I have been more busy that I can describe the last month and a half. We really enjoyed the rest of our Easter vacation, and didn't do much that was terribly strenuous, physically, or socially: everyone needed the rest! I read three or four books, and was happy to have the chance to lose myself in someone else's story. But I also had another motivator: the school librarian started a reading activity for the students over the break, and opened it up to parents and teachers too. For every book you read, a slip of paper was entered into the contest. They drew one slip for each of the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, and one from the adults, and I won! So I got to choose a book that would be added to the library's order. I chose one that I have been wanting to read for a while... The Invisible Life of Addie Larue.
There's a good NPR review of the book here, but I know several people who have read it already, including my Aunt Lorraine, so I am confident that it is good, and am happy to now have my own copy.
receiving my copy of Addie Larue from librarian
and fellow Canadian Brandy Mowatt
Since I last posted we celebrated Duncan's 18th birthday with steak and caesar salad and frites...
... and chocolate pomegranate cake. He's having a great time doing karate three times a week, and a couple of weeks ago he had a remarkable session during the sparring exercise, for the first time with one of the Belgian karate champions.
He did so well that the sensei has encouraged him to try competitions for the first time, so I'm hoping that he will give that a chance. He's also continuing to train for the paratrooper junior trials; these were to have happened last weekend, but were postponed to early June, and now have been postponed again to late June. We're still hoping that he will get it top shape for that, and succeed at getting a place in the session.
The day after Duncan's birthday I ran the Trail des Cisterciens relay with Bryan, Kiana, and Lawrence, and Claire, Jan, Eric and Taggart formed another team. Ordinarily the May 1st date wouldn't have worked for me, because of Saturday "13" rehearsal, but May first is the labour day in Europe, so I was able to take part.
It was our first relay race: Bryan ran the first bit (33km), then Lawrence the second (27km), then I did the third (23km), and Kiana the last bit (17km). The three first runners also ran the last five km with Kiana, so in the end it was a much longer run than I've done for a long time. The total vertical climb was around 2500m, of which my part was around 730m, a higher percentage of climbing than the other sections, which was challenging for me for sure. I haven't been out since, but have a day off today and will take Yoshi out for a medium run today to get back at it.
It was our first relay race: Bryan ran the first bit (33km), then Lawrence the second (27km), then I did the third (23km), and Kiana the last bit (17km). The three first runners also ran the last five km with Kiana, so in the end it was a much longer run than I've done for a long time. The total vertical climb was around 2500m, of which my part was around 730m, a higher percentage of climbing than the other sections, which was challenging for me for sure. I haven't been out since, but have a day off today and will take Yoshi out for a medium run today to get back at it.
In the waiting area, post-vaccination, to ensure that the danger
of an immediate allegic reaction to the vaccine has passed
In other news Maggie and I have both received our first vaccinations. She got the Pfizer, and I received the Astra Zeneca. The main difference is the interval between first and second innoculation. She should have her second one in June, but I have to wait until the end of July. Either way we are both on our way. Maggie had no significant reaction, and I felt fine for the first twenty-four hours, but then had fever, chills and fatigue the following night.
Coronavirus daily infections in Belgium have dropped steadily since the end of Easter break, and we are now down by 30% this week, to a little more than 2000 daily infections, from a high of almost 5000 in late march. There are still no cases of transmissions in our school despite us having remained mostly open for in-person teaching since middle November, which I suppose means that our masking, ventilating, and quarantine precautions are working. The regular Belgian schools reopened to full capacity classes a week and a half ago and that seems to be going well also.
School has been very challenging for me, and I am really struggling to keep up with everything. Because of the disruptions to regular classes, the handoff of the main music teacher job in November, the sharing of classes between multiple classroom music teachers, and the demands of developing curriculum "on the fly" this year, I realise that I'm coming close to the end of the school year, and in some cases haven't formally evaluated all of the educational criteria that I'm supposed to. So that has necessitated some urgent lesson planning to get every box ticked correctly. The practical aspects of teaching are not new for me, but the associated administrative burden is, and I am reminded why I grew to hate working in a big company in the past. I didn't become a professional singer so that I could sit in front of a computer!
