So, What’s This Recording Thing I’ve Been Doing?

So for the last month I’ve been working on a project with The Crossing: the first recording for this fledgling group, and hopefully a sign of things to come.

The piece is Kile Smith’s Vespers, written for The Crossing (a new music choir) and Piffaro (a Renaissance wind band), and I can’t wait until the CD is out in stores.

And, of course, because I seem to be one of those people who takes on WAAAY too much at once, I was not simply learning my music (including a newly rewritten movement Kile threw at us at the last minute!!), I was helping to organize flights from folks coming in from out of town, making sure everyone had the music, and even making available transposed versions for those of us with perfect or even good relative pitch.

(Piffaro’s instruments are all tuned to A=463 rather than the standard 440, which means that all the notes on the page really sound a half step higher than they look on the page, which can drive folks like me nuts.  As Adrian Monk says, “It’s a blessing and a curse.”)

At the same time, I was trying to fulfill my AGMA duties, which have seemed to multiply, Hydra-like, exponentially (and more viciously) the more tasks I complete (since the stress level for this volunteer job had started to affect me physically, I said enough was enough, and I stepped down as delegate).  Oh yeah, and never mind the fact that I had my day job, too, working at the transcription place, which I’m leaving at the end of the month (more on that later).

Since all work and no play make Maren very grumpy, Ray bought Grand Theft Auto IV for me to release some of my frustrations on.  Yeah, I know.  I don’t seem like the GTA4 type, but I’m really liking it.

Anyway, the recording was intense, but I think it went well.  And I really think the final product will be fantastic.  I posted a story that David Patrick Stearns did for WRTI on the piece.  I think it definitely sums up what the process was about…oh yeah, and you get to see me in my pigtails, which I sported every day that week because it was so hot and muggy.

Video of Vespers Recording

This may or may not work…apparently YouTube is being retarded…

Random thoughts

I sang at a wedding today…it was a beautiful ceremony, lovely couple, gorgeous day. But after having gone through my own wedding so recently, I now notice all the things that could have gone better had the bride & groom (or maybe the wedding planner?) thought the details through just a little bit more.

The ceremony took place outside, and the bridesmaids and brides had to traverse a very long lawn to get to the site. They did so in 4-inch stiletto heels, all of them. I almost wanted to say kudos to them, but I was too busy laughing (on the inside, of course!) as their heels accumulated rose petals like those pointy canes that pick up trash while they marched down the rose-carpeted aisle. The bride had to be held up by her parents as she walked because she kept falling into the soft ground. NOTE TO ALL FUTURE BRIDES: if you are going to get married outside, make sure you (and your bridesmaids) choose appropriate footwear.

The ceremony music was untraditional, for sure, which made me happy, because I got to sing something other than Schubert’s Ave Maria . Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for a bride who knows what she wants with regard to music, rather than the standard, "What do you suggest?" Because that’s when I end up with Ave Maria or Panis Angelicus or one of the oldies but goodies. I do like a little change now and again, just to spice things up. But whoever picked the music didn’t really think of the timing or the appropriateness of some of the selections. The groomsmen entered to a somewhat menacing Janá?ek piece played by the string quartet, and they were lined up at the front and ready to go before the piece was even halfway over. And my solo, "Ich habe genug" (Bach Cantata, BWV 82), would have been 8 minutes long before we cut it down to a mere 3′50" during the rehearsal immediately prior to the ceremony. SECOND NOTE TO FUTURE BRIDES: make sure you know what all your music selections sound like and how long everything is going to take.

Other than that, everything else went pretty smoothly. There were some problems with the wireless microphones, but I didn’t need a mic in that intimate setting, so I personally didn’t care one way or the other.

In other news, I’ve actually had enough time on my hands that I’ve been surfing around Digg.com (dangerous, I know) and came across this picture , which had the title "Never piss off an engineer." Priceless.

Crash

Yesterday, the airwaves were filled with dire warnings of a winter storm. It was going to snow, they said, but later it would get cold enough where everything would turn to ice. Now, I’ve weathered a many a winter storm since I moved to the East Coast back in 1992…in fact, my first storm was a Nor’easter in Boston that left the tree branches encased in ice. Beautiful, but very cold and very dangerous.

But until now, I’ve been fortunate enough to not have to drive in a winter storm. Usually by the time the weathermen are predicting the coming of the ice age, I am already well-ensconced in my cocoon of blankets, sipping on hot tea. Not so last night.

I was on my way from work to pick up a little dinner before heading into Philadelphia to sing the roles of Flora and Annina in La Traviata at the High Note Cafe, when I skidded on some black ice and ran into a telephone pole. But it didn’t end there; hitting the pole only sent me back into the street to end up facing the wrong way on the shoulder.

