Bach concert minimes; second week of school break; getting ready for Homilius

at rehearsal for the Minimes concert

with tenor Stephan Adriaens

The minimes concert at Coudenberg on the weekend of the 15th/16th February went pretty well.  It was really nice to sing with Stephan again, and we heard many reports about how nice our voices went together.  It is also very gratifying to receive the confirmation from the artistic team that your instincts about another singer were correct.  They have already asked Stephan to return for another concert!

Monday morning I was up early and off to help my neighbour Christopher with a cabinetry installation in Brussels.  He sometimes does some follow-up work on Mondays, his usual day off from his main job, and needed a hand because of the weight of some of the cabinets.  It was nice to help him out, and were were both pleased with the finished project, as was the client.

Maggie was home all of last week while both boys were still at school: this year their Carnaval holiday weeks don't match up.  It was nice; the weather was pretty good, and we enjoyed the quiet time around the house.  We went out for lunch with Kiana one day, and we went to IKEA one day to return some items, and make use of some lunch vouchers that we had been given.  It seems silly to go to IKEA for lunch, but it was not an unpleasant thing to have cheese croquettes and roquette, swedish meatballs and frites with a glass of rose wine, and a little dessert afterwards, all on the house.  We managed to get out of there with a minimum of purchases, mostly candles for the dining room table, and without any arguments...

Maggie bought lots of different fabric and started a new sewing project: she has a colleague who is expecting her second child next month, and so she had the idea to make a quilt for the new baby.

piecing out

sewing up the squares

finishing up

Otherwise we did a fair bit of dog-walking, cooked a lot of nice meals, and hung out with the cats.

I don't know if you were following the weather reports from Belgium, but we had big windstorms on each of the last three weekends.  The chicken coop blew over, as did the metal pavillion, and so I had to go out and put it back to rights.  The chickens were a bit scared but were uninjured, but they stopped laying eggs, or so it seemed.  After a few days I was starting to get worried, but then I had a look at the very back of the compost pile, and realised that they were laying their eggs back there instead of in the coop.

All the the stormy weather meant that we had an instinct to stay inside and keep the fire going, so we realised that we were burning through our fuel supplies and so needed to order some more firewood.  We have used different suppliers in the past, but decided to try a local one who we discovered a couple months ago, when we saw his sign while running through the forest in Bousval with Bryan and Kiana.  I called Nicolas on Saturday and he agreed to deliver 4,5 stere, or about 3 cubic metres of firewood the very next day.

Also on Saturday I drove into Brussels to have a quick meeting with a friend and fellow musician, the clarinettist Sue Ryall, who now lives in Yorkshire, after many years in Germany.  I hadn't seen her for about five years, and hadn't met Frank, her new partner, before.  They were coming through Brussels by train, en route to Bruges for a weekend away, and we had almost an hour in Brussels to say hello.  That's one of the great things about being part of a transportation hub; lots of people pass through on their way to somewhere else, and if you know about it ahead of time, it's kind of cool to meet up with old friends again in a completely different city that the last one you saw them in.

In fact we have several upcoming visitors in the next few months... my cousin Laurie Patterson and her daughter Jane are doing a few weeks in the Scandic countries and also Switzerland and Germany in May, so we expect to see them for a bit during that trip.  Then my cousin Louie Pardoe (who lives in Ohio) will be in Brussels in early July for the World Choir Games, and he's planning on staying on for a bit afterwards.

As well my parents are doing a Scandinavia/Germany trip in June, and so will come to us just before the boys' school year ends, and stay for a while, which will be really nice.  They haven't visited us here since 2013, and haven't seen the new house, so that will be a good experience, and I hope that I can make some progress on some more of our renovations before they arrive.  Certainly it would be nice if the attic is able to accomodate them, or at least be far enough along that Maggie and I can use it while they are here.

While in Brussels on Saturday, after my visit with Sue and Frank, I stopped by my friend Benoit's shop for another test drive of his new batch of fuzz pedals.  Ben recently came upon a treasure trove of NOS (new old stock) Soviet-made transistors, and that has inspired him.  He's always liked pedals and has started making boutique ones just as a sideline while he's waiting for glue to dry or finishes to cure on his larger harp and harp guitar projects, so I have been trying out the various prototypes.

