I’m not allowed to sleep with a dead guy

Yesterday we had a rehearsal for Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Maestro Lorin Maazel was there to conduct us. He asked where the soloists were, so I raised my hand, along with the other three soloists. Because I was on the opposite side of the room as the other three, it took him a second to find me in the crowd. When he did, however, he looked at me and said, “What’s your cell phone number?”

I think one of the greatest conductors in the world just hit on me. I’m pretty sure I turned beet red.

When I told Ray about it later, I think he may have been a little jealous until I told him that Lorin Maazel is 76. Then he said with a smile, “You’re not allowed to sleep with a dead guy.” Now I ask you, at what age is a guy considered “dead?” Charlie Chaplin had kids when he was 73. Is that the cut-off?

Mostly Mozart

I know I have a tendency to announce only the high profile concerts I do in New York, and even then only at the last minute; thus those of you who have busy schedules or who are not in the immediate New York area don’t get a chance to see me perform. And I’m sure that some of you couldn’t care less (”Tell more stories about hoodlum Hassidim!” I hear you cry). Nevertheless, I am here to tell you that I will once again be on the stage of Avery Fisher Hall this coming Tuesday and Wednesday evenings for the Mostly Mozart Festival. We (the Concert Chorale of New York) will be performing Mozart’s “Coronation” Mass (Missa in C, K. 317), conducted by Louis Langreé.

And for those of you who are not in New York or are in New York but extremely busy, this concert will be televised on PBS as a part of the Live from Lincoln Center series. Check your local listings for the air dates, but the performance will be taped live (isn’t that an oxymoron?) on Wednesday, Aug. 2 at 8:00 PM. It’s a small choir, so I’m sure you’ll be able to pick me out in the crowd.

So set your TiVos, everyone! I guarantee it’ll be a good performance. In case you’re curious, the other half of the program includes Garrick Ohlsson performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 26 in D Major (”Coronation”). Can you see a theme developing with this concert?

It’s That Time Again

If you’re in the NYC area this week, I’m encouraging you to check out two concerts in which I’m singing. The first one is today, so I’m not giving you much notice, I know, but them’s the breaks.

Beethoven, Missa solemnis, op. 123
Philadelphia Singers with the Mannes Orchestra
David Hayes, Conductor
Monday, May 1 at 8:00 p.m.
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center (65th Street and Broadway)

For anyone who has heard Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, you know this piece is a huge sing. But it’s also really gorgeous. So come and listen to us singers huff and puff and blow the house away.

The second concert is this coming Saturday, and should be really enjoyable. I’m teaming up once again with a couple members of Anonymous 4 to perform Arjuna’s Dilemma by Doug Cuomo. Here’s the info:

Arjuna’s Dilemma
performed as a part of VOX Showcase
hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC
Saturday, May 6 at 8:00 p.m.
Skirball Center, NYU (566 LaGuardia Place & Washington Square Park South)

Arjuna’s Dilemma, a staged oratorio, includes both North Indian and Western music, and is based on a story from the Bhagavad Gita, generally considered the most important scripture for all Hindus.

Anyway, both these events are free, and free is good. I’ll be singing in the chorus for the first gig, but in the second gig I am a part of a quartet, so I’m a little more exposed, and that’s always nice. If you have nothing to do tonight or Saturday night, come on by!

Shameless Plug

So I know I don’t do this too often, but I’m in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem with the New York Philharmonic tonight, Saturday, and next Tuesday. It’s been a wonderful rehearsal process, and we opened last night to a full house, and it sounded fabulous.

Now, I know most of you don’t even live in New York, and even if you do, you don’t have the kind of time and money to get a ticket to see this performance, but if you do and you do, get a ticket, because it’s really good. If, however you would love to be there but you can’t, the performances are being recorded and will be broadcast sometime in the very near future, presumably on WQXR. I did a Google search, and it seems that the broadcast itself is owned by WFMT and they’re shopping it out to whichever radio station wants to play it. Call your classical radio station and request it! Dude, this is sincerely the best performance of Verdi’s Requiem I have ever been a part of, and although hearing it on the radio won’t be as cool as listening to it live, it’s definitely a good second.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled program.

Some people call me Maurice

What a surreal day I had yesterday!

After coming home and falling into bed at 11:30 or so Saturday night (I was up in NY helping my brother with his Tisch audition material), I was awakened at 4 AM by Scratchy , who was meowing at the door wanting to be let out. Usually when he does this, I don’t even remember his meows because I instinctively get up as soon as my subconscious registers it, but this time I kept dreaming about being in choir practice and having one person in the choir who just couldn’t quite hit the note and was scooping up to it. After about three takes of the dream, I finally realized that this person sounded way too much like a cat meowing and, oh, yeah, I guess Scratchy wants to be let out.

A more portentous dream I could not have had.

