The last Trappist beer...

Okay, now for a little Belgian beer blogging. Today marks the third Belgian monastery I've had the good fortune to visit, and this one is rather special. You may remember that I wrote back in June of 2010 that our friends had obtained some Westvleteren beer, and we tasted it together. You might remember that the dubbel - the 8˚ one - was our favorite, so when the abbey's website indicated that, for a brief four hour window that week, they were accepting reservations for three cases of the 8˚, I got myself a second cup of coffee, a comfortable chair with in reach of the "redial" button, and settled in.

To make a long story medium, I was able to make a reservation, after giving the licence plate number of my car, and was told that I could pick up my reserved beer at precisely 14h15 today. It would seem that one is allowed only one beer reservation per day, and if - I do mean if - you happen to get through to the operator, you have to give the licence plate number of the car you will be driving, and promise that you won't be reselling the beer commercially. That's really the reason that I spent over three hours in the car today: you can't buy the stuff anywhere else but in West Flanders, at the St.-Sixtus Monastery located at Donkerstraat #12.


Why can't you purchase it in stores? That is explained by the following excerpt from a speech by the Father Abbot, on the occasion of the consecration of the renovated brewery, in 1989: "As every man we must be able to live. So we have to try to earn our living and let others share in what we have to abstain from. Indeed, we have to live 'from' and 'with' our brewery. But we do not live 'for' our brewery. This must be strange for business people and difficult to understand that we do not exploit our commercial assets as much as we can. We are no brewers. We are monks. We brew beer to be able to afford being monks."

I also found an article by Owen Ogletree, that explains: "The annual production of 60,000 crates (each wooden crate holds 24 bottles) a year is done in 75 days by five of the 27 members of the monastery. The bottling line dates from 1978, runs only 35 days a year and can fill 12,000 bottles an hour. The monks have no desire to increase production, and they admit that rarity and exclusivity of their beers contribute to a mystical aura."

As an artist, I can respect and admire this point of view, but as someone who loves exploring and also sharing with visitors the benefits of Belgian life, including their amazing beers, this presents a problem. I can get the other five Belgian Trappist beers (Aachel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort and Westmalle) at the local DelHaize supermarket, and can even find the single Dutch Trappist beer (La Trappe) in some grocery stores, but not Westvleteren. Fortunately, sharing this exclusive taste of Trappist beer with friends will not a problem for me for the foreseeable future! These beers will keep for a long time if left in a cool place, and in fact will continue to age like a quality wine. I am very pleased.

Not that I'm drinking more than one of them tonight... I have to stay in good shape and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I do some preliminary rehearsing with an organist for the Merksem concert in November, and then later this week, some Bach rehearsals with my coach. Some more singing contracts have come in over the last few days, and I have to figure out how to fit them into my schedule.

Bon soir!

But it's a long, long while... from July to September...

... and I thought I'd write / 'fore it was November...

My apologies to Kurt Weill for my paraphrasing, but it has been a while since I posted. I just haven't quite felt in the mood, and have been very busy getting everything back the way it should be after a long seven weeks in Canada. Speaking of Canada, I could write pages about what we did on our vacation, but in brief, we had a great time visiting with friends and family... I only regret that we didn't have more time to see other friends that we missed. We made it back to Brussels safely, with an eight hour stopover in Warsaw; the picture above is from the opera house there. I hope to go back for a more extended visit soon.

First a family update. Maggie started school on August 24th, and had her first students the following Monday the 30th. She has had lots of work to do getting her room organized; not only was her classroom moved to another location in the building, but she wasn't the one who packed the boxes, so there are things missing or mis-placed. She likes her students very much and is glad to be back in her professional millieu.

The boys are well placed in school. Duncan is on track to getting a perfect comportment assessment this week; he was very close last week, and we are hoping he will be fine this week, otherwise it's no tv. He's looking forward to going to Nettinne again this year in October, and has joined up with the best rugby team in Belgium, the Boitsfort Rugby Club. It seems to agree very well with his personality, and constitution. They practice once a week and have one match per week. He's doing very well in his academic subjects too, and is able to read equally well in French and English, something that Malcolm has also somehow mastered, despite an almost total lack of English instruction. He's got Malcolm's old two-wheeled bike, and a couple of weekends ago we got him out in the nearby forest park, which is closed to cars on Sundays, and now he's able to start, stop, and turn on his own. Duncan's also enrolled in rhythmique class at the local academie de musique, so he is getting instruction in singing, dancing and some percussion.


