day of Music

blog posting saturday june 6th 2009
10:00 am, Toronto

Yesterday was a great day, full of musical work from dawn to dusk... I caught the train in Belleville yesterday morning and immersed myself in translating my Brahms Requiem score, watching some film clips of it on my laptop to help develop my own interpretation. That occupied all of the two-hour train ride, and when I arrived in Toronto, I was met by Bruce who had a day off from the run of Magic Flute in London. We had some lunch, did a vocal warmup, and then Don T. arrived for us to start coaching.

We laugh about how Don beats the heck out of us, but the fact is that he has great ears, a wealth of knowledge about language, performance style, conducting, musicality, drama, and most importantly a real gift for intuiting what each singer needs to produce their own best performance. Toronto singers are really very lucky to have him here to help them deliver the best possible performances, and so are Toronto audiences, although they are most likely completely ignorant of how much of the quality they enjoy is due to his efforts.

In any case, he cudgeled me through the Brahms Requiem for 90 minutes, took a break, and then started in on Bruce, who is working on Falstall, which he performs in Toronto this summer. I am sad I won't be here to see that, because Bruce sounds perfect for this very demanding and hilarious role.

Then we all had a drink together, and talked shop for an hour or so. Despite the cooler than seasonal weather, we barbequed some steaks and had dinner on the back patio. It's great to have the opportunity to talk so much about music, opera, singers and the art of the stage. I forget sometimes, being caught up in the daily routine in Belgium, how much time we used to spend doing that when our family lived in Toronto.

This morning I'm taking it easy. Bruce is heading out for London again around noon, and I'm going to go swimming at the local pool. I'm still smarting from the $10 user fee at Queen's athletic department, so once again I'm taking advantage of the FREE pool here. Then this evening I meet my parents and relatives at our sister's apartment, to celebrate my folks' 40th wedding anniversary.

Tomorrow it's a visit to our Toronto house, to check in with our tenants and pick up a couple of things, and then it's back to Belleville to get ready for another week of convocation ceremonies.

Bon weekend!