The morning started out as a usual Sunday morning: the alarm went off, I hit snooze a couple times, and then finally rolled myself out of bed and into the shower so I could to church. I was still a little groggy from lack of sleep, so instead of wearing black tights that would have matched the black blouse I was wearing with my burgundy skirt, I pulled on a pair of dark brown tights. It wasn’t until I was walking from my car to church that I looked down at my shoes and realized my mistake. Too late now, I figured. Of course, there was also a big run in one of the legs that clued me into the fact that I didn’t have the mental capacity today to dress myself properly.

Church itself was pretty normal. We have a new assistant rector with abysmal writing skills, and I’ve recently taken to counting the number of times he repeats a word or a phrase within the sermon…today the word "life" came in first with a whopping 35 repetitions, with the word "priority" a far second with only 21. I think it wouldn’t be so noticeable if he didn’t use the exact same words in a different order to fill three sentences in succession. He’s fond of phrases like, "We all prioritize things that matter in our life; in other words, things that matter in life get prioritized." Uh, did anyone point out to you that you’re not using other words at all, but the SAME EXACT WORDS? I might forgive him his redundancy if he created a chiasmus with them (like The Sphinx in Mystery Men : "Learn to hide your strikes from your opponent and you’ll more easily strike his hide"), but he’s not nearly that clever.

After church, we had to sing in an evensong at another church in Asbury Park. It was several church choirs combined to sing at this one church — they’re hoping to make it an annual event, which by itself it not a bad idea, but they’d better put someone else in charge next time. The whole affair, from the rehearsals up to the concert itself, was infuriatingly disorganized. Asbury Park is on the Jersey Shore (some people recognize it as Bruce Springsteen’s home town), but it’s a good hour’s drive away from our church in Moorestown. By the time we were done with the second service at church, I barely had enough time to scarf down a sandwich before all the section leaders piled into one car and headed out to the shore.

Asbury Park should be renamed as Ass-bury Park. That town is a real dump. The church is smack dab in the middle of a pretty bad neighborhood, and we all agreed if we never had to return it would be too soon. When we got there, the airhead in charge was unable to answer a lot of questions and had clearly not communicated what needed to be done in the rehearsal with the other church choir directors or with the clergy from her own church.

We were also dealing with the added bonus of children’s choirs. Our children’s choir managed to behave themselves, thanks to one of the moms who sat opposite them in the choir stalls and glared at them the whole time. But the other kids didn’t have that type of oversight. One kid sat in the back and didn’t even pretend to sing; another one didn’t have any music because some of the other kids had stolen it. There were no parents anywhere; I assume they must have thought with 40+ adults around, there was plenty of supervision. Boy, were they wrong.

The concert itself went surprisingly well, with the exception of the tone-deaf priest who really wanted to cantor. He had been practicing all month, you see, and was really nervous about it. Too bad his chant didn’t have any resemblance to the notes on the page at all, and our harmonized responses would have crashed and burned if it weren’t for the quick-thinking organist, who played our chord before each response.

When the concert was over, I couldn’t get out of there quicker. On my way home, I called Ray, who asked if I could stop and get some pizza for dinner. Pizza sounded good. And beer. Lots of beer. But when I got to the pizza place, they had an order ready for me under the name "Maurice." You have to be seriously not listening to an order if you hear "Maurice" from "Maren." Ray even spelled it for the dude. So I guess now you can call me the space cowboy or the gangster of love if you want…

What a perfect end to my wacky, crazy day.

Sated Stomach

I had an incredibly long day on Sunday. First, of course, there was the two church services that I sang in, after which I had to race to a last-minute funeral to sing at (I got booked for the job at 10:30 the night before!), then off to a fundraiser for the Philadelphia Singers.

I had the whole day planned out: in between the two morning services, I would dash over to Wawa and get a sandwich that I could eat in the car on my way to the funeral. However, when I got to Wawa, I opened up my purse and realized that my wallet was missing! Frantic, I searched my car, rooting through old Dunkin’ Donuts bags and empty water bottles, until I remembered that I had taken my wallet out to pay for take-out the night before and put it on the dresser at home instead of returning it to its rightful place in my purse.

I called Ray and woke him up, and he sleepily agreed to come meet me after church and give me my wallet so I wouldn’t be driving around New Jersey and Pennsylvania without driver’s license or registration. When I walked out of church, there he was, parked next to my car, and he sweetly asked if I’d like to have lunch with him. If I didn’t have to be in Center City within 30 minutes, I would have taken him up on his offer, but alas, I had to dash off, forgetting to stop for my sandwich at Wawa.

I lucked out and saw someone pulling out of a prime parking spot less than a block from the church where the funeral was happening (praise to you, Mighty Parking Gods!). When I was hunting for my wallet in my car, I had also unearthed a box of Larabars, which I actually keep in my car for such rush-around-from-place-to-place occasions as these to keep from starvation. I snagged a couple and headed for the church.

The funeral service was nice, but smelly…not from the body (she was in an urn, sensible woman), but from the incense! It was a high Anglican mass, complete with communion, and it lasted pretty long because there were a lot of people who wanted to get up and say something about the deceased. I guess she was a pretty nice lady who touched a lot of lives.

