Just a quick post tonight...

Earlier this week we had the generale for Messiah; I have two performances of it this weekend in Brussels, at the Conservatoire.  It's a great hall, good acoustic, and it's going to be fun to try some new things with this familiar favorite of Handel's.  They are doing it complete, so rather unusually I get to do the middle section of the "trumpet" area, which is almost always cut.  Fun stuff!

Monday evening I had a good dose of baroque music, this time as a listener, at the Bibliotheque Solvay, a beautiful art nouveau building from 1902, in Etterbeek, for a concert of the European Union Baroque Orchestra, led in this case by the very talented Italian violinist Enrico Onofri.  Lots of speeches from representatives from all over Europe, talking about culture, heritage, identity, and all centred on "classical" music, and how given the current economic instabilities, we need to embrace and celebrate our cultural heritage as something valuable that will never tarnish.  Amen!

It was really quite gorgeous and inspiring.  The playing was virtuosic, with extremes of tempo, dynamics, and phrasing, and the expressivity and emotional engagement of even the younger players was quite something to see.  Classical music is about emotion, and they all got that...

So I was well inspired this morning to explore baroque music, singing through two hours rehearsal of the upcoming Bach solo cantata Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen with Peter.  That is coming up October 23rd, and I also have a concert performance of La Grande Duchesse that same weekend, so it's going to be a good opportunity to explore my abilities to prepare ahead, and see if I can rapidly shift gears stylistically, vocally, emotionally, thematically...

I'll find out tomorrow morning; we have a long soloist rehearsal for Duchesse all morning.  That's why it's a short post.  I seem to have gotten over my cold but am still recovering, so it's off to bed.  Bonne nuit... Gute nacht...