Bureaurocratic time

It seems to me that Belgium is a place where nothing official happens very fast.  Today I went to the bank to get the insurance papers and the number plate for our Piaggio scooter.  I had to make an appointment over a week ago, and then had to go into the bank office to get it all done.  The whole process took about an hour and a half!  Then the bank/insurer told me that, no, they don't order or receive the number plates; I had to go to the DIV office, and there isn't one in Wavre, so that means a trip to Namur (half an hour away) or Brussels.

As I was going into Brussels anyway I opted for that office, but had to be quick as it closes at 14h30 every weekday.  After a rather hurried google maps calculation, a bus that was ten minutes late, a subway ride and a healthy walk I managed to get in the door by 13h50... only to be told that they had recently changed the rules, and that no one would be seen without an appointment!

Typical Belgium.  But the security guard had a stack of bundled papers with similar request for plates on his reception desk and a work-around: he indicated that he could receive the documents, and submit them to the office workers; the plates would be mailed directly to me within the week, and I'd pay the 30 EUR to the postman then.  Fingers crossed; I left the papers with him and went home, hoping for the best.  Worst-case scenario: they will need something other documentation, and send me the papers back in the mail, along with a request for additional paper.  But I'm hoping it will get figured out, although not in time for me to do any scootering until the end of May.  Maggie at least should benefit from some springtime scootering...

I also stopped off and picked up a pair of antique tailor's shears that I found recently at a brocante, and had taken to the Coutellerie Jamart near the Grand'place in Brussels to be polished and sharpened up for Maggie. They are really quite impressive and seem to have been made in Brussels, although I can't quite make out the name of the company.  But they are certainly quite old, and now, quite sharp.

They are of a size more suited to a man's hand, so perhaps Malcolm will end up using them instead of Maggie.  She already has some nice shears that I bought for her at Ernest Wright and Sons in Sheffield, back in 2011.

Then I sat down in the Central Station at a café table and put on my headphones, to have a listen to my recent coaching with David Miller of the Matthäuspassion Jesus role.  It really is invaluable to record your coachings, because the next day you can go over your score with a pencil and the score and recording, and really put into practice all of the things that the coach has indicated you need to fix.  Frequently it is totally obvious to you as a listener anyway, as your attention is focussed on reading along in the score and listening, and not occupied in trying to produce the sound.  After an hour or so of review I went to David's studio again for another quick run-through of the Jesus part, which amounted to something like 25 minutes of singing.  Then we did some work on the Offenbach La Belle Helene which is coming up much sooner than I would like.  But the music that I have to sing in that is relatively simple.  That's one benefit of not being one of the romantic leads... Calchas is the head Oracle of Jupiter in Offenbach's farcical interpretation of ancient Greece, and so he has quite a bit of dialogue to work through, but not so much solo singing; most of it is in ensembles with little interjections here and there.  As this will be sung in English translation it is quite funny and very much like Gilbert and Sullivan.

Tomorrow morning I drive Maggie to work early, and then come home to pack, and then leave for Zieuwent in the Netherlands, a drive of at least three hours.  There will be a rehearsal in the afternoon for soloists, and then the big generale rehearsal with everyone in the evening.  Friday should be pretty quiet, with only the concert performance of the Matthäuspassion in the evening.  I plan to stay over and get a good night's sleep, then head to Bruges directly for the raccord on Saturday evening at 18h, and the final concert of the Johannespassion for 2018 at 20h.  Then it's back home for what we hope will be a relaxing Sunday, with a run in Jodoigne in the morning, followed by an afternoon Easter Sunday dinner with Lawrence and Tiffany... Monday will be another coaching for me, and then we all fly to Canada on Tuesday morning...

One other little thing: I have posted some pictures that show that I have a fondness for flow blue china, and I have acquired quite a few pieces of it... Oscar Wilde is reported to have remarked that he had difficulty living up to his blue china.  I'm not quite sure what that means, but perhaps it has something to do with how beautiful blue china can be.  Tonight I added to the collection with a new kitchen clock in "Delft" blue, but in fact the clock actually is a German product; it has the Junghans logo on it in several places, so I know that it was made in Germany.  The eighty-five-year old woman I purchased it from in Namur said that it had been her mother's.  It is very similar to my grandmother Rita's kitchen clock, which is now hanging in the dining room of my parents house, and like hers, the movement has been replaced with a quartz battery-powered one.  But that's ok, it still reminds me of her.

Your Majesties...

Some video of last night's concert...

