Happy New Year / Bonne Année

Happy New Year to everyone!

Canada was great. I loved singing in the Christmas eve midnight mass service at St. Mary Magdalene's, complete with clouds of incense, processions and lots and lots of music. Bruce and I left Toronto early on the morning of Christmas day to join Maggie, her parents and our boys at the cottage, just in time to avoid the worst effects of an ice-and-snow storm that knocked out the electricity for several days, and blocked the road with fallen trees. Despite and perhaps in part because of the lack of any noise from television or radio, we had a very relaxing, warm and well-provisioned few days at Maggie's parents' lovely home au bord du lac.

On our way to my parents in Belleville we attended a Sunday morning church service in Flinton, where the minister Judith is an old friend, and we performed some selections from Messiah together, and the Adolphe Adam Minuit Cretien / O Holy Night. We spent the next four days at my parents', visiting with that extended family, and getting in lots of social games, great food and drink, and even some toboganning, and then had one night in Mississauga with the whole Zadow gang (about 25 people) before flying back to Brussels late on the 31st.

We arrived home mid-morning on New Years' Day, and are still getting over the jet-lag two days later. I think it was a mistake to nap as much as we did that first afternoon: Duncan was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at two in in the morning the first night, demanding breakfast! I hope that it won't be too hard to get everyone back into the routine tomorrow morning for the first day of school.

Things are already starting up musically for the new year: this afternoon there's a short rehearsal of the BL!NDMAN ensemble, for the singers only, followed by a full rehearsal tomorrow in Antwerp starting at the (in my opinion, ungodly) hour of 9h. There are more rehearsals this week, leading up to Friday's performance at the Concertgebouw Bruges. There are two more performances of the same programme later on this month, in deSingel in Antwerp and finally my Brussels debut at the Kaaitheater. The music is quite challenging to sing, since it's a modern programme, with at least one world premiere.

Once again, Happy New Year to all!