The chorus and the orchestra were first rate, as is to be expected. All minor singing roles were admirably sung. The set was quite minimalistic and modern in a timeless modern kind of way. Not at all disturbing, but definitely added nothing to the overall production. The staging and direction made it overall an extremely dark version, giving Violetta nothing to work with when things were meant to be going well and she and Alfredo happy.
Despite all the griping above, I did quite enjoy it, although not nearly as much as I would have, had Dessay been singing well. What a shame actually, because it's clear that she is a very good actress and the vocal weakness was distracting to her and ultimately to the audience and made it impossible to be completely immersed in the drama. A real pity. I look forward to attending more such Live at the Met productions in the future. They gave a preview of the next season and there are several I'd really like to see.
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Saturday (14 April 2012) was the last broadcast of the season and we saw La Traviata, one of my favorite operas (and a lot of people's too, I know). The music is stunning and memorable and emotionally laden. I know it quite well because we did the opera when I was the Opera Props scholarship recipient at the UW-Madison. I got to sing the thankless role of Annina, because as a 21 year-old Violetta was naturally way beyond my ability, but it was a great experience none-the-less. Regardless, I was quite excited to see a Met production of it as well as to hear a singer I admire sing Violetta: Natalie Dessay. I'd never heard of the other soloists, but the opera is a vehicle for Violetta anyway, it lives or (and) dies with her.
However, Dessay should not have sung that performance. Apparently, she missed her first performance on Monday last week because of illness but sang the second on Tuesday. I imagine she didn't want to miss out on the Live in HD performance, but she should have bowed out. She was clearly not well vocally and it got worse and worse. From the very beginning you could hear that she was protecting her voice, which in my opinion was probably worse than just singing full out and not worrying too much about weaknesses. Long delicate notes cut out more often than not and the money note at the end of the first act was a real struggle. Unfortunately, we, the audience members of the broadcast got a close-up of the struggle. There was one redeeming thing in the first act and that was tenor Matthew Polenzani who sang Alfredo, Violetta's love interest. Wow! What a fabulous, rich, open and expressive voice! A wonderful actor as well, who brought tears to my eyes in the duet in the first Act. Too bad he doesn't have a more prominent role in this opera. Finally, someone whose Italian (and I imagine any language he sings in) is understandable! This was unfortunately, not the case with Dessay and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who sang the role of Germont. Although, I'm not sure, had Dessay been well, if she would've darkend the vowels quite so much. Hvorostovsky's performance was additionally marred by the wheezing, gasping breaths he took between each phrase. Was he ill as well? Or is that a hallmark of his singing? Quite distracting in any case.
The chorus and the orchestra were first rate, as is to be expected. All minor singing roles were admirably sung. The set was quite minimalistic and modern in a timeless modern kind of way. Not at all disturbing, but definitely added nothing to the overall production. The staging and direction made it overall an extremely dark version, giving Violetta nothing to work with when things were meant to be going well and she and Alfredo happy.
Despite all the griping above, I did quite enjoy it, although not nearly as much as I would have, had Dessay been singing well. What a shame actually, because it's clear that she is a very good actress and the vocal weakness was distracting to her and ultimately to the audience and made it impossible to be completely immersed in the drama. A real pity. I look forward to attending more such Live at the Met productions in the future. They gave a preview of the next season and there are several I'd really like to see.
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Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Survey follow up
The poll is still open, so if you'd still like to participate, please do:
Poetry Planet Survey
I wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who participated! I really appreciate all the encouragement, but also the bits of constructive criticism and helpful suggestions that many pollsters made.
In the future, I will…
...Try to keep the length down. I think 20 minutes is a pretty good length and if I have to do a two part theme, well then, I’ll do a two-parter, like on Time Travel.
...Encourage poets to make their own recordings. People seem to want to hear a poet’s own interpretation. Not all poets have the capability to record and transmit it to me, so I’ll still be reading some.
...People seem to want to hear poets’ bios; hear about new publications; and hear some info on the poem including my own take on it. Some people suggested interviews with poets on technique. Of course, it’s hard to keep length down AND include all these goodies. I’ll just have to see what I can do.