Antwerp TV's coverage

Flemish Radio Television's coverage

... and a photo:

We had a very nice visit with their Majesties in the side chapel after the concert.  After I introduced myself as a Canadian, Queen Mathilde was very complimentary about Canada and spoke about their recent visit there.  Both monarchs spoke about visiting Toronto, and how cold it was...

The King knows his classical music: he said that "Erbarme dich", the alto solo from the Matthäuspassion is his favourite piece.  He also told me that while they always preferred the Matthäuspassion over the Johannespassion, the way that we made the text come to life last night made him understand the Johannespassion for the first time, which is a very great compliment.  Both King and Queen wanted to know when deChorale will perform the Matthäuspassion next (it will be in 2020) and asked to be invited to one of those performances.  So I am hoping that I am also invited to take part in that again.

It was quite a thrill for me to have the chance to perform in front of such distinguished guests, and it's something I never would have dreamed of doing in a million years when I started to study singing.  Also I am a little bit pleased by the fact that in the photograph above, there are only two gentlemen wearing idiosyncratically folded handkerchiefs in their breast pockets.  One of them is the King of Belgium...

Very happy with a successful Johannespassion performance in deSingel last night

in deSingel Antwerpen

Yesterday afternoon we had our debut performance of the St. John Passion, and it went very well.  The conductor was very pleased and I am happy with how I delivered my performance, and enjoyed the presentation of the other singers, the choir, and the orchestra.

Tonight we do it again, this time in the Sint-Carolus Borromeus church, with Maggie and the Hammers, and the Canadian ambassador and his wife as my guests, and the King and Queen will be in attendance.  Exciting!

I also received a few photos of the performance in Brasschaat on Friday, so thought I would share those with you as well.

It is partly my Celtic complexion, and partly the difficulty of the aria, but it was also a bit warm in the church... still, it looks as if I am trying to blend in with the colour of my waistcoat in this photo!

with conductor Hans Wills, counter tenor Rob Cuppens,
tenor Teun Michiels, and soprano Annelies Brants

beautiful tulips!

Very exciting generale rehearsal last night in the Sint Carolus Borromeus Church

We had a very busy day yesterday and I'm feeling a bit tired...

First of all the concert on Friday night was a big success.  No photos yet from the performance itself but I can say that the concert was sold-out and there was a prolonged applause.  The conductor was effusive with is praise, and asked if I would be interested in working on something with him again, which is always a good thing to hear.  Ordinarily I would have stayed for a verre d'amitié but Malcolm was with me, and we had a long drive to get home and I had a long day ahead of me on Saturday.

There was a very long rehearsal that started in the afternoon in the Sint Carolus Borromeuskerk in Antwerp, for tonight, tomorrow, and next weekend's performances of the Johannespassion.  Apart from this past Friday, the last time I had sung Johannespassion was on Good Friday 2010 with the Flemish group Vocaal Collectief... I posted about it eight years ago, and even included some photos:

http://matthewzadow.blogspot.be/2010/04/photo-or-two-from-st-john.html

It's been great to revisit it again.  What I have found is that my coach Peter Tomek did such a great job of preparing me that even though I only sang it once, the shape of it is impressed into my memory.  Of course there were things to look over, and not every bar of the aria sections was equally well set, but it is remarkable how much is there.  It really emphasises the importance of learning things correctly the first time.

Last night's rehearsal really helped me, especially the aria Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen, which finally clicked in fully with my stomach muscles.  I may not have written about this before but coloratura singing (many arpeggios of fast notes) needs to be articulated to be audible, and one can do that in a number of ways.  According to Fleta and Bruce's technique, which is also my own, the best way to articulate all of the notes with clarity and without getting tired, is by using the abdominal muscles to basically shake on each note.  Suddenly last night we hit a perfect tempo for the song, and I solidly felt my body reconnecting with my abdominal support muscles, so it became much easier to sing.  That's lucky because it is probably the scariest aria in Bach's ouvre that I have attempted, and by letting the abdominal support carry it I don't really have to think about anything except the emotional aspects of the piece, and can relax and let it fly...

These three performances are really going to be a quite exciting series for me.  Tonight's is in deSingel, a big modern concert hall in Antwerp.  Tomorrow evening will be the performance in the Sint Carolus Borromeus church, with the King and Queen, and then next weekend's performance in the acoustically excellent Concertgebouw Bruges will bring my Passion Season to a close.