As a result, I only had a few moments to chill out in Starbuck’s before I made my way to my third singing gig of the day. What a glorious end to a stressful day. I spent four and a half hours conversing, singing, and most importantly, eating an eight course meal at Deux Cheminees…what a treat! No more starving for me, let me tell you. I haven’t eaten an eight course meal since my stint as the 1891 socialite, Helen Astor Roosevelt, at the Astors’ Beechwood. It’s nice to be a little indulgent every once in a while.

Round Yon Virgin?

So I haven’t written much in the past few weeks because I’ve been too busy going from bed to the gym, to work, to rehearsals/concerts, to the mall, and then back to bed. I’ve been stressed for the Christmas season before, but I’m pretty sure this is the first year I’ve really wanted to just yell “Bah, humbug!” at everybody and everything.

In other news, I have been roped into playing the Virgin Mary in the Christmas Pageant at the church I work at. I’m not even sure I’m getting paid for this, and it’s really making me super bitter. Of all the people to play Mary, am I, the pagan, living in sin with my fiancé, really the right person to be playing the mother of Christ? I suppose, since Mary is really an embodiment of the Goddess, I’m not really being untrue to my own beliefs. I just hope the baby Jesus (yes, we’re using a real live newborn in the pageant) doesn’t spit up on me.

Nerdiness to the nth degree

So I’ve been in rehearsals for an upcoming concert that includes works by Poulenc, Distler, and many others. The Distler is a gorgeous collection of variations of “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen,” or, for those non German-speakers out there, “Lo How A Rose E’er Blooming.” And very luckily for us, we have a native German in our midst to coach us in our pronunciation. Now, our de facto German coach has been harping upon our conductor to pronounce the name Distler as “Dees-tler,” contrary to what one would normally pronounce that word if it weren’t a proper noun.

Likewise, I’ve been very quietly (more like under my breath or with a few of the members of my section) been correcting our conductor’s pronunciation of the Poulenc, which, at first glance, might seem to be pronounced “Poo-lonk” (or as one would annotate in IPA, [pu-lãk]), but in fact, the correct pronunciation is “Poo-lenk” [pu-lɛ̃k]. Except I guess I wasn’t so quiet the other night because I opened my big mouth and corrected our dear conductor, who apparently had said it wrong on the radio, and I got some snarkiness from a few singers of, “Well, it’s not Elvish, so how would you know?”

So to that, I say: tomato, to-mah-toe, [pu-lɛ̃k], [di-stlÉ™], let’s call the whole thing off.

Hobnobbery

I’m pleased to report that your erstwhile heroine has spent in the last two evenings in the presence of the rich and appreciative. On Sunday, I sang at a fundraiser for the Philadelphia Singers, which, as I’m sure most of you know, cancelled half their season abruptly a month or so ago. One of the board members offered up her house (dare I say mansion?) for the event, and it was quite a swanky affair with some of the best food I have ever tasted in my life. I never thought I could have a mouthgasm from a grape stuffed with toasted coriander seeds. I’m going into fits of rapture just thinking about it.

Last night I sang at another fundraiser, this time for Music Theater Group, a wonderful little off-off-Broadway theater company in New York. I had performed in a workshop of a chamber opera called Arjuna’s Dilemma there several years ago, and have been involved in that show ever since; this summer, Doug Cuomo (the composer) asked me to sing in a recording of the piece, which was a huge honor, since I got to sing with two of the members of Anonymous 4. So when I got the last-minute call to sing a snippet of the piece at this fundraiser, I jumped at the chance. This fundraiser was in a penthouse in Manhattan with a gorgeous 360-degree view of the city by moonlight. The food was not quite as good as Chef Fritz’s creations, but I certainly wasn’t put off, by any means.

One thing that struck me about both events, though, was how incredibly appreciative all these people were of the arts. At the Philly Singers fundraiser, it was great to be able to see everyone’s faces during the performance and watch them get caught up in the music. And for the Music Theater Group fundraiser, although I couldn’t really see the audience because of all the lights, I was stopped after the performance by many people who exclaimed how haunting the music was, and how much they would love to hear more about the piece.

It just proves to me that there are still people in this world who love watching the kind of stuff I love to do. There are still those who understand how rich and meaningful music and theater can be to people’s lives, and who are willing to support it. Granted, that bunch of people may be dwindling these days, but there’s still hope. I still believe art has a place, a very important place, in society, and I am not the only one who thinks so.

I just hope more people with deep pocketbooks can continue to help us starving artists out so we can continue our craft.

Back in the Saddle

So I had an audition today…for musical theater. Yes, I know it’s been a few years since I’ve done that, but just because I got a tad intimidated by the NY audition scene doesn’t mean the Philly scene is as nasty. And I had a very good experience, despite my misgivings. I’m not right for any of the roles in the show, of course, but it was good to audition for the producer in case something else might come up.

So thanks to Steph for bullying me into it. She knew I really wanted to do it anyway but was trying to find excuses not to go. I still hate auditioning; it’s just good to get back in the saddle again.