Now, before you start worrying, I wasn’t really going that quickly, so the impact was really not bad at all.  I’m fine, I didn’t hit anyone, and the car doesn’t even have a dent (you’ve gotta love those plastic Saturns!).  But it did shake me up a bit.

After making sure my car was, indeed, okay, I made my way SLOWLY to the place I was planning on grabbing some dinner.  I phoned Ray and told him what happened, and he told me I should ask whether or not the show was still on.  I had never thought of that.  Why would someone cancel a show because of weather?  And why would I not continue on my journey?  I mean, don’t they say “the show must go on” for a reason?  I inwardly guffawed, but I called the guy in charge just to make sure.

The show manager said there was no change, and that the show would go on.  He seemed concerned when I told him I ran into a telephone pole, but not so concerned, obviously, to tell me to go home.  I expected that reaction and ordered my food and studied my music.

About 20 minutes later, Ray called again and told me that NJ emergency management was telling everyone to get off the roads and go home.  He said I should call the show manager again and tell him I wasn’t coming.  Although I was loathe to do it, Ray convinced me by telling me the traffic was so bad that it would have taken me 2-3 hours to make the normally 30-minute trip in (and besides, he said, I was worth a lot more to him in one piece than any money I could have made on this gig).  I called the show manager, who was very clearly upset.  But in the end, he understood, and told me that depending on who showed up, they might just do a concert of highlights from the opera.  Good idea, I thought, as I packed up my things and started my journey home.

In the ten miles between the restaurant and my house, I don’t think I drove faster than 25 MPH.  It’s possible that when I got on the highway, I was cruising at 30, but that was definitely my top speed.  And when I got home, Ray told me he was happy I was safe, and I wrapped myself in my cocoon of blankets and sipped hot tea.

Nothing Witty…Sorry…

It occurred to me while I was singing in a concert last night that I’m being somewhat unfair with my “self-promotion” posts. The Crossing is not the only group I sing with, nor are they the only group around that does new music.

I’m currently performing with The Philadelphia Singers in a premiere of The Singing Rooms, a violin concerto with chorus written by Jennifer Higdon. I’m on a CD that’s soon to be released called Arjuna’s Dilemma by Doug Cuomo. Of course, all of this information can be found on my website, and certainly you can subscribe to those events through Google (it’s not as cool as The Crossing’s subscription list, but hey, it’s free).

Okay, the next thing I post won’t be nearly this serious.  Really.

It’s That Time Again

It’s time for change.

Yes, I have now grown bored with my blog theme and uploaded a new one. Let me know what you think…I kind of think the bird is cute, but I have several other themes that I might experiment with, so if you check back in a few days, the look of the site may change.

I’m also writing with some shameless self-promotion, and I do hope you forgive me, because I’m actually really excited about it. I’ve recently been singing with a new choir in Philadelphia called The Crossing, as I’m sure those of you who have been following along my adventures for a while realize. They’re the group I went to Italy with this past summer, and we’ve had a number of really wonderful concerts in the past few months.

This most recent concert, a world premiere of a piece called An Epiphany Vespers by Kile Smith, was very well-received, by the critics and audiences alike. And luckily, the concert was filmed and now available for the entire world to see on YouTube. And so I will show it here.

It’s really hard to see me, since I’m the second person from the left at the very end of the line, but there is a point where the camera zooms in and you can see me at least somewhat.

So if you liked what you saw and heard, and you’d like to be kept in the loop as to what, when, and where we will be performing next, please visit The Crossing’s upcoming concerts list and join the new emailing list.

Oh, hey, did I mention you can make tax-deductible donations to the Crossing as well? At the moment, all the singers are putting their time and extraordinary talent in for the love of the ensemble, friendship, and music, and are only splitting the box office receipts after expenses, so your money would be helping yours truly, if only indirectly.

Okay, I’m done with the shameless self-promotion. The next thing I post will be something much more witty, I promise.

Restaurant Opera

Last night I sang the role of Alice in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. No, it wasn’t at any opera house you might have heard of; it was a performance of the opera in its entirety at a little Italian restaurant in South Philly called the High Note Cafe.

I’d never done anything like this in my life, which is odd, because I have done a lot of bizarre stuff to further my career, including singing sea shanties on a tall ship, unknowingly impersonating a Sephardic Jew, and unwittingly auditioning for a “gentleman’s club” revue. This opera gig ranks up there in the top ten adventures for sure.

Not that the gig itself was bizarre. It was incredibly straightforward: a read-through, with piano, of the opera in its entirety (okay, with a few of the chorus bits cut) for the audience who had come for an evening of Italian food and opera. What a great combination!