Singing in the Sint Carolus Borromeus Church, I was reminded of another performance there in 2010, which I now realise was sort of an audition for the 2010 Johannespassion later that same year.  This was an artiesenmesse concert that I did with organist Jan Van Mol, as part of the morning mass.  I'm not sure if the practice of having soloists come in to supplement the morning mass is still going on, but it was a wonderful introduction to Jan Van Mol and the soprano Cristel de Meulder, and it opened a lot of doors for me.  As you might expect, I posted about that too!  There are some fun pictures of the boys from ten years ago:

https://matthewzadow.blogspot.be/2010/01/

Here are some photos from last night...

rehearsing arias in the afternoon (Thomas Blondeel, tenor, far left)

 

a violinist trying to stay warm in the break by cuddling up inside a bass case

another violinist in the break, with chiaroscuro and iPhone

definitely the coolest musician in the orchestra: Jurgen with his arch-lute

my friend and fellow baritone Joris Derder as Jesus

soprano Lissa Meyvis (who stepped in this morning for a suddenly ill Liesbeth Devos)

yours truly as Pontius Pilate

Happy Sunday, everyone...

Busy days: Johannespassion tonight

I have had a packed week already, and have a big night tonight so am kind of taking it easy today.

Wednesday after I finished writing my last blog post, The heating/plumbing guys arrived to replace some electrical outlets that they had slightly damaged during installation of the radiators.  They are really great guys and I would recommend them highly.

Then I drove into Brussels to rehearse with David Miller; it's a good thing that I did so as the St. Matthew Jesus role is coming up one week from today, and my head is full of the St. John Passion instead.  The Matthew Christus is a role debut for me so I'm glad to have David, and I'll listen to the coaching and schedule another one before I go off to Zieuwent in the Netherlands on Thursday.

I went by Ben's shop to return some heavy-duty plastic sacks that he uses with his dust collector, and that I had used to transport some wood shavings for the garden; we had lunch and had a little visit.  Then I drove to meet Scott Hendricks, who is finishing up his performances of Pagliacci.  I offered to store some of his electronic equipment for him while he is away, so I picked those up and then came home.

Then I went out to the Hammer's to borrow the trailer; I found a used Piaggio scooter on the St. John's School for sale pages and went out to try it out in the evening.  The owner hadn't used it in a couple of years so the battery and tires were flat, but I managed to boost it easily from the car, and I had a gentle cruise for a couple of hundred metres on the street.  We ended up buying it, and the seller and I were able to lift it onto the trailer ourselves; it's not a big one, just 125cc, which means that no special driving licence is required.  I'm not anticipating using it for any kind of distance driving unless we are in a situation like we found ourselves in this past week, with a car that needed serious repairs and no way for Maggie to get back and forth to work.  Fortunately we have friends like Lawrence and Tiffany who lent us their second car, but now that might no longer be necessary with the Piaggio.

For those rare occasions when I need to drive longer distances to sing, it will mean that Maggie has the option of riding it on the regional roads to work.  The top speed of this bike is around 115 km/h, which means that it can legally be used on the motorway, but the regional roads usually have a limit of 50-70 km/h, and they are more direct, so that will likely be her preferred route.  She's already cycled home from school, and I've run that same route, so we know it well and aren't too worried about safety.  And I convinced the seller to give me three helmets, so we are equipped.

Duncan and Maggie and I got the Piaggio into the basement without any trouble and I went across the street and bought a replacement battery.  It started up immediately so the next step is to get it registered and insured, and then have a controle technique done.

Thursday morning I went at 7h30 to the construction supply store to buy some rockwool insulation to do the first layer in the attic.  It looks like the simplest method is going to use a semi-rigid layer of 60mm in between the chevrons of the attic, and then to apply laminated sheets of extruded polyurethane/vapour barrier/gyproc over top, using long screws to fasten the sheets directly into the chevrons.  This is slightly more expensive than other methods, but the foam/vapour barrier/gyproc laminate is a good sound and thermal insulator, and obviates the necessity of building a wooden structure to house additional insulation, and also the cost and trouble of hanging gyproc.

After unloading the insulation, I drove out to return the Hammer's trailer and met with Bryan and Lawrence for a very satisfying 15km run, an an unfamiliar route with quite a lot of hills (an elevation climb of around 320m or the equivalent of climbing around 100 flights of stairs).  I was happy for the three days of rest beforehand, and some good nights of sleep, and so was able to handle the hills pretty well, but I am a bit tired...

