Happy New Year

I see by my last blog post that I haven't written anything since the 23rd of December. In that case, Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! We had a relaxing time over Christmas itself. We had a little drop in at Piers and Gilly's for mulled wine, then came home for our seafood dinner; this time it was fresh pasta with a mexican shrimp sauce, instead of the usual lobster. Then it was time to hang up the stockings and head off to bed.We all must have been good, because Santa was good to us, and we were to each other. There are too many presents to list, but here's a shot of the boys with their knitted hat, mittens and scarf from the aunts Heather and Emily.

The next day we stayed in, and I got to work on the turkey, a fresh one from DelHaize, which turned out very well.

Maggie got in some quilt work, with Kiki's help...

...and we even got in some toboganning, with an outdoor bonfire and Chimay Bleu with cigars with Bryan and Kiana and family. All in all, a very relaxed and enjoyable Christmas.

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Now for the New Year's Eve celebrations. On the 28th we drove to the airport, and left for a very pleasant five days in Vilnius, Lithuania, with our friends Gediminas, Rasa, Austeja and Simonas. As I no doubt have explained in an earlier post, we met them through Malcolm, as Simonas and he were best friends at school, and we quickly got to be good friends with the rest of the family. We saw Rasa nearly every morning before school, and Austeja (now in her last year of secondary school) babysat for us, so she and Duncan are close too. They returned to Vilnius about a year and a half ago, leaving a standing invitation for us to come visit, and we finally took them up on it.

What an interesting country! Lithuania has a long and very storied history, filled with many struggles to defend their independence against invaders. They were the last country in Europe to become Christianized, remaining pagan until the fourteenth century, and were a formidable military power; indeed, in the 15th century, Lithuania became the largest state in Europe. Partitioned in 1795, they endured Russian rule, until gaining independence in 1918. In more modern times they struggled first under German and finally Soviet occupation, until finally regaining their independence in 1990, the first of the former USSR states to do so.

It was quite amazing to walk around this city, exploring the different historical buildings, churches, monuments and so on. The climate and landscape remind me very much of Canada, and it snowed nearly every day we were there. I don't think I've ever seen so many fur coats and hats; I guess when one lives in a country that has such a long cold winter, PETA doesn't get much traction.

We had a great time visiting with the family; getting a great tour with Austeja and Simonas, but also had some serious moments... one particularly affecting trip was to the museum of Genocide Victims, housed in the old headquarters of the NKVD/KGB. It was grim to walk in among the prison cells, see the places where partisans and dissidents were kept, sometimes tortured, and where many had been executed. Exhibits included lots of information about the uprisings, how the partisans hid in the forests and continued their resistance, and the forced deportations to Gulags in the remote north of the USSR. There were examples of surveillance and listening equipment, and many examples of Soviet-era propaganda. It gave us quite a sobering feeling for what life must have been like under Soviet rule.

We also saw some more fun attractions... Gediminas took us for a drive to Trakai, to visit the island castle there, begun in the 14th century. It was quite amazing, and had lots of great museum displays, and reconstructions of the various stages of the castle's construction and restoration. It was a major stronghold during the period of conflict with the Teutonic order, and held a position of great strategic importance.

There is currently a long footbridge across Lake Galvé giving access to the castle, and we were surprised to encounter a wedding party from the country, engaging in their tradition of the groom and groomsmen carrying the bride and bridesmaids across the footbridges.

After our tour we enjoyed cups of broth and baked meat piroshki at a local restaurant, which warmed us up after the cold walk, and we returned back home to Vilnius to Rasa's wonderful meal, which helped us celebrate the arrival of 2011. We finished off the evening with lots of fireworks, including a few of our own; this seems to be a big part of the celebration, as the coloured rockets were exploding above the city as early as eleven p.m., and they continued until at least one in the morning.

The next day we had a very snowy drive to the airport with Gediminas, and we made our farewells, until the next visit.

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Speaking of visitors, we welcomed one ourselves this week, in the person of Carla Dirlikov, a very talented mezzo who was in Belgium to sing Carmen at the Opera Royale de Wallonie this past month. I met Carla in 2003 in Toronto when she sang Carmen for the first time, and I performed the roles of Morales and Zuniga, so it was a nice coincidence to hear that she was strutting her stuff in Liège. We had a nice visit, and hope to see her again next time she's in Belgium.

Today is the last day of vacation for the boys, so when they get back to school on monday, I'll have a chance to do some singing, and get down to audition calling in earnest. I'm fortunate to have received word of two more performances on my schedule; another BL!NDMAN concert in Amsterdam next month, and a fourth Schubert Die Schöne Müllerin in Canada, this one in the spring of 2012. As well I had to turn down an operetta contract because of scheduling conflicts with the Messiah performances this April; it's nice to have more work offers than you can actually fulfill!

I'll sign off with a galette des rois update: this year it was Duncan who found the feve, and got to be king! Happy Epiphany!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

I realize now that it's been about eighteen days since I posted... time to catch up.

I really enjoyed my time in Canada, as you can see from the photo above. Snow, a wood fire, time to think about the music... Bruce's place was very restful, and he went out of his way to make sure that I had as much calm and quiet as I needed to be in good form for the Bach.

Even so, I was still very busy when in Canada... there were three performances to prepare for, and with all the rehearsing before they finally finished on December 5th, I had very little time to write anything then. Afterwards I had a number of very important social engagements to attend to. We had a very pleasurable evening of roast lamb, cigars, whiskey, and extensive conversation with an opera conductor friend who was stranded in Ontario by the snowy weather; then there was a big Christmas party at Bruce's place, with a chance to catch up with lots of friends and colleagues, and then another one hosted by a major Canadian artist agency, where I saw quite a few familiar faces, and had a lovely conversation with Bruce's agent, herself a former opera singer. As well, I was able to meet with another conductor friend to discuss the 2011-2012 season, and even get in some singing practice. Add to all these professional activities the repair work on our house to prepare it for the new tenants (changing broken door handles, washing and painting bathroom ceilings, etc.), the required shopping for presents, visits with my sisters, parents and grandmother, and other social pressures, and I had no problem filling my time with things to do...