And for a singer, this is a wonderful no-pressure opportunity to learn a role and sing it all the way through, knowing that you’ll get accolades from an appreciative audience, even if you didn’t sound like you just won the Met competition.  And you get paid, so it really is a win-win situation.

I had been asked to sing this role last week, and I was told that it really was an easy role and incredibly low pressure.  I didn’t even have to show up to the rehearsal, I was told (which was good, because I was out of town the weekend of the rehearsal). And because I’m very confident in my sight-reading skills (and Alice is not a large part at all) I don’t think I really spent a whole lot of time learning the part, even though I had a week to prepare.  Oh, I listened to a recording and looked through the music, but that’s about it…I didn’t really learn any of it at all.

So when I arrived backstage at the “green room” (the apartment above the restaurant), I was not surprised that everybody was relaxing.  Then someone mentioned cuts in the score that they had gone over in the rehearsal that I missed, and I started to panic a bit.  I tried to write down all the cuts that the pianist had in his score, but while he was doing that (and going over tempi with me), the guy who hired me was going over staging (well, okay, entrances and exits; it’s a teeny tiny space).  And I’m not too good with multi-tasking, so I know I missed a few cuts and a few staging bits, but I figured I’d just wing it.

And wing it I did.  No, it was not my best performance, but it was certainly fun, and if I got a chance to do it again, I would (although I would be more comfortable with the music next time). I think I messed up some of the “staging,” and I sang one of Lucia’s lines in the recitative accidentally, but nobody cared.  There was even a woman in the audience that wanted everyone’s autograph afterwards.  All in all, a pretty nice night.

Blackout

A couple of nights ago, one of our concerts was postponed because the entire town of Spoleto lost electricity.  The concert (which is now rescheduled for tonight) was actually one of my favorite pieces we’ve been working on here, and all of us were extremely sad to have it cancelled, so we are very excited to be able to perform tonight.

The venue for this concert is at the Rocca, a castle at the top of Spoleto where Lucrezia Borgia lived, and also where one of the popes in the Renaissance was also rumored to have lived for a time.  The Rocca is gorgeous!  Not only do you have a fantastic view of Umbria, but the walls are full of frescoes (mostly intact) and several lovely courtyards, one of which we are using for the concert.  Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain!  I don’t want the concert to be cancelled again!!

When it became clear that night that the electricity problem in Spoleto wouldn’t be solved any time soon, we gathered in the Piazza del Duomo and sang an impromptu concert on the porch of the Duomo.  TV cameras were already there because of the blackout, and they ate up the fact that we just spontaneously started singing.  I have to admit, it was pretty cool.  We could only get a couple songs out before the sun finally set, and then we just couldn’t see anything, so we had to stop.

After that, we all dispersed to go find something to do in the dark.  A couple friends and I went to a restaurant, where they had torches and candles brightly burning on the deck.  The kitchen obviously wasn’t fully working, so they gave us large portions of everything that was going to go bad due to lack of refrigeration:  huge hunks of cheese, mixed vegetables (raw as an antipasto, and then grilled veggies for me as a first course).  My friends had the same, only they had grilled meat for their dinner.

The electricity came back sometime around midnight, and there was much rejoicing outside my window at the Piazza del Mercato.

Concerts and more concerts

They have been keeping us busy here in Spoleto.  I am definitely working very hard for my money, and although this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, sometimes I wish our schedule could be a little less stressful.  The last three days have been full of rehearsals and concerts, all with only one or two hours of rest in between.  The worst of it was when we sang a concert at midnight and had to get up the next morning for an early morning mass.

Now that we have gotten several concerts under our belt, one would think the rehearsals would let up, but that is simply not the case, because we still have two more concerts to prepare for, each with different repertoire.  Today, though, we have only rehearsals, and I intend to relax a bit.  Tomorrow is our second day off, and I am going to go to Rome and take a tour of the Vatican…and hopefully I will get a chance to see the Coliseum as well.

In the meantime, though, I must away to another rehearsal and hope I still have some brain cells left to learn more music.

Ciao from Italy

So here I am in an internet cafe, trying very hard not to waste too much money…actually the internet cafe prices are pretty reasonable, but still I would rather be frugal while I’m only working with a small per diem.  So…on with the stories.

My travel to Spoleto took 24 hours.  At 9:45 AM, I met up with a couple friends in NJ and the three of us were driven to our meeting point in Center City, Philadelphia, where we were scheduled to take a bus to JFK at 11 AM.  Although we were supposed to load the bus at 10:45, the bus didn’t arrive until about 11:15.  We all piled on the bus, ready to go, until we realized that we were waiting for 2 people who were stuck in traffic trying to get to us.  By the time they arrived, it was 12:30!