So that's why I am taking it comparatively easy.  I drove Maggie to work, and then took the car to the garage for an insurance estimate; we have some minor bumps and dents that need to be repaired, and I'm thinking that we will group them all together and make a claim for them all to be fixed at the same time.  I will also go to the police station and inquire about the next steps for the scooter registration this morning, but that's about it for my activities today before I leave to go get Malcolm at school at 16h20, and then head up to Brasschaat for the rehearsal at 18h and performance at 20h.  Tomorrow I will have a very long day of rehearsals tomorrow in the afternoon and evening in Antwerp, followed by a Sunday afternoon performance of Johannespassion, and then a Monday evening performance of the same.  After tonight's performance Malcolm will come home with me for the weekend; he is going with our neighbours Christophe and Isabelle, and Bryan and Kiana and Lawrence to a jazz concert on Saturday night while I am doing my rehearsal in Antwerp, and Maggie and Duncan stay home.

Have a good weekend!

Generale for the Johannespassion completed

Evening generale

Yesterday was a very long day.  The drive up to Brasschaat was familiar, and as I was leaving a little bit earlier in the day it took a little less time, as the traffic congestion on the Brussels and Antwerp rings was slightly less.

We spent the afternoon rehearsing all the arias, and I sang them several times, which was pretty tiring.  But I still had enough fuel in the tank to sing the entire generale that evening.  We managed to perform the whole thing in approximately two hours, which is a good sign for the performance on Friday.  I will need to get back home and get some sleep as I will have another very long day on Saturday with rehearsals from 14h-18h and then again 19h-22h for the Johannespassion with another group.  But the good news for those performances is that all I have to worry about it is the arias and the Pilatus role.

What was particularly challenging last night was to put everything together, with very rapid transitions of character between Pilatus, Jesus, and the arias.  Normally one has a lot more time between these interjections, and in the case of Pilatus or Jesus, one can simply "stay in character" while waiting for the next time one has to sing.  But in this case, it was a bit of a Robin Williams-style event, singing both parts of Jesus and Pilatus in turn as they carry on extended conversations.

Happily it would seem to have worked, based on the feedback from the conductor, the orchestral players and the other soloists: they appreciated that I managed to present very different vocal colours in the different parts.  To be honest most of that is the different style of writing that Bach uses, but there is also an element of unconscious acting with the voice that I am happy is coming through in the sound.

Now that Johannespassion is in the can and ready to go, I am heading into town on my day off to coach the St. Matthew Christus, which I have to sing next week in the Netherlands for the first time, and to start to coach the Offenbach La Belle Helene, which will start rehearsals sooner than I would like in Toronto...

One little bonus of driving through Brasschaat was the discovery of a Kringwinkel, or second hand store not far from the church.  I was a few minutes early yesterday and so poked my nose in for a look and was very pleasantly surprised: there was lots of great Val St. Lambert crystal, and Royal Boch china, and furniture in very good repair.  It turns out that Brasschaat is quite a prosperous place, a bit larger than Wavre at almost 40,000 people, and my friend Teun told me that it is the wealthiest city in Belgium.  It would make sense then that the local second-hand store would have nice things!

I only had a few minutes but found this nice two metre by three metre carpet at the Kringwinkel for 79 EUR.  It's a very thick pile one and in excellent repair, or was until I got it home; Kiki seems to think that the little black horses on it are mice, and has already scratched a bit of the yarn from it!  We clipped her claws this morning but it will be a challenge to stop her from attacking it.

First rehearsals for Bach

You know that I am getting busy when the blog posts start to slow down.. I am writing a quick one today as I have to leave in a few minutes...

First rehearsals for the various Bach Passions began last Friday and I've been going pretty steadily ever since.  Friday's was in a very cold church and we were bundled up, wishing for a warm fire to warm ourselves...

As my rehearsals were near Antwerp I stopped in to pick up Malcolm, and had a visit with him and his instructor Stijn.  His guitar is really coming along well.

Bryan and Kiana brought us back some murano glass tumblers as a thank-you for looking after the kids while they were in Venice.  These have found a nice place in the cabinet...

This weekend was the last chance for us all to get together as a large group until nearly the first of June, as I will be away from Belgium from April 3rd until May 23, so we decided to have an early Easter dinner at the Hammers.  I made a Peking duck in the rotisserie oven, which is surprisingly easy.  You wash the duck in boiling water, then dry it well, and then loosen the skin from the breast meat.  Shove a straw in between the skin and the meat and blow strongly, which will inflate the skin and pull it away from the meat.  Then prick the duck all over to allow the fat to drain when it is roasting, rub it with soy sauce, five spice and sugar and let it dry out in the fridge overnight.

before cooking

and after

Roast it for around 45 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads that it is done.  Ideally you serve the bits of meat and crispy skin inside a little chinese pancake, with cucumber and scallions and a bit of hoisin sauce.

