Preparations

This week I was walking along the street after dropping off the boys at school, striding purposefully down the street on my way to the Forêt de Soignes. This beautiful park is quite close to us, wonderfully quiet, and within its boundaries, it's possible to walk for quite some time along footpaths without seeing any other people. After the 1.5 km walk to the school I've started to take a much longer walk home, both for the exercise and the "peace dividend" from contact with a quiet forest. Some of the trees are 200 years old, and it's easy to get pleasantly lost under their branches...

Anyway, I had taken along my iPod, loaded up with the recordings from our first rehearsal of the Cesar Franck concert (which is coming up this weekend), and as I walked down the street leading from the school, heading for the forest, I greeted the grandfather of one of M's classmates... a lady was passing by, I think after speaking with this gentleman herself, and as I said, "bonjour" she smiled at me and said, "Monsieur, vous avez l'air d'un homme très content dans son travail..."

Am I happy with my work? Absolutely! While the next few months are going to be busy, the social contact they also provide are most welcome. Unlike some other professions, when a singer has a relatively quiet period, performance-wise, it's easy to become rather solitary, taking up the time with lots of rehearsal, reflection, listening, and other kinds of preparation for those gigs to come. Good thing, because large amounts of time are necessary to really get a handle on one's interpretation, but it does get a little lonely sometimes.

Now I'm leaving that preparation period and moving into the execution part of the cycle, with seven performances of almost entirely new material over the next two months. I'll have lots of opportunities to work together with other musicians, coaches, singers and conductors, and to interact most importantly with an audience. I'm looking forward to it!

Tomorrow I am running through material with my organist colleague, choosing pieces for our upcoming November concert memorializing the 1944 liberation of Merksem. Then on Saturday we rehearse for Sunday's Franck concert, before I finish preparing the Bach cantatas that happen later in October. I likely won't post for a while, so have a good weekend...