Concert for peace; perogies; Maggie on holiday

after the concert at BOZAR Saturday night

The concert at the BOZAR with the Brussels Choral Society and Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra was a big success.  The audience reaction was generous and we were all quite exhausted emotionally when it was all over.  Eric - the artistic director of the choral society - was very positive afterwards, congratulating me and saying that my singing was beautifully expressive.  He also said that he looks forward very much to the next collaboration, which may be simple politeness, but then again, this is the third time that I have sung with this ensemble, so who knows?  Eric is also the head of music at the International School of Brussels, and the person who has hired me to adjudicate there three times, so I think that we are on good terms.

I didn't stick around for a lot of celebrating but drove home immediately afterwards, as I had a early start the next morning...

Mike and Joyce Hill sing in the Choral Society, and are also long-time members of the Choir at St. Andrew's.  It made sense that many members of the congregation had been at the concert, as I found out the next morning.  It is nice to receive appreciation from friends and acquaintances on a performance, and I was pleasantly surprised, because I didn't realise that I would know anyone in the audience.

For the second week in a row this past Sunday, Duncan was interviewing people on camera, and I was filming some sequences and doing some audio recording before, after, and during the service.  All of this is for that short film that I am effectively producing, and it would seem that after last Sunday we have enough footage to make a good start.  I'm meeting on Wednesday with Evan Lamos, a videographer friend who will be doing the editing, so I will have a better idea of how the film will take shape after that meeting.

Duncan and I made a hasty exit after the interviews were completed, and we drove home to Wavre to get Maggie.  The weather has been absolutely gorgeous recently, and Bryan and I were eager to go our for a run with the dogs.  We took advantage of the 15-degree sunny weather and ran our 8km.  Meanwhile everyone else was back at the house getting ready for the perogi bee that we had planned...

Kiana had also invited Susan, a Canadian from Vancouver, to take part; her two kids go to the same school as the Hammer kids.  We had a great time making perogi, then boiling them and finishing them off for a few minutes in a fry pan on the wood cookstove.  Served with a little bit of bacon and some strained yoghurt... Delicious!

Today was pretty quiet; I had my physio in the early morning, and the rest of the day has been pretty relaxed, at home with Maggie.  She's off from school all this week, and today was getting some embroidery done and relaxing...  The rest of the week is pretty clear, and this weekend has nothing on the calendar.  That's nice because after this weekend, it's going to get busy for me, and I won't have another free weekend until mid-April...