The weather this weekend was really freezing.  I put out a bunch of wood shavings to try to protect the young shoots: I have about forty garlic plants that I planted from bulbs last fall that have already come up because of warm weather last week, but it was going down to well below zero, and they need covering against the frost.

Saturday started with a wine-tasting event in Bousval.

We enjoyed a lot of wines but ultimately purchased very little.  We are starting to really feel the pinch from all of the home renovation costs, and our flights to Canada, and I haven't received any fees yet from the Passion performances.  We will be drinking the cheap stuff for a while!

When we got back we set to work on the serranno ham that Lawrence splurged on... the cats wanted to help...

Saturday night was raclette, and a game of Werewolf, the first for the Hammer and Edwards kids.  It was a big success and we'll try to play it again next time.  I highly recommend this game for large groups, but you must have at least eight players and a moderator, and it works even better if you have more.  I hope we'll get in a game at my Aunt Lorraine and Uncle David's house when we have the family get-together there in April.

This weekend again was the coldest in Belgium since record-keeping began.  That didn't deter us from running almost 22km though, with a rest stop at the Villers-la-Ville abbey for a beer around the 13km mark.  Then we had eggs benedict, with my english muffins (cut and baked by Maggie), Maggie's hollandaise sauce, and ten eggs simmered in a copper pan of lemon-infused water for four minutes, on the wood cooker.  Eggs-cellent...

Yesterday I drove the 100+ km to Brasschaat for the recits rehearsal for the Johannespassion where I do absolutely everything bass.  Fortunately the car was fixed in time; we had a coolant leak that required replacement of the entire coolant pump.  800 EUR later!  Oh well, that's life...

Today I am leaving presently to rehearse the arias in Brasschaat, and then we have a long generale rehearsal in the evening.  Looking forward to it very much!  Happy Tuesday...

Busy weekend; lots of physical activity; variable weather

The weekend was a busy one.  Friday afternoon I drove Bryan and Kiana to the airport in the early afternoon, and then I took their van to pick up their kids from school at the end of the day; we agreed to look after them for the weekend while the parents went on a little birthday holiday weekend away.  We had a little snack here at our house with Duncan, and then Maggie arrived home from work; we switched cars, and Maggie, Duncan and the kids went out to Bousval, while I went into town to meet Malcolm and go see the opera.

It was a double-bill of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, and it was the first time for me to see either opera, although I had of course heard recorded excerpts in the past.  The pairing of these two verismo Italian operas has been traditionally been done since the late nineteenth century, and often the two operas share a cast.  In this staging there was no sharing of sung roles, but they were staged as if they took place in the same village, and the director decided to link them further by staging pantomimes in the instrumental intermezzi that punctuate each opera.  While the silent acting of the opera singers in these intermezzi was well done, I found the whole idea clumsy and unnecessary.  In fact I ended up closing my eyes in the Pagliacci intermezzo just so that I wouldn't be distracted from the beautiful music.

As well the overture of Cavalleria Rusticana was also staged.  In my opinion it's an alarming trend in opera stagings that overtures and purely instrumental parts of operas, with music written to be listened to, seem to almost always have some sort of staging created for them, sometimes with very little to do with the plot, or sometimes to introduce the director's vision for the opera, which again, often has little connection with the plot.  It's almost as if directors feel that audiences don't have the auditory attention to just listen to the beautiful music on its own?

But these are small quibbles about a staging that I thought was really very good, with a great-looking set that was lit magnificently.  Malcolm enjoyed it a lot too.  My friend Scott delivered a wonderful Tonio, and the other singers were very exciting... Carlo Ventre as the Canio (who plays the clown Pagliacci in the play within a play) was a marvellous singer and a compelling actor.  I loved it.  Here's a little movie clip, the "trailer" for the production...

Saturday I stayed home in the morning and rehearsed, and then drove into town to run for 16km with Lawrence in the Foret des Soignes.  Then in the evening we left the Hammer kids at home and drove into Brussels to have a wonderful dinner with Luisa and Raoul.  Malcolm couldn't attend, as he was performing with Strawberry Storm, but we saw some photos and a video a day or two later.  It looks like they're having a great time, and I see that they've already booked a performance for the 14th of September.