On the applied side, the singing students are progressing well, and I am really very pleased with the choral / ensemble singing that is emerging from the music classes, especially the grade 8s. It's very satisfying to get them to learn to sing interesting "crunchy" harmonies. The ensembles pieces from "13" are in a rock style, but are quite well-written, so there are lots of opportunities to use the material to teach them how to think about structure, harmony, time signature, rhythms, contrast, characterisation, interpretation etc.
In my off time I've been attacking the fence line between our house and Christopher's next door. The fence that was there was pretty much destroyed, and while I had been able to "shore it up" against chicken escapes, Christopher and Isabelle recently adopted a dalmatian/border collie puppy, and he has been boisterously chewing away at the old coated fencing and knocking it down in his exuberance to cross over and play with Yoshi. We also want to let the chickens back out into the main garden again so that I can plant the vegetables in the enclosed space that they are in now, so we need to get that fence finished up first.
I should have taken more "before" photos but these were taken midway through. I had to dig out a lot of stumps, using pickaxe, spade, reciprocating saw, and other tools. Some of them that had been there for many years and it took a long time and some serious brute force to get them out of the ground. As well I had to take down or drastically prune back a number of elderberry and lilac trees that were in the way of the new fence line, and also dig up some very unwieldy pieces of reinforced concrete that the roots had deformed or cracked, and then re-level the earth so as to get the tensioning wires as close to the ground level as possible.
Coronavirus daily infections in Belgium have dropped steadily since the end of Easter break, and we are now down by 30% this week, to a little more than 2000 daily infections, from a high of almost 5000 in late march. There are still no cases of transmissions in our school despite us having remained mostly open for in-person teaching since middle November, which I suppose means that our masking, ventilating, and quarantine precautions are working. The regular Belgian schools reopened to full capacity classes a week and a half ago and that seems to be going well also.
School has been very challenging for me, and I am really struggling to keep up with everything. Because of the disruptions to regular classes, the handoff of the main music teacher job in November, the sharing of classes between multiple classroom music teachers, and the demands of developing curriculum "on the fly" this year, I realise that I'm coming close to the end of the school year, and in some cases haven't formally evaluated all of the educational criteria that I'm supposed to. So that has necessitated some urgent lesson planning to get every box ticked correctly. The practical aspects of teaching are not new for me, but the associated administrative burden is, and I am reminded why I grew to hate working in a big company in the past. I didn't become a professional singer so that I could sit in front of a computer!
On the applied side, the singing students are progressing well, and I am really very pleased with the choral / ensemble singing that is emerging from the music classes, especially the grade 8s. It's very satisfying to get them to learn to sing interesting "crunchy" harmonies. The ensembles pieces from "13" are in a rock style, but are quite well-written, so there are lots of opportunities to use the material to teach them how to think about structure, harmony, time signature, rhythms, contrast, characterisation, interpretation etc.
In my off time I've been attacking the fence line between our house and Christopher's next door. The fence that was there was pretty much destroyed, and while I had been able to "shore it up" against chicken escapes, Christopher and Isabelle recently adopted a dalmatian/border collie puppy, and he has been boisterously chewing away at the old coated fencing and knocking it down in his exuberance to cross over and play with Yoshi. We also want to let the chickens back out into the main garden again so that I can plant the vegetables in the enclosed space that they are in now, so we need to get that fence finished up first.
I should have taken more "before" photos but these were taken midway through. I had to dig out a lot of stumps, using pickaxe, spade, reciprocating saw, and other tools. Some of them that had been there for many years and it took a long time and some serious brute force to get them out of the ground. As well I had to take down or drastically prune back a number of elderberry and lilac trees that were in the way of the new fence line, and also dig up some very unwieldy pieces of reinforced concrete that the roots had deformed or cracked, and then re-level the earth so as to get the tensioning wires as close to the ground level as possible.
