Busy weekend

Okay! The weekend was a busy one, but everything went very well... the experience of singing this beautiful music (Mystical Songs #2, 3, 4 and a recit+aria from Mendelssohn's Elijah) in this church full of appreciative listeners while the mass was celebrated was a really wonderful experience. The whole congregation stood up and gave prolonged applause at the end, which surprised and delighted me; perhaps that was because the priest officiating at the mass explained in Flemish that, "The baritone Matthew Zadow has come from Canada to sing for us today" but I hope my singing had a little something to do with it as well! The organizers were very pleased and very complimentary, and I have already received an offer of another Bach gig later on this year from this performance.


Maggie and the boys came with me to support me, and Duncan was immediately drafted by the organist Jan Van Mol as a page-turner; so in a way he has had his european debut this weekend. Both boys were very impressed by the church, and expecially the organ loft, and they were well behaved while they explored the galleries of the church with enthusiasm.

The night before was also very busy with the third performance of the BL!NDMAN: TRANSFO concert, this time in Brussels. We were all very comfortable with the programme after two performances, and it was a nice way to make my Brussels concert debut, with such great musicians. I received another job offer at the reception afterwards, for an Amsterdam perfomance, so it would seem that my European profile is slowly growing and people are satisfied with the quality of my work; it's really gratifying and shows that my consistent efforts are paying off. I've also had two inquiries recently about taking on singing students, and while I've never done that before I have had guitar students, so if my schedule allows, I might consider it...

Monday Maggie and picked up our car and then took off to northwestern Brussels to visit Stone Manor, the British store, and we picked up lots of goodies that you can't get easily anywhere else. I must say the place resembled nothing more than a huge candy store, with tons and tons of the crisps, cookies, jams and jellies and candies that the Brits crave. Of course we frugal Canadians were there for a few choice products, like Colman's mint sauce, jello (mystifyingly absent from DelHaize shelves) and a few other items including two McSween Haggises, as Monday the 25th was of course Robbie Burns' Day. We had already collected potatoes, parsnips and carrots for the bashed 'neeps (these are traditionally made with turnips but they are hard to find here) and brussels sprouts, to fill out our international menu.


At dinner we sang my musical setting of Burns' Selkirk Grace before digging in, and everyone tucked into the haggises with gusto. Afterwards it was Walker shortbreads for dessert, and Maggie and I each had a very small sampling of Glenlivet, she with a good drop of water. I also tried a tiny bit of Dalwhinnie afterwards, before calling it an early night... I was very tired from the weekend!


This week I have been taking it a little easy, but continuing with the ongoing audition hunt, and rehearsing for the Toronto performances and the April St. John Passion.

Happy Burns Day wishes to you all!