A really lovely time in Luxembourg

We had a great concert last night in Luxembourg.  It was a great pleasure to reunite with my friend the conductor Philippe Noesen, and to meet his wife and family.  As well, it was a happy reunion with Luc (percussion) and Vanessa (flute) with whom we toured China four years ago, and I made other musical friends as well during the course of our preparation and presentation of this new year celebration concert, played to a capacity audience.

It was a very exciting experience also to present Bizet's Toreador Song from Carmen, and then my debut of "O du mein holder Abendstern" from Wagner's Tannhauser.  Also it was extremely enjoyable for me to listen as the band played many Viennese favourites, including the overture from Die Fledermaus.  I love this operetta, and last performed in it in Toronto, so there were many memories of fun times on stage triggered by Strauss's wonderful music.  Then we had a lot of fun in the encore, with "Ja das Schreiben und das Lesen" from Der Zigeunerbaron, also from Strauss.  It was my first time performing it, but I couldn't stop my character from oinking with pleasure as he sang about the pleasures of being a pig farmer!  The reward was that I heard not only the audience, but also the orchestra afterwards, whistling the tune of the aria.  Always a good sign!

(Yes I am in the photo above, just look to the upper-left corner and you'll see that I'm the only one without an instrument...)

First performance of the new year tomorrow in the Cercle Cité

I went to Luxembourg on Wednesday evening to rehearse with the Luxembourg Wind Orchestra, under the direction of my friend Philippe Noesen.  It was nice to see him again, along with a couple of other musicians whom I met while on tour in China a few years ago.  On that tour, Philippe had to jump in and conduct a couple of performances during when our conductor fell ill, and I was impressed with his skills, and have kept in touch with him.  He and another Luxembourgish friend (Luc, who is a percussionist in this ensemble) helped me out with coaching by telephone a couple of years when I had to learn the Luxembourg national anthem.

So we were still in touch, and when he asked me early last year if I'd like to sing some Viennese music for his orchestra's New Year concert in the beautiful Cercle Cité, of course I said yes!  To be honest it's not just Viennese music; the orchestra will play mostly Viennese things, but for me there's more variety, with the Bizet "Toreador" song from Carmen, sung as part of the Carmen Suite, the Wagner opera aria "O du mein holder Abendstern" from Tannhauser, and lastly a new piece for me, the aria "Ja das Schreiben und das Lesen ist nie mein Fach gewesen" from Johann Strauss's Der Zigeunerbaron.  This is quite a texty aria, and it also sits very high, as it was originally written for a tenor buffo.  But like the role of Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus it is quite manageable for the baritone, if one interpolates a few alternative notes to lower the tessitura a little.  Here's a tiny clip of the aria of the character of Kalman Zsupan: he's a pig farmer who says that reading and writing were never his thing; even as a kid he was obsessed with pigs, and his ideal life's work is farming bristly beasts and making bacon.  It should be a fun concert!

It has been the season of the sales, and that means that a lot of people have been cleaning out closets and donating clothes to thrift shops.  I scored some nice things over the last couple of weeks, including some new jeans for Malcolm (he is tall and thin and needs extra pairs) and some shirts and sweaters of good quality.  As well I found this nice t-shirt from the University of Capilano in North Vancouver.  Of course I had to grab that!  I wonder how it made it all the way to Brussels?

The menagerie is doing fine.  I went out with Yoshi for a 13km run + 2,5km walk yesterday, my first since January 2nd, which we both appreciated.  My cold seems to be pretty much gone now, which is good news for the concert tomorrow.

The cats are doing fine.  They are still growing, and are approaching the eight month mark, so I expect they are not going to get too much bigger.  Clyde is still a complete goofball, but Bonnie is getting much more affectionate and less skittish.  Here they are keeping warm on top of the living room radiator.

I was a bit confused because the chickens suddenly seemed to stop producing eggs, even when Maggie went to the trouble of clearing out their henhouse and putting new bedding in.  But suddenly today I had a brainwave, and looked in the huge pile of rose brambles next to the composter.  Voila!

Back in the saddle again....

Today was the first day of school for Maggie, Malcolm, and Duncan... for me it was a day where I helped out Christophe, my neighbour, in his run to the container park, to get rid of a lot of stuff that he wanted cleared out from his garage.  Christophe's back has been bothering him so he rang my doorbell this morning, and asked that I give him a hand unloading the trailer.

After I did so (rather gingerly as my own right shoulder is still complaining after I injured it some time ago) we did another trailer load, and this time cleared out a few things that we had cluttering up our garage and backyard.  So it all ended up being quite productive for both families.

Indeed having Christophe as a neighbour has been very much to our benefit, as he enjoyed Malcolm's participation in the installation of a few custom cabinetry jobs over the course of the holiday season.  Malcolm enjoyed being employed, which has lined his pocket considerably.  But as those days were very long, and quite strenuous, Malcolm is certainly happy to return to the relatively relaxed pace of work at the lutherie academy.  I dropped him off at his apartment Sunday evening, and he was eager to get back at his main occupation, the building of his current classical guitar.

As for me, I have been mulling over the idea of running the trails over the last couple of days, but as I am fighting a cold, I've opted instead to stay bundled up and simply throw the frisbee for Yoshi endlessly in the backyard.  We've also been practicing the "find" command with him, which thus far has included "Find Maggie" and "Find the rope" which is a braided dog toy that he loves to play tug-of-war with.  I expect that eventually we might work up to other things, such as find this-or-that stuffed animal, or maybe even "Find me a beer", if Stroh's commercials from the 1980s are to be believed.

In other dog news, his updated registration information arrived today, and I pasted it into his doggy passport.  So it would seem that the last formalities have been observed, and he is truly confirmed as a member of the family.  Happy day!

Tomorrow I have a coaching with David Miller in Brussels, so I had a big sing-through today, and I am happy to report that the three pieces that I need to prepare for this coming weekend in Luxembourg's beautiful Cercle Cité will be in good shape.  I just want to make sure that I will be well prepared for the rehearsal on the 9th of January, prior to the concert on the 12th.  Two of the three are already well-known, but the third is a new one, and as it is set for buffo tenore I have had to do a few modifications of the line so that it sits a little better for the baritono.  But I'm not worried, I am sure that it will be fine.

As well as clearing out some things with the trailer, this evening we also took down all of the Christmas decorations.  The moment that the evergreen bough arbour hit the ground, Clyde attacked it, which confirms the wisdom of our choice to forego a tree this year.  We managed to get it outside, and the needles sweeped up, while sequestering the cats in another part of the house, without too much trouble.

It is traditional to take down Christmas decorations after Epiphany, which falls on the 6th of January.  As I have written before, Epiphany is also the moment to celebrate the arrival of the Magi, who come bearing gifts.  In Belgium, the 6th of January also means the serving of the galette des rois, which this year was baked by Maggie!

It's really a dead simple recipe, which actually makes sense after the extravagances of Christmas: two layers of butter puff pastry, separated by a layer of butter, egg, almond powder, and sugar.  Not terribly difficult to produce, or so she says.

We had ours with the Edwardses on Saturday, and also enjoyed an extended skating session as a group before the rink was shut down for the season.  Malcolm and Duncan both like skating, and seem eager to learn: I have the sense that the family has caught the skating bug to the extent that we'll make the trip to Leuven to skate on the big rink sometime soon...