As well two of the old reinforced concrete posts were broken by the action of tree roots and trunks, so I needed to dig additional holes and pour concrete and set new posts, one of which will be used to make a gate between the gardens, wide enough to pass a lawnmower or wheelbarrow. As you can see the fence hasn't been completely tensioned yet in these photos but it's already looking much better than it was. I'm hoping that once it's done the neighbours on the other side agree to replacing that fence also.
Last weekend was actually a four-day one, because of the holiday of Ascension falling on Thursday, and Friday as a holiday in lieu of May 1st, so we had lots of time to celebrate Malcolm's 22nd birthday. He was back and forth quite a bit that weekend to see his girlfriend, and we had his birthday dinner early because he had a rehearsal for his band Strawberry Storm. Amazingly, they have been invited at short notice to perform again in an outdoor festival, this Friday! It's their first performance since late 2018, I think, and also their first gig as a trio. It's great that they have a gig again; unfortunately I have to teach private lessons until 17:30 and probably won't have time to make it, but I hope that someone will take some pictures.
On my performing front, I've had some good news. The Johannespassion in Brussels with Bachwerk had already been rescheduled for April of 2022, and they have started singing rehearsals again (masked and distanced). I have recently been contacted about some other productions: The Choir of the European Union/Ensemble Orchestral de Brussels, with whom I have performed Haydn's Creation, the Mozart Requiem, and Mendelssohn's Paulus, has asked me to do a Johannespassion with them in March in the Conservatoire. Secondly, La Petite Bande, the Flemish group that invited me to Japan has confirmed that we will likely be going in 2024, but in the meantime, they have been asked to perform Matthäuspassion in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam in April of 2022!
This is widely regarded as one of the finest acoustical spaces in the world, on par with the Vienna Musikverein or Boston's Symphony Hall. I've performed with musicians from the Concertgebouw orchestra, in Amsterdam and the Canary Islands, but never in the big hall itself, so that will be a thrill. At just under 2000 seats, it's more or less the same size as the Salle Henry LeBoeuf in the BOZAR.
Lastly, Jurgen Petrenko has indicated that the Toronto Classical Singers are hoping to finally do the Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony and Five Mystical Songs on the first of May, 2022, two years after it was originally programmed. I guess it isn't time to hang up my spurs just yet? We'll see what else comes up, and hope that these latest reschedulings are the last ones, and that there are more gigs coming up as we gradually return to performing again.
Last weekend was actually a four-day one, because of the holiday of Ascension falling on Thursday, and Friday as a holiday in lieu of May 1st, so we had lots of time to celebrate Malcolm's 22nd birthday. He was back and forth quite a bit that weekend to see his girlfriend, and we had his birthday dinner early because he had a rehearsal for his band Strawberry Storm. Amazingly, they have been invited at short notice to perform again in an outdoor festival, this Friday! It's their first performance since late 2018, I think, and also their first gig as a trio. It's great that they have a gig again; unfortunately I have to teach private lessons until 17:30 and probably won't have time to make it, but I hope that someone will take some pictures.
On my performing front, I've had some good news. The Johannespassion in Brussels with Bachwerk had already been rescheduled for April of 2022, and they have started singing rehearsals again (masked and distanced). I have recently been contacted about some other productions: The Choir of the European Union/Ensemble Orchestral de Brussels, with whom I have performed Haydn's Creation, the Mozart Requiem, and Mendelssohn's Paulus, has asked me to do a Johannespassion with them in March in the Conservatoire. Secondly, La Petite Bande, the Flemish group that invited me to Japan has confirmed that we will likely be going in 2024, but in the meantime, they have been asked to perform Matthäuspassion in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam in April of 2022!
Lastly, Jurgen Petrenko has indicated that the Toronto Classical Singers are hoping to finally do the Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony and Five Mystical Songs on the first of May, 2022, two years after it was originally programmed. I guess it isn't time to hang up my spurs just yet? We'll see what else comes up, and hope that these latest reschedulings are the last ones, and that there are more gigs coming up as we gradually return to performing again.
Posts
