Homilius concert success; student showcase; cabinet installing with Christopher; Duncan paratrooper test; COVID-19

Friday the 13th!

We had a great time last weekend with two performances of the Homilius Passion-Cantata.  Both performances were nearly at capacity, and the orchestra and choir was exceedingly well-prepared.  I really loved listening to my colleagues present this work, first published in 1775, and I had a lot of fun with my dramatic solos.

As Homilius was widely regarded as being the finest church composer in Germany at the time, and his Cantata was published in his lifetime, it seems very probable that Haydn and Mozart would have been familiar with his work.  Perhaps that is why I hear so many passages in this cantata that seem to me to be similar to the work of these two slightly later composers.

On Saturday early afternoon before my first performance, I went to the school to warm up the three singing students of mine who were performing in the music and dance showcase that evening.  They seemed well-prepared, and had a run-through performance that afternoon, and then the show was in the evening.  According to my "informants", in all three cases the performances were even stronger than the rehearsals, and I got lots of good feedback.  I am very proud of the kids and glad that I could help them achieve a more mature performance than they could have delivered without my help.

We were ready for two more Homilius performances this weekend, but unfortunately the news came late last night from the government health agency that all public performances are cancelled in Belgium until the 3rd of April.  As well, all hotels, restaurants and cafes with be closed, as will the schools, starting at the end of day today.  This is a preventative measure to try to slow down the spread of the virus so that the health care resources can cope with the volume of infected people.  In Italy, for example, there are just not enough resources to cope with the spike in infections, and so the care of patients is suffering as a result.

This cancellation and closure order did not come as a huge surprise: the other two big international schools had already suspended classes because of confirmed cases of COVID-19, but the regular schools had remained open.  St. John's had managed to avoid any infections and saw no need to shut down operation, but the leadership team was busy for the last few weeks developing contingency plans for distance learning.  As nearly all of the students have computers, and homework is already largely being submitted and marked online, it should work as a stop-gap measure in most cases.  Some of Maggie's classes require direct hands-on supervision, so she is not looking forward to doing distance education for those subjects, but we'll have to see how it goes.

It is less clear how Duncan will be able to continue his studies, as the work at his Belgian school is all still done the analog way.  In any case he is emptying out his locker so that he has resources here, and we will know more about how his studies might continue this evening when he gets home.  His karate class is cancelled this weekend, but he is in the process of getting ready for his black belt written exam, so maybe that is something that he can study up on while he is at home.

Malcolm, on the other hand, is planning to go to his school today with his housemate Antoine, and "liberate" any tools that aren't tied down, so that the two of them can continue to work on their various instruments in the apartment.  His school was forced to cancel their three-day trip to Cremona, Italy, at the end of this month, but fortunately it looks like Malcolm's three-week internship in La Herradura, Spain in April will go ahead, barring any new developments.

After the performances on the weekend I was up at 6:20 on Monday morning to travel into Brussels with Christopher, our cabinetmaker neighbour.  He had a client who had ordered a new kitchen, but the "old" kitchen was only a couple of years old and still in great shape.  The client agreed to give me the kitchen for free if we would remove it, and so we went and dismounted everything and brought it back to the garage here in Wavre, where it will sit for a week or two until we've done our planning to install it in our house.  The removal only took a few hours, so in the afternoon we went to Kiana and Bryan's to do the installation of their cloakroom cabinets.  Tuesday was another very long day with an early wake-up and commute into Brussels, and then lots of carrying of very heavy panels up to the third floor of the client's apartment, and then working together on the installation until around 17:00.  Wednesday also involved cabinet installation until noon, when I left to pick up Duncan to go to his Paratrooper Junior physical test.

It was a bit of a drive to get to the Schaffen air force base, but we made it in time and luckily the weather was clear for his tests.  Duncan really surprised me by doing 61 situps in two minutes and also managed 5 pull-ups.  Unfortunately for him though, the competition had obviously spent a lot more time training, and most of them were able to achieve the maximum possible score of of 71 situps and 10 pullups, which meant that the real competition was the run.  In this he did really well, finishing in the top third of his group, with a 2,4 km speed of 10:35, which is almost 14km per hour, or around 4:23 minutes per kilometre; the fastest runner ran it at a 3:59 pace, so he wasn't far off from the leader.

In the end he did not make the selection, because there were more applicants than there were places, but I was super proud of him and he didn't seem too disappointed.  In fact I think it was a good thing because it showed him that with a little bit of training he can get a surprising result, and with more work will come more success.  Also now he has a clearer idea of his competition, and because of his age he will still be eligible to apply for the same stage next year.  However, we learned last night that because of the virus outbreak the Para Junior stage for Easter vacation is cancelled!  So it wouldn't have happened anyway...