You would think that to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, a fuzz is a fuzz is a fuzz, but that is definitely not true; there are many differences in how the pedals are wired.  You can adjust gain and volume, and on some of them, tone as well, and some fuzz pedals are great for solo lines, but bad at chords, and others over-emphasise the open strings, and create unbalanced sounds.  Still others are just too harsh for my ear.

fuzz pedal shootout

I finally settled on the one that I am playing here: the smaller green one with the two red knobs, and the red LED that is illuminated, based on the Jordan Boss Tone 1000 fuzz that can be heard on late 1960s records of the Turtles (“Happy Together”), the Yardbirds, the Doors, and the Mamas and Papas.  Fuzz pedals use transistors, either made from silicon or germanium, and this "Boss Fuzz" uses one of each type, both Soviet-made from around 1973.

Of all of the pedals that I tried it seems to have the most clarity and musical definition, and when I researched the original pedal, I learned that other non-psychedelic rockers feel the same way: Jordan Boss Tone was also a favourite of Nashville pedal-steel players.  While it sounds great on the humbucker Gibson SG that I tested it with in the shop, it sounds even better on my P90 equipped SG, through my 1972 Fender Princeton Reverb.  I am not planning on performing as a guitarist anytime soon, but it's fun for jamming around.

But I didn't get to play in on Sunday, because of the noise regulations, and anyway, we had other things to do...  

The delivery was right on time, and Nicolas was able to dump the wood on the sidewalk just in front of our house.  Chausee de Louvain is a provincial highway, so it can get quite busy, and Sunday morning is one of the quietest times for traffic, so I was glad that he was able to make the delivery then.

Duncan was off to attend the Brussels ComicCon, so he managed to get out of wood stacking this time, but Malcolm was home, and the two of us managed to get the whole load into the coal room in about two hours of steady work.  It's nice dry, hard wood, and burns very hot and for a long time, so I will have no reservations about calling the same supplier again.  And as an added wrinkle, I am sure that Bryan and Kiana and Maggie and I have run past some of these trees over the last five years, as he has been cutting over the last couple of years right next to our usual trail.  So that means that some small part of the carbon that these trees sucked out of the air was produced by us!

Yesterday I had a couple of make-up lessons with E. and M, after almost two weeks without a singing lesson, and it took a little bit longer to get them warmed up.  For the first time they sang through their pieces with a real accompanist, and it went very well, so that is encouraging.  I'm really happy that the kids will start to have the experience of real musical ensemble, instead of just singing to a pre-recorded backing track, as they had to for the Dolly! production.  I am looking forward to the rehearsals next week, and then the general rehearsal on Friday, because I won't actually be able to attend the performance on Saturday the 8th, as I am singing myself in the Homilius passion.

On that note, I have to go warm up and practice!

Van Eyck exhibition; dinner with Canadian friends; fourth private student added

Last weekend Malcolm and Duncan were both here, and we started the weekend with a trip to Ghent.

We had a lunch out at a Lebanese restaurant called Beiruti that is close to the centre of town, and then had a little walk around before heading to the museum.

A tapestry from the period of Van Eyck

a detail of the Archangel Gabriel from the Ghent Altarpiece

The Ghent Altarpiece has been undergoing restoration at the Museum of Fine art in Ghent for the past several years.  Bruce and I went to see both St. Bavo's Cathedral (where the altarpiece was first displayed), and the MSK Ghent last August during his visit, but now the museum has opened a huge exhibition on Van Eyck's "Optical Revolution", with some of the restored panels available for closer inspection, and other Van Eyck works.

The Annunciation Diptych, c. 1433-35 (Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid)

Van Eyck revolutionised painting in the early 15th century, and did pioneering work with oils in particular.  It is breathtaking to view his work next to that of his contemporaries.  Unfortunately the exhibition is only on until the end of April, but it is highly recommended viewing if you happen to be passing through Belgium before it closes.  If not, the altarpiece is always on display in St. Bavo's to look at the next time you visit.

Sunday afternoon we had our new Canadian friends in for dinner.  Arli and Brandi are a couple originally from Edmonton, and just arrived at St. John's in September/October.  They have taught in Dubai, and Japan, among other places.  Their daughter Moke is the same age as Duncan, and was in the Hello Dolly! show, so I already know her a bit better than her parents, but the boys hadn't met any of them, and Maggie doesn't have Moke for a student so introductions were made all around.