The dinner with them was great, asperges à la flamande, waterzooi à la Gantoise, and so forth, really traditional Belgian food.  Duncan had a good time and he was also very helpful with Luisa in the kitchen, opening bottles, etc.  We drove back to Bousval afterwards to sleep there.  The next morning it was pancakes for everyone, and then we went to the Overijse swimming pool where the kids all played in the whitewater river, while Maggie and I swam laps.  I was really happy to get back into the pool again after an entire year away, and happily managed 2km.  Then we headed back to Bousval, and made some roast chicken in the wood stove for dinner, which we shared together after Bryan and Kiana got home.

This week has been pretty quiet, with lots of rehearsing for me.  Monday was a singing day, as is today; yesterday was a little different as I had Lawrence and Bryan over for a run in Wavre, and we clocked almost 17km on the trails near here. 

post-run in Wavre (Bryan's camera has some weird filter
that photoshops out your wrinkles, apparently)

They are both training up for some big runs, while I haven't registered for anything yet: the early season runs that I was interested in doing this year will happen while I'm away in Canada.  However I do hope to sign up for some races after I return in late May... some of the races I'm thinking about are:

• SPA 13 mile / 50 mile - 9 june - 20/80 km
• Trail d’Orval Florenville - 23 june - 11/19/28/38/53 km
• La Chouffe trail - 14-15 July 2018 - night 8/15 km, day 10/20/28/36/50/100 km
• Trail des Trappistes Chimay - 9 september - 11/22/29/50 km
• Trail Brussels - 29 october - 6/13/21/28km

The weather has really been weird; Sunday it was +15, but yesterday it was only around +5.  Today it's sunny and something in the middle, with a high of +11.  I'm going to do some singing and then get in a little gardening, I think!

Lastly, I have just heard back from his Excellency Olivier Nicoloff, the ambassador to Belgium from Canada.  I sent him a note a couple of days ago inviting him to the Johannespassion on March 26th, when the King and Queen are coming, and he replied that he was in Canada, accompanying them on their Royal visit.  The ambassador and his wife will be happy to come as my guests, which will be very nice...

Wood pickup, more plumbing, and lots of rehearsal

Yesterday morning Bryan and I did another wood pickup with the trailer, and filled up the cellar here with another 1,8 stère (cubic metres / face cords) of firewood.  The weather was really god-awful; I think it is clear that whatever potential diety or dieties oversee the operation of the weather here in Belgium (maybe Taranis or Toutatis?), he/she/it/they do not want us to collect this wood.  Of the half-dozen trips we have made already, only the very first one happened in good weather; the rest seem coincidentally to have been scheduled on the very worst days of winter.  We made it back in time for lunch here at the house, but decided not to go running as Lawrence had some conference calls to make, so we'll try again tomorrow in the Foret des Soignes.

The plumbers came yesterday afternoon to replace the electrical boiler under the sink, and change out the leaky drain plug system in the bathtub.  Now we have reliable independently heated hot water on demand in both the kitchen and the bathroom, and a drain plug that allows Maggie to take a bath as long as she wants without having to continuously refill the tub.

I think that's about it for the necessary worker visits; now it's down to me to get going on the renovations.  But I am not really sure how far I will get before the end of May, when I get back from Canada.  With all the stuff that has needed doing I am experiencing quite a bit of decision fatigue!  That's what happens when you buy an 80 year old house.

There is some possibility that I can at least install one layer of rockwool insulation in the roof before I go, but that is not certain; if you read my last post you will see that I have a very busy schedule coming and have to do a lot of rehearsing within the next week or two to get ready for it.  The last thing I need is a bunch of dust and insulation fibres in my throat.

I heard some news today that makes me even more motivated to rehearse and prepare: the King and Queen will be coming to hear our concert in the Rubens church of Sint Carolus Borromeus in Antwerp on the 26th of March!

As I reported back in March of 2016, because of the terror attacks in Brussels, the planned Royal concert did not happen, so it's very exciting that we'll have another chance to play and sing for King Philippe and Queen Matilde.  Here's the facebook announcement...

Spring has apparently sprung

Spring has apparently sprung, and the grass has riz... Here in Wavre it's obvious that the season is changing when you walk out the front door of our house, and stand among the blooming crocuses that Malcolm and I planted as bulbs last autumn.  The early bees are out and buzzing around, which is really nice to see.

Today was a very eventful day, and I managed to check off lots of home reno stuff.  Our cabinetmaker neighbour Christopher has been nice enough to offer his VAT number for our purchase of any material required for our renovations, so that we pay a lower rate of tax for the materials (6% for an entreprise vs. 21% for a simple consumer).  At his advice I went up to the CIPAC store and priced out some items of insulation for the attic...

As it was an anniversary of the founding of the enterprise here in Wavre, of course, there was in the middle of the professional building supply store a big buffet with omelettes a volonté, and many other delicious items provided gratuit for the clients.  