(Warning:  the next couple of paragraphs are really only understandable if you know your way around New York)

Luckily, our flight from JFK wasn’t scheduled until 5, so we still had plenty of time.  But the bus driver clearly didn’t know how to get to JFK from Philadelphia, because instead of taking the Verrazano Bridge from the NJ Turnpike for a pretty much straight shot across Staten Island and the lower part of Brooklyn to JFK, he decided to go through Manhattan.  But he didn’t even go through the lower part of Manhattan through the Holland Tunnel; he decided to take the Lincoln Tunnel right through Midtown.

Since it was Sunday, one would think there wouldn’t be TOO much traffic in the city, but it was the day of the Gay Pride Parade, and we had to wait in traffic for it to pass!  A lot of people who don’t normally have a chance to see New York thought it was fun, but I was not amused.  Then, once he crossed Manhattan into Brooklyn, I thought he would get on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to JFK, but instead he went into the middle of Brooklyn (and through more traffic) to get on the Van Wyck Expressway.  By the time we got to JFK, it was 3:30 PM, and we only had an hour and a half before our flight was supposed to leave.

Once at the airport, the woman at the counter had a problem with my reservation because the people at the travel agency made my reservation under my maiden name instead of my married name.  Actually, what they did was to hyphenate my name, which is not the way it is on my passport.  I had a minor coronary when they told me I didn’t have a ticket on the flight…and it took three people to straighten it all out!  After everything was settled, the woman at the counter told me that I should change my passport to reflect the hyphenated name.  I told her that the hyphenated name was not my legal name, and she told me I was wrong.  I’m not sure why the woman at the airline would think she knows what my legal name is better than me, but I guess they must breed a certain special arrogance at Air France.

I arrived at the gate about 20 minutes before boarding time, with enough for me to grab an overpriced sandwich at the terminal so I didn’t starve to death.  I shouldn’t have worried, though, because 5:00 came and went without a call for boarding.  The crew was a half hour late getting to the gate, and then we had to wait another half hour before getting on the plane.  Once on the plane, we waited for another hour in line on the tarmac to take off.

Needless to say, we missed our connecting flight in Paris.  We also missed the next connecting flight, too, because of the time it takes to transfer and get through customs.  After going through customs in Paris, we had to go back through security, even though we our connecting flight was in the same terminal, and the people at Charles de Gaulle also had a problem with the name on my passport not matching the name on my ticket.  Although they figured out the problem a lot quicker than the folks in America, they did make fun of my poor French.

We also had to wait in the plane in Paris, this time for some connecting flights to arrive.  Once we got in the air, we were yet another 2 hours behind schedule.

We arrived in Rome at about 12:30 PM Italy time, which for us jetlagged travelers was about 6:30 AM East Coast time.  We had to wait, however, for the bus to Spoleto to arrive and be loaded with our bags, so they told us to get some lunch and come back at 2:00.  We ended up leaving the Rome Airport by 2:30, ready for an hour and a half bus ride to Spoleto.

Unfortunately, our bus driver was Ukranian, and he got completely lost!  He circled around Rome a couple times before finally finding the right highway to get on.  Our “guide” was no help at all and sat at the front of the bus with a deer-in-headlights look on her face.

Our bus had some seats with tables, so I sat in a seat facing the back, which was a bad idea.  The ride that was originally supposed to last an hour and a half lasted almost 3 hours, and for the last hour I was terribly car sick.  That was also the part where we started climbing the hills and going around and around in narrow, curvy roads.  Ugh.  While the rest of the singers were exclaiming about the beautiful scenery, it was all I could do to stay upright.

Our first rehearsal was supposed to be the day we arrived, Monday, at 6 PM.  But since we arrived in Spoleto at 5:30 PM (11:30 AM in Philly, 24 hours after we were supposed to leave), they pushed the rehearsal time to 7:45 to give us time to find our apartments and change.  But the folks at the festival totally screwed up everyone’s housing, so some people didn’t have a place to stay that first day!  Luckily, I ended up getting moved to a different apartment, but my new apartment was much closer to the center of town and a larger place, so I couldn’t really complain.

I had some frustrating experiences with the Italian pay phones trying to call Ray.  It was so frustrating, actually that I ended up getting an international cell phone, but that’s a story for another day, I think, since I am almost out of time here at the internet cafe.

Suffice to say that although those 24 hours were particularly hellish, the next morning was so beautiful, especially after a good night’s sleep, that I was finally able to appreciate how lucky I was to be in such a gorgeous Italian town.