...I would really like to encourage some commentary on the poetry on the StarShipSofa forum. The majority of those who responded said they’ve never commented on the poetry there, but it also seems like some aren’t aware of the forum.
...I never intended on abandoning Poetry Planet after only a year and 6 episodes. I merely wanted to find out if there were, in fact, other listeners besides the poets themselves. And it seems there are, which is very encouraging!
...I’m going to leave the poll open so anyone coming late to this, feel free to participate whenever!
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Poetry Planet Survey
I wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who participated! I really appreciate all the encouragement, but also the bits of constructive criticism and helpful suggestions that many pollsters made.
In the future, I will…
...Try to keep the length down. I think 20 minutes is a pretty good length and if I have to do a two part theme, well then, I’ll do a two-parter, like on Time Travel.
...Encourage poets to make their own recordings. People seem to want to hear a poet’s own interpretation. Not all poets have the capability to record and transmit it to me, so I’ll still be reading some.
...People seem to want to hear poets’ bios; hear about new publications; and hear some info on the poem including my own take on it. Some people suggested interviews with poets on technique. Of course, it’s hard to keep length down AND include all these goodies. I’ll just have to see what I can do.
...I would really like to encourage some commentary on the poetry on the StarShipSofa forum. The majority of those who responded said they’ve never commented on the poetry there, but it also seems like some aren’t aware of the forum.
...I never intended on abandoning Poetry Planet after only a year and 6 episodes. I merely wanted to find out if there were, in fact, other listeners besides the poets themselves. And it seems there are, which is very encouraging!
...I’m going to leave the poll open so anyone coming late to this, feel free to participate whenever!
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Survey about Poetry Planet
If you follow this blog you'll know what Poetry Planet is. If not, I suggest you go back to a previous post about it to find out.
I've been wondering how many people actually listen to Poetry Planet and what people think of it since it began. I suppose that no news is good news, but maybe people can't be bothered to even listen and then have nothing to say about it, of course. Naturally, a poll about it isn't likely to entice those who don't care about it to respond, but I'm really just hoping for a sign from people who do! It's lonely out here in Cyberspace! Here it is:
Click here to take survey
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.
I've been wondering how many people actually listen to Poetry Planet and what people think of it since it began. I suppose that no news is good news, but maybe people can't be bothered to even listen and then have nothing to say about it, of course. Naturally, a poll about it isn't likely to entice those who don't care about it to respond, but I'm really just hoping for a sign from people who do! It's lonely out here in Cyberspace! Here it is:
Click here to take survey
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Poetry Planet No. 5b - Time Travel part 2
Time Travel Part 2 on Poetry Planet is available for download! Please head over to StarShipSofa to download it or download it from iTunes!
The poems you'll hear and links to the poets' websites and other publications:
The poems you'll hear and links to the poets' websites and other publications:
- Time Flood, by Mike Allen and Ian Watson - Mythic Delirium
- Revenants of the Time Machine, by Ann K. Schwader - Twisted in Dream (weird poetry)
- A Month of Sundays, by Geoffrey A. Landis - Mars Crossing (novel)
- Grandfather, by Dennis M. Lane - 8 Million Stories (poetry collection)
- an untitled poem by Terrie Leigh Relf - The Waters of Nyr (novel)
- Learn to Play Drums with Thomas Hardy, by Paul Badger
Please show your support for the poets and visit their sites!
Also, if you are so inclined, help me make Poetry Planet better (or otherwise give a sign of life) and fill out the survey!
Also, if you are so inclined, help me make Poetry Planet better (or otherwise give a sign of life) and fill out the survey!
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Thursday, March 08, 2012
Recording projects in the bag!
Just in time to go home on vacation, I've finished all recording projects!
Tony gave me a great story by Kim Stanley Robinson to narrate for StarShipSofa, and I had the second half of Poetry Planet No. 5 on Time Travel to finish. I had my work cut out for me, but I made it! Yea me!!!
Keep your eyes open for them on StarShipSofa.com in the near future!
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Tony gave me a great story by Kim Stanley Robinson to narrate for StarShipSofa, and I had the second half of Poetry Planet No. 5 on Time Travel to finish. I had my work cut out for me, but I made it! Yea me!!!
Keep your eyes open for them on StarShipSofa.com in the near future!
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