We are well supplied with food and drink, and the grocery store was packed to the limit with food this morning when I went to get something for dinner, so we are not worried at all.  I expect that for the next few weeks we'll be doing lots of trail running, and working together on the attic renovations, and very likely Maggie will do lots of sewing and embroidery, as she will save on the commuting time to work.  As well there are lots of gardening projects to move forward on: the raspberry, blueberry and currant bushes all have buds on them, so I am motivated to maybe put in a more ambitious vegetable garden...

I hope that everyone who reads this isn't too worried about us.  We are all doing just fine, in good shape and so far without direct exposure to any infected parties.  We are doing our best to wash our hands frequently, and are avoiding potentially contaminated surfaces.  I just heard from Maggie that the three private lessons that I had scheduled for today are also cancelled, so I guess that I will be staying home today... it's nice and sunny, with a high of 10 degrees, so maybe I'll go out for another run?  I've been putting in maybe 35 km per week, and am assuming that the Bouillonnante Trail race on April 25th will still go ahead, so I need to keep in good form.

As well I have music to review: yesterday in my spare hours in the afternoon I sang through the first parts of the Beethoven 9th Symphony, which is scheduled for June 12th in the Netherlands, and the Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs, which will happen on May 2nd in Canada, assuming of course that a travel ban is not imposed... my parents have informed us that because of uncertainly about the infection they have decided not to do their Scandanavia/German/Belgium trip this spring after all, which is really too bad... we hope that they can find a way to reschedule that once this whole pandemic blows over.

I will close off with Job 1:21: "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away..." after the cancellation of the two Homilius performances, there was some consolation: I received offers this week for some exciting projects, including the Weihnachts-Oratorium of Bach with the award-winning Hildebrandt Consort in Halle, Leuven, and Maasmechelen in December 2020, and also my debut in Winterreisse of Schubert, with my long-time friends and colleagues, pianist Dina Namer and narrator/actor Bruce Kelly, at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in Kingston, Ontario, in February 2022.

Bon weekend and happy handwashing...

Nice first rehearsal for Homilius!

evening rehearsal with the orchestra in Binkom, near Leuven

Today I had some lessons early in the day in Waterloo.  Those are going rather well and now I am up to perhaps eight regular students, with maybe a few more to come.  It's a lot of fun and I feel that I learn many things about singing as I try to teach it to others.  A. was a new student today, and she was really very excited, and a bit shocked to discover that there was a whole area of her voice that she never knew was there... that is quite rewarding to see.  The enjoyment that students experience when they are able to do something new is a powerful stimulant to continue in the teaching arena...

As well there was a good lesson with E. my first singing student at St. John's.  She is making some great progress, and today she sang a classical piece in front of a grade seven music class as a preparation for a concert/recital that will take place this weekend.  This impromptu recital was suggested by the pianist, the main music teacher at the school, and it was valuable because it let E. rehearse a performance, which is a completely different practice than singing in a lesson.

If would be honest, I would say that E. produced a more confident sound in the rehearsal room while preparing the piece than she did in the hall with the audience.  But no matter: she did not crash and burn in front of an audience, but managed her tension well, and delivered a performance, which is the important thing.  She now also knows that there is a bit of a gap between what she can achieve in the studio" and "on stage", and this disparity bugs her, so now she's fired up to make "mock" concerts in her living room, with her family as audience.  This can only help her nerves, and help her realise that she can "go big" with her sung emotions without any fear.

Most people don't realise how debilitating stage fright can be for singers, particularly.  Our technique depends on deep relaxed tension-free breathing, and that is one of the things that is most often affected by nerves.  Canadian stage director Tom Diamond mentioned this many years ago in a master class, and he's right: it's really important to know how your body reacts to stress as a singer, and to not panic when it starts to tense up.

After the lessons I lit out for the rehearsals in Binkom/Lubbeck, with Hortus Musicalis, conducted by Luc Laurent.  I first sang with Luc and his ensemble some years ago in Carmina Burana, and then in the Mozart Requiem last year.  I am particularly impressed with the orchestra this time, and am having a great time with the bass solos... Homilius was one of Bach's most celebrated students and it seems that he was the most famous church musician in Germany near the end of the 18th century.  I really like his compositions and find that he reminds me very strongly of Haydn.  So it's a lot of fun to sing...

More storms; weekend activities; back to school for boys; getting ready for Homilius

Right after I hit "publish" on last Wednesday's blog post I went to rehearse, and it started to hail!  It's just par for the course here in Belgium: the last three weekends have each involved major storms, with heavy winds and lots of rain, and the weather during the week hasn't been much better.  Fortunately our new roof is just fine: there were no leaks and we didn't lose any tiles from the roof.  But we have been burning lots of firewood to keep the house toasty.