I'm really grateful to Christophe, and bought a better respirator mask, some filters, a good pair of goggles, and some fire retardant spray foam to help close up the holes in the floors.  All in all, a very good experience with this supplier, and I hope to go make use of their products again soon, when I buy the insulation and vapour barrier for the attic...

I know what I'm doing until the end of May...

I cleaned off one of the whiteboards today and decided to make a list of performances just so that it's all on one panel.  I like to write out these things for a couple of reasons... one is so that Maggie knows clearly when and where I am performing.  We have only one vehicle at the moment, and she has no other easy way to get back and forth to school, so there is often a need to coördinate who will use the car, and when.  Tomorrow for example I have decided that I have enough errands to run in Brussels that I will drive her to work early, run my errands, and then go back to pick her up at the end of the day.

The other reason is for my own psychological motivation.  When you have a large chunk of time stretching out in front of you it is tempting to just work on whatever project is next in the pipeline, and then attack the next one after the first one is done, and so on.  This is a very common habit in young singers who have only sporadic work, and so they can get away with it.  This changes when you start getting more work that is concentrated in shorter time periods, and professional singers quickly learn that they don't have unlimited time or mental energy.  There are few things worse than realising that you've taken on too much and not worked far enough ahead: the sick feeling of mounting panic and dread is something to be avoided at all cost!  Plus there is no point in taking on a singing project if you are not going to show up well-prepared.

As you can see I have very little time between projects, so have to work ahead of myself and mix up the musical learning.  The good news is that I already have a lot of this music already in my tank.  Brahms Requiem I have sung frequently; the No Tenors Allowed programme is a re-mount of material from only a couple of years ago, and both of these projects will have some lead time in front of them for refreshing them.

On the Bach front I'm also not in bad shape.  For example, the Johannespassion Christus is something I did quite recently, and while it has been a long time since I sang the Johannespassion arias, and the shorter Pontius Pilate recitatives, I worked them hard with Peter Tomek back in 2010, so they should be ok.  After a sing-through last week, it seems that two out of the three of the arias are pretty much ready to go immediately, while the third (Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen) is mostly there.  It's a real beast though, as a quick listen to recordings will confirm.  Loaded with challenging coloratura with some rather unusual intervals, it's quite rangy (many baritones "bottom out" in the low bits), and there are many cross-rhythms and off-beat entries that can confuse the soloist. Certain arias in opera and in concert reveal the fallibility of every singer, and this is one of those arias.  Here's one of the best recordings I found online, with the great Thomas Quasthoff, but even he takes it a bit slower than most.

The Matthäuspassion role of Christ is going to take some time to prepare, as I have never performed it before, but I have certainly listened to colleagues perform it many times while I've been performing the other parts.  One cool thing about these Bach performances is the familiarity of the other soloists: I've sung with nearly every one of them many times before so we know and like each other, which does wonders for one's sense of security and calm.

The really big project will be the Offenbach operetta; I have to show up with the dialogue and the music memorised, and none of it is familiar.  Musically Offenbach looks simple but it is difficult to memorise because of the repetition with subtle variation, and there are many places where one has so sing interjections in the midst of big ensemble pieces, so I will probably have to go to a coach to get it settled.  There is also a ton of spoken dialogue to memorise, but as the last Offenbach operetta I performed in (La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein) was in spoken French, memorising English dialogue will be a walk in the park by comparison.

Today Jacques the roofer came by to fix a couple of little things left over from the roof work; debris fell from the demolition of the old roof, and punched two holes in the plastic shed roof of our verandah.  As well they broke of a bit of the slate from the roof over the bay window, and my neighbour complained that there were water leaks in HIS attic since our roof was replaced.  There was also a little bit of water still coming in at the front of the house, and that needed resolving before I apply insulation and gyproc.  It has been notoriously difficult from the beginning to reliably schedule a visit from Jacques, so I held off on paying the last third of the bill, so as to encourage him to show up, and that strategy seemed to work.  So I guess now I have to pay him!

Modern Times

Yesterday morning we had a slow start to the day after a late bedtime the night before.  In the early afternoon we drove into Brussels to attend a concert at the Flagey studio 4 concert hall.

The Brussels Philharmonic is a fabulous orchestra that also has developed a reputation as a top film music orchestra.  The silent film The Artist won five academy awards in 2011, and was nominated for ten; the Brussels Philharmonic was the orchestra that recorded that year's best original score.  Yesterday we saw them play the music for Charlie Chaplin's last silent film, Modern Times (1936), and it was really very beautiful.

goofing off in the lobby

Tel fils, tel père

I had seen the iconic bolt-tightening scene, which has been spoofed many times, very memorably by Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance in the famous chocolates scene from I Love Lucy.

