Toussaint

Toussaint is the day in Catholic regions of Europe that everyone goes and tidies up the gravesites of their loved ones.  They place chrysanthemum flowers on the graves, so every corner store, grocery and of course florist has a huge stock of these potted flowers in the few days leading up to November 1st.

It is fitting then that my next concert will be a Requiem; the Mozart Requiem.  We will have two performances in the middle of next week with the Flanders Baroque Academy led by Paul Van Loey.  I was very happy to do three performances of the Messiah with him a few years ago, and also some Bach cantatas.  We have tried to arrange something since but it seems that I am always busy.  I just had to refuse a Johannes-Passion with him for March 2015, but it would seem that this time at least our schedules will work out for a successful collaboration.  Paul is one of the founding members of a world-famous baroque quintet, and also played as a bassoonist for Philippe Herreweghe on numerous projects.  He is a talented guy and a fun person to work with so I am happy to explore Mozart's music with him.

 

Our two performances of Die Schöpfung last weekend were a roaring success, and we had much applause and many compliments.  Hilde Coppé and Vincent Lesage were excellent colleagues and based on the reaction I will not be surprised if we work together again someday.

The boys have been taking it easy all week.  For most of last weekend Duncan was staying with his friend Arthur, and they went together with Arthur's family to Lille, where there is a big LEGO store.  Duncan had saved the money that he earned from selling his toys at the brocante, and supplemented that with allowance savings, and splurged on a big set of the Batman Arkham Asylum.  Malcolm was happy to have the quiet to spend the whole weekend drawing.  The same held true on Monday; while Duncan quietly spent the day building his LEGO set, Malcolm was able to continue his own projects.  Here's an example of some of his work; it's a pencil drawing of the Ice King from the TV show Adventure Time that he inked, then scanned into Photoshop.  Then he cleaned up some of the lines and coloured it in on the computer.  He's really enjoying developing his facility with Photoshop and is talking about buying a graphics tablet, that lets him draw directly on a Photoshop canvas.

On Thursday I had a nice rehearsal with the Fidelio String Quartet.  I have been invited to perform a concert with them at the Kasteel van Brasschaat, near Antwerp in early December, and we spent an afternoon together at the home of the 'cellist Ann Engels, working through our material.  Ann has a gorgeous country home southeast of Brussels, and it was such a beautiful day that I even took the top down in the car, and had a picturesque drive through the rolling countryside.  The family dog, "Lou" is a beautiful, calm and sensitive Irish setter, and it was love at first sight for me.

Speaking of picturesque settings, Maggie has been enjoying her time in Canada, and courtesy of our photo-sharing, I get to see her photos as she takes them.  This one made me miss autumn in Canada; there are no MacIntosh apples in Belgium, unless you count the computers...

But this one made me even more jealous!

It's really great that she is having the opportunity to visit with her parents and to soak up some of the great cottage atmosphere.  Stillness is something that you can find in Belgium but not the quiet stillness of a northern lake in the autumn.

Last night we took part in the official Hallowe'en parade.  It started up near Duncan's school on the same street as our first Belgian house on Rue des Archives, and ended near the Charlotte Royal Bakery, so it passed through a lot of our old neighbourhood.  As Hallowe'en as it is celebrated in America is not a natural thing for the Belgian kids - they usually dress up in costume for Carnaval, not Toussaint - it takes some organization.  The whole thing is organized by a committee, and the kids move in one big mob from one candy provider to another.  Perhaps one in a dozen houses along the route give out candy to the kids, but even given this relatively light participation they did pretty well.  I was quite pleased with Duncan's Luke Skywalker costume, which we managed to improvise handily with his Karate tunic, one of Malcolm's belts, a machined aluminum flashlight for a lightsaber, track pants with tensor bandages wrapped around his lower legs, and his snoopy bathrobe artfully arranged to make a cape.  The blond hair was a bonus!  Arthur opted for a more traditional "scary" costume, which seems to be the norm here: the childrens' costumes were almost exclusively skeletons, witches, devils, vampires, wherewolves and so on.

Speaking of wolves, I saw that rabbit was on sale at the DelHaize yesterday and so bought two; they are currently in the refrigerator marinating in celery, carrots, onions, bay leaf, thyme, crushed juniper berries and peppercorns, apple cider vinegar and brown beer.  They were all out of Chimay Bleu so I opted instead for "Lupulus", which is a dark Ardense beer that we tried for the first time with Bryan and Kiana in Houffalize this past summer.  I'll let you know how the rabbit likes the wolf; it should be ready to get cooked for Sunday evening, to celebrate Maggie's return, after two days in the marinade.

After the trick-or-treating was done last night Duncan and Arthur came here to watch the Mask movie with Jim Carey.  It's actually ok in french, as most of his humour is obvious from his facial acting.  Then Arthur stayed overnight; they are upstairs playing now as Malcolm sits on the sofa reading.

Apart from rehearsing for the gig at the castle, and singing through the Mozart Requiem, I also have some paperwork to do.  The full details of the China trip have been finalized, and as I suspected we will have ten concerts, which will not leave me huge amounts of time for sight-seeing.  I need to make my application for the VISA to go to China, which involves submitting the itinerary, my passport, a new passport photo, the tickets, etc.

It's another beautiful day here, 19 degrees, and sunny, which is really exceptional for this time of year.  It will be warm and dry enough to hang laundry out on the drying frame on the terrace, and then I think we'll give the house a once-over prior to Mom's return.

Happy Hallowe'en to everyone!