On Monday I took Yoshi for his vaccinations, and as I was starting to feel better after being ill the preceeding week, decided to run the 5km to the vet, and then back again. Yoshi is doing fine and his weight hasn't much changed since the last visit.  This veterinarian is great, and I had thought that we were going to have to find another one when I heard that he was retiring, but it turns out that he is only stopping the walk-ins part of the practice and will still take clients by rendez-vous.

I also ran a long 17km on Friday, and then did another 10km yesterday... plus Maggie also went running yesterday, so Yoshi is definitely getting his mileage in.  Not just Yoshi though... I took Duncan to Decathlon on the weekend and bought him some new running shoes, and on Saturday we went for his first training run here in Wavre.  He has the admittance test for the Junior Paratrooper training coming up later in March and so will need to run a fairly quick 2.4 km among other things.  So I took him out to a section of straight pedestrian walkway that is about 600m long, and timed him while he ran.  He's pretty fast...

I also bought a chin-up bar as that is another paratrooper admission test, and I'm hoping that we can train him up to that in time.  He's got a good base fitness from gym class and his twice weekly karate sessions, but it's good to see him stretching his limits a bit.

Maggie made some great progress on her "bluebell path" embroidery project during the week she had off, and she is continuing in the evenings and on weekends... the photo above represents about eight months' work, and she's maybe 1/3rd complete.  

On Saturday, Malcolm and I had an interesting experience: we both went into the recording studio in Mechelen!

Last year a Flemish television show called #LikeMe, along the lines of  "High School Musical" or "Glee", was released.  Like these two American shows, #LikeMe explores the experiences of several secondary school students and their families, but the differences are that firstly, #LikeMe is largely a drama, not a comedy; and secondly, it is based on the "revue" format.  By this I mean that the songs are not new songs that were written for or naturally emerge from the narrative, but instead are all well-known popular Flemish songs from the 1960s-1980s with a story that is written after the fact to try to tie the songs together.  (This type of musical entertainment was most popular in between the first and second world wars, and was more or less pioneered in America by Ziegfeld with his "Follies" in New York.  After the Second World War, narrative musicals like Oklahoma! more or less replaced the revue on Broadway.)

The producer of this show had the idea of doing a revue show, with the goal that teenagers would watch it because it was a bit like "High School Musical", but their parents would watch it too, because of the more dramatic themes, and also because they recognised the songs from their own youth.  This formula appears to have worked, because it was a huge hit in Flanders and the Netherlands, and so the series has been renewed for a second season.

After this success, the production company wanted to export the series for international release, and so they decided that instead of recording many different translations, they would subtitle the series.  This was ok for the dialogue, but the international clients weren't happy with the sung Flemish, and so they decided to record all of the songs in English, as it is well-known internationally as a pop music language (think of ABBA from Sweden singing English phonetically in the 1970s).  The producers wanted North American singers, with neutral accents, for the re-recording of the songs.

Somehow the production company heard about me while I was Musical Director for Hello, Dolly!, and sent me an email asking if I could recommend some students from St. John's.  As the musical had ended, I no longer had their email addresses, but did pass on the call for auditions to the permanent teachers at the school, and a few of the kids did contact the production company, and some did audition.

After several weeks, the company was still not complete with their casting and so they called me again, and I mentioned that I had two sons who can sing, and that I was also a singer.  So they invited the three of us to audition.  While they liked Duncan's voice, it was a bit on the youthful side for the parts that they still needed to cast.  But they asked Malcolm and I back to do some of the recording work.  That is what we did on Saturday evening...

It is a big challenge to try to match the timing of the original Flemish singers, especially given that a) we didn't have a video to look at while singing, b) the original singers were not really singing from sheet music but were phrasing and ornamenting freely, and c) sometimes the English translation doesn't feel terribly easy to sing.  But we managed it ok!  I have worked in a recording studio before and have done some radio interviews so for me it was familiar, but it was my first time re-recording voice over, and Malcolm commented that this was probably his first professional gig as a voice actor/singer.  Voice acting is a very well-paying gig, and it's difficult to break into, so I'm happy for him.

Today was my last day before the rehearsals begin for the Homilius Passion Cantata, which will be performed twice this weekend and twice next, so I am hoping all will go well.  It's really quite a nice piece and not too terribly taxing for the bass, so I'm looking forward to it very much.  I also have quite a few students to teach this week, as it is the start of a new term, so I hope all goes well.