Speaking of Malcolm, he's enjoying his last year of primary school, and becoming more and more independent. He is a big reader but also is having fun riding my bike, which was always a little small for me, but with some adjustment fits him well. We were hoping to get him into judo class at the same time as Duncan's rugby practice but it looks like the timing won't work, so it might be golf for him instead, or swimming. He's started solfege at the academy as well, and despite my reservations he is absolutely loving the two hour theory classes. They are learning sight singing, rhythmic patterns, lyrics, notation and so on. He's also taking the transverse flute once a week, and is excited about that too.

Just a word here about the academie: it is funded by the francophone community, and we pay only ten euros per family. For that, students can take theory, dance, singing, acting and instrumental music; it's all taken care of. We were even able to rent an instrument for the year for only 50 euros. I'm really very impressed at this commitment to funding the arts for everyone, and making music, dance and theatre appreciation a priority. Last Wednesday while Duncan was in his class, I asked at the office if they had a spare practice room, and without any reservation, they handed me the key to a classroom with a piano, so I was able to spend 50 minutes working on my upcoming Bach pieces! I expect that that might become a regular thing...

Speaking of upcoming pieces, I need to find as much time as I can to practice, as I have lots to learn and perform over the next three months:

• Bach Cantatas BWV 207, 208 (Hunting Cantata) for Sint Carolus Borromeuskerke Antwerp
  
• BWV 140 (Wachet auf) and parts I and VI of the Christmas Oratorio for Pax Christi and Howard Dyck in Toronto
  
• a programme for Belgian tour of César Franck music including several offertories, an ave Maria, the Messe a trois voix and other pieces for Vocaal Collectief
  
• an entirely new programme commemorating the 1944 liberation of Merksem (part of Antwerp) that will include music of Ives, Rorem, Vaughan Williams, Elgar and others for the Calcant concert series
  
• Purcell's Ode on St. Celilia's Day for Melos and David Cameron in Kingston
  

... so I've got my hands full with things to learn. I also have learned that I have a third performance added to the Messiah tour that's happening in Belgium in April, and there are more leads on the Schubert tour in Canada in May. Fortunately these last two things are works I've already done many times before, but there is still lots of work to be done on them to make them better.

Okay then, off to practice. Tomorrow is a busy day, as we are taking part in a brocante, or street sale, and then visiting with our friends Bryan and Kiana who have moved out of town. I helped them move a couple of weeks ago and we are looking forward to a nice barbeque together. Bon weekend!

O Canada

We've had a fun but very busy time over the last couple weeks. Since arriving on the 29th, we've had a number of great cottaging and socializing opportunities. Spending time with our old friends and family has been wonderful, and I haven't always remembered to take photographs, because I've been having too much fun.

Here are a few snaps...




As well I've taken the time to coach some arias, sing an audition, and rehearse for some upcoming projects. I am also keeping up the advance planning for some summer festivals in 2011 and 2012; it's important to keep thinking and planning well in advance. I am really quite surprised at the amount of work that I have coming this season, and may have to start turning down some jobs, but can't afford to slow down. As a successful salesman once wrote in his memoir, "If sales are slow, you aren't having a slow week; you had a slow week six months ago". By that he meant, that if your sales cycle (from initial contact, to sending information, to meeting to discuss products, to closing the deal) is 6, 12 or 18 months, you need to be thinking that far ahead. For me as an opera singer, the "sales cycle" varies from 12 to 36 months, so I need to always keep one part of my mind on maintaining and increasing my career momentum.

Bruce was taking care of our house in Brussels until a few days ago, and so we were in his house in Toronto, as well as spending time at Maggie's parents, my parents, and our friends' cottage. At the same time I've been taking care of some maintenance tasks at our Toronto house, and Maggie and I have started a big inventory of kids' toys, clothes and other items that we realize we no longer need to keep. Our original trip to Brussels was to be of undetermined length, but we had in the back of our minds the idea that if things didn't go well, we might well be back in our house after only ten months. Now that three very productive years have passed, we are benefiting greatly from our European residency, and have no pressing reason to return, so it's time to re-sort, re-pack and purge the stuff that we no longer need. (e.g. does Duncan really need those size three sandals? They were too large for him in 2007, but way too small now, so out they go!). We're organizing a big yard sale on the 7th of August at Bruce's place, so that should cut the storage job down to size.

I hope that you are each and all having a great summer!