We had a big afternoon dinner, with roast leg of lamb, brussels sprouts simmered in cream, sherry-glazed walnut ginger carrots, mustard chili green beans, and olive oil roast potatoes.  We had a great and I have the feeling that we will see them again soon.

Tonight is more socialising for us: we will go into Brussels to meet up with Regine and Jean-Luc (Valentin's parents) and Matthias and Karin (Fritz's parents) whom we haven't seen for over a year.  We'll be trying out a new restaurant in our old neighbourhood of Watermael Boitsfort.

Yesterday was a bit of a busy day for me: I had four private singing students for the first time in one day... First there was a lunchtime lesson with "L", then I had a couple of hours off before the next three lessons happened in quick succession from 15:45 until 18:00, with "E", "M", and for the first time, "R".  Here's what we are looking at:

• L (soprano) is doing the Pie Jesu from the Fauré Requiem and Ribbons down my back from Dolly! 
• E (soprano) is doing two Italian art songs, Caro mio ben and Alma del core
• M (soprano) is doing Caro mio ben and Till there was you (from The Music Man)
• R (baritone) is doing the Italian art song Nina and the Schubert lied An die Musik 

In between the first and second lesson I had a couple of hours to myself, and so used the time to rehearse my own aria for Bach cantata BWV 157, which I will rehearse with the solo flute and violin this coming monday evening, prior to our concert next weekend the 16th February.  It's a challenging sing but is coming along nicely.

Then I went for a 4 km walk to downtown Waterloo, to visit a very nice fromagerie.  The Hello Dolly! team gave Maggie a 25 EUR gift certificate for the shop, as a thank-you for volunteering on the play, and the certificate was due to expire at the end of the month, so I went and picked up a few varieties of our favourite cheeses: Duncan's personal favourite, abondance (from Haute-Savoie, made from unpasteurised milk produced by the Abondance breed of cattle), 18 month old Gruyère de Comté (also made from unpasteurized cow's milk in the Franche-Comté traditional province of eastern France) and some aged pecorino romano (sheep's milk cheese from Italy).  This last was bought so that I could try and replicate my successful production of the pasta dish cacio e pepe ("cheese with pepper").

I have been a bit frustrated about this recipe; it is super simple, using olive oil, pepper, pecorino, and pasta, with some of the starchy pasta water reserved for thinning the sauce.  I made it in Italy while olive picking with Christopher and Kiana, and made it successfully when I returned home, but since then I have not been able to succeed at getting the sauce right.  I had suspected that maybe the quality of the cheese made a difference but last night it didn't work either, but turned clumpy.  Catastrophe!

I did some more reading, and I think that I need to wait a bit before adding the cheese, so that things cool down a bit so that the cheese doesn't clump up.  Here's a recipe in case you want to give it a try.

A couple of good things happened in the lessons.  E was really excited about the Alma del core song, because in her words it is more "happy-sounding" than the slower Caro mio ben...

I was also happy to introduce M to Till there was you, which is for a real soprano, back before musical theatre changed and started to embrace the belting lower voices at the exclusion of the higher female singers.  Here's the amazing Barbara Cook, from the original production.

Compare this kind of real, delicate, dramatic singing with the kind of auto-tuned garbage that you hear so much of these days.  I hate to be a old grouch, but it's a challenge to get the young singers to try to produce this kind of amazing sound, because they have only bad singing in their ears as an example.  M really connected with the romance of the song, which was great to see.

(* supplemental: Here's a great article about Barbara Cook, plus a video clip from the Bell Telephone Hour in 1960, with a medley of songs from the show.  We vividly remember the show from when Bruce sang in it, at the Gaganoque Summer Festival, back in 2004 or so.)

R had his first lesson, but I've already heard that his father (who is an excellent pianist) was at the piano last night practicing the accompaniment, so that also bodes well.  I am glad that there is family support for singing; it's a lot of fun to do music together...

Today it is bright and very clear, and should reach 8 degrees, so I am going to head out for a nice long run with Yoshi.

He's been very patient so far...