The Bach concerts were quite satisfying; I was well-acquainted with the high standard of Pax Christi's choir and orchestra, having sung with them before, but was very pleased to finally work with Howard Dyck. He's someone who I can honestly say introduced me to opera, since I - along with many, many fellow Canadians - heard for years his smooth voice introducing "Saturday Afternoon at the Opera", not to mention Sunday's "Choral Concert", both on the former CBC Radio Two. It was really a lot of fun, and I was astonished to see him conduct the Christmas Oratorio from memory, with its many choral and instrumental cues. That's preparation for you! There's a chance I'll be down in his part of the world (that would be Kitchener-Waterloo) sometime next season, so I'll be sure to look him and his wife Maggie up for more artistic conversation, and who knows, maybe a glass of wine or two.


It looks as though I have a good crop of concerts coming up in the next eighteen months or so. Glen Fast has confirmed that he wants me to do the Haydn Creation in Kingston, so that will bring me to Canada in late march of 2012; I have a possibility of doing another Schubert Die Schöne Müllerin at the same time, and there are a few other possibilities for that period, falling as it does around Easter. Otherwise I have already three Schuberts in Toronto, Ottawa and Kingston this spring, that follow close on the heels of three Belgian performances of Messiah, with a Bach Mass in B-minor thrown in there for good measure. I feel very fortunate to have almost ten gigs in the pipeline, and in the case of the Schubert and Handel, to have repeats of the music more familiar to me than any other.

Familiar music... after doing eight new Bach cantatas in six weeks, it's really great to come back to such gorgeous music that I know, after having put it away for a while, to see how it strikes me now. Messiah was probably my first oratorio performed, but this tour of it will be my first with a period instrument orchestra, and of course my first time in Belgium, and I know I will sing it differently this time around...


But, to continue with the narrative... after getting home, I suffered from a pretty intense jet-lag, but I'm feeling okay now, despite a stubborn tendency to awaken at 5 a.m., which I'm trying to make use of to get a few things done, first thing, before anyone else gets up. The weather here has been fabulous for the boys, with lots of snowball fights, snowmen, snow-angels and so on. I don't think I've seen a snowplow yet, but there have been lots of sanders out making brown-grey slush on the roads.


In keeping with my preference to find and transport a Christmas tree home on foot, the boys and I walked down to the GB grocery this past weekend, and picked out a big tree for the living room, in part to celebrate Maggie's end of year. She's been off this week while the boys have been at school, and will have to return to work on the 3rd of January, while the kids enjoy their second week of holidays. (As problematic as this might seem at first look, it's actually been a bit of a boon, because we've had some time at home alone as a couple, which almost never happens. I'm sure I'll be tearing my hair out by noon on the 4th of January but for now I'm feeling good about the situation).

We decorated the tree in the interval between the St. Andrew's Sunday morning Christmas pageant, in which the boys acted and sang, and the carol service in the evening, which was brimming with music for the junior choir (which the boys have joined), the choir and congregation. We walked the 3.5 km to the church in the midst of a snowfall that evening, as driving would have been unsafe, and the trams were delayed. It was a beautiful ambiance as we tramped along that evening, but I will say that the promise of a warm, candlelit church, carols, mulled wine and mince pies were necessary to keep us going, and we took care of our share of both afterwards.


Speaking of mulled wine and mince pies, we've been enjoying the other festive foods that are available around this time of year. We ordered our turkey from Delhaize a few days ago, and will pick "him" up tomorrow afternoon, but in the meantime we've had lots of game, which is the tradition in these parts in November/December. It can be very expensive, more than we can easily afford, so I keep my eyes peeled for the last day of sale items, and we do pretty well. Last week it was roast of wild boar stuffed with mushroom, onion, cranberry and pear slices, accompanied by cream and celeriac-stuffed mushroom caps, and then this evening we enjoyed a fabulous reindeer filet, marinated in red wine, juniper berries and garlic, and served very rare with the rest of the celeriac and a fabulous mirepois sauce, thinned out with the leftover marinade. Yum.


Everyone tucked in with enthusiasm, in spite of a few wayward comments from the other end of table, and it was the unbelievably tender, deliciously rare venison that got hoovered first, by all diners. Someone distinctly opined that perhaps Blitzen hadn't made the cut this year... or maybe he WAS the prime cut? In any case it was fabulously delicious, and goes into the "show-off recipes" file for sure.


Maggie is having fun working on her autumn leaves quilt; it's very close to completion now. Tomorrow we have an open house at Piers and Gilly's, and then we'll spend a quiet Christmas Day with our own little family, which I think will suit us just fine. No doubt there will be some skyping going on, so if you are around, send us an invite and we'll catch up, Buck-Rogers style; we'll stay logged in.

Merry Christmas to all!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We had our general rehearsal last night, and it would seem that everything is in place for tonight's opening performance of the Christmas Oratorio. Howard has done at least fifteen productions of this work, and everything was extremely organized, so that we were able to touch up a few things left-over from Monday, and then ran the whole show.

It makes a huge difference for everyone when the rehearsal process goes smoothly and efficiently: no one feels that their time is being wasted, the energy level stays high, and running things in sequence means no surprises, and smooth transitions. I am really looking forward to the next two performances this weekend. It's a great honour and a pleasure to be working with colleagues old and new on such beautiful music; what a fantastic Christmas present!