What I hadn't realised was that Chaplin not only wrote, directed, acted in, and sang in the film, but he also composed the score.  Conductor Dirk Brossé made a very touching gesture at the end of the concert: after the orchestra with its featured solo instrumentalists had all taken their bows, a photograph of Chaplin himself was projected onto the screen, so he got the last bow.

When operas are staged, after the singers/actors have all taken their bows in turn, the chorus usually is next, and then the chorus master; then the musical director comes out and bows; then the staging director is the last one to come to the stage.  I have often felt that the composer and librettist should be the last ones to come out, or if they are no longer living, we should have their photographs shown.  I was made very happy that the Brussels Philharmonic did this.

Woodchoppers

The past couple of weeks have been unusually cold for Belgium.  In fact, February 28th was the coldest on record.  We have been concentrating on keeping the house warm by running the wood stove pretty much continuously.  Putting in a couple of nice big logs just before bed and shutting it down all the way means that you wake up to a still-warm stove, so it's easier to get it rolling again when you wake up in the morning.  I like the fact that we can close doors and keep the living and dining areas quite warm, while letting the rest of the house stay cool during the day, and in the evening for sleeping.

This isolation of each floor/room from the others has been a little problematic recently however, as there are some holes in the floors/ceilings.  The places where the plumbers ran the hot water pipes for the radiators and the new drainpipes all will need to be filled with spray foam, and then filled back in with plaster/polyfilla, and then repainted.  I also need to rebuild that bulkhead in the front hallway.  I might also use it for a wiring closet though; I need to think about that before I enclose it, as it does extend the entire height of the house, and it's only a few metres away from the electrical panel, so maybe it makes sense to put a large electrical conduit in there as well, and run the wires through it.  It may also be the case that if the wires are enclosed in the bulkhead they don't need to be in a conduit at all; I have to ask the electrician for his advice.  I have to run four circuits up to the attic, so it's much simpler if I do that when everything is openned up.

Duncan with his new glasses

Duncan is liking his new glasses.  I also am getting used to my new pairs.  The reading ones are not really so important, but I am enjoying the clarity of my long distance lenses.  Neither pair are really mandatory but they're nice to have, and the optician we chose is very close to our house, and was very inexpensive.

close vision glasses

distance vision

We had a big snowfall on Friday that blanketed the streets and sidewalks... I forgot both of my snow shovels in our landlord's basement when we moved, so I went out and borrowed a snow shovel from Maurice, our neighbour, and shovelled off and salted the front walks and sidewalks in front of our house, and two houses to either side.  Consider it a little Canadian cadeau...

Twenty-four hours later it had nearly all melted as the temperature rose to +8 degrees C.

It was still pretty slippery on Saturday morning as I left early to drive up to Ghent to pick up some new flooring tiles for our bathrooms.  I'm really happy with these, and by getting them from a builder directly (I think he had extra stock from a job) I ended up getting them for about 1/3 of what similar ones cost at the shops.  Six square metres should be enough to do both bathroom floors.  I really wish I had my father in law Hugh here to help me, as he is a wizard with tiling, but I guess that I'll have to muddle through on my own.

some new floor tiles for the bathrooms

I stopped off in Brussels to pick up Malcolm, and then we all went out to the Hammers to hang out with them.  They have been piling up brush for weeks, and had a big bonfire to get rid of it.

At the Hammer's for a big bonfire

Kiana feeding the fire

As well, I brought along my splitting maul.  Bryan has purchased a number of very high-quality Stihl garden tools, including a really nice chain saw, and was busy cutting up some three-metre-long logs that I had delivered to the house last summer while we were house-sitting.  Bryan had been speculating about buying or renting a wood splitting machine, which, given my love of wood-splitting, I found frankly horrifying.  So I decided to ask if we could have a little splitting bee and I would give him a little coaching on proper form to make it a little easier.  He turned out to be really great at it, and split some very big pieces very easily... and I'm happy to report that I also am still adept at the application of brute force...

Here's the wind-up...

... and it's a hit!

The apple doesn't fall very fall from the tree either... Malcolm had a great time, and in a short while the three of us filled up the trailer with split wood.  Here's a couple of shots of Malcolm at work, plus a short video in slow-motion...

Be sure to wear a toque to protect yourself from flying wood chips

Slo-mo woodchopper