rainy day at Queen's

This morning we did the third convocation ceremony of this session, and the guest speaker gave an interesting address: he emphasized the importance of international experience and adaptability as instrumental in living one's life in a meaningful way. He had a commerce undergraduate degree from Queen's and an MBA from Chicago, and as we were chatting after the ceremony, it turns out that after leaving Brampton, he moved to Brussels. He used to live on Avenue Louise in Ixelles, and then moved to Braine-l'Alleud near Waterloo, before moving in Paris, and he now makes his home in London. It's really quite interesting and inspiring to hear the words of the different invitees and recipients of honorary doctorates, find the common threads that run through their advice, and observe their public speaking techniques. There is an art to a good speech, and I enjoy learning from a good speaker.

It's a rainy, cool day here in Kingston, which is a change from earlier in the week. The weather here in Canada was great when I first arrived, and I made sure to get in some swimming in right away at the local pool in Toronto, before coming down to Belleville with my parents on Sunday afternoon. I've yet to get any swimming in at the Queen's pool; the cost of a weekly membership will only really make sense later on in my stay, when I'm here for more than a couple days at a time. I'll be back in Toronto tonight anyway, and our neighborhood pool is free.

Monday I helped my Dad disassemble and reposition a neighbor's garden shed, and did some heavy lifting of sacks of crushed stone and patio stones. I'm still a little stiff from that, but it's nothing serious. Reports from home are unremarkable; everyone seems to be adjusting well to my absence. That's quite a relief to hear, as bad news can stress you out, especially when there's nothing at all you can do about it from almost 6ooo kms away!

Tomorrow morning after my voice coaching I'll be heading down to London, for some lessons with Bruce, and some time visiting with the cast, conductor and crew of The Magic Flute which is getting ready to open in London. That should be a lot of fun.

flight to Canada

I made it into Toronto just fine, and am relaxing now... I find the jet-lag is always worse going back to Europe than it is coming here; here I just feel like I'm staying up later than usual.

I had a little adventure on the train with a couple of young guys who tried to steal my suitcase, but nothing doing, I stopped the train with the help of the conductor, and chased them down the platform. They got away, leaving my (quite heavy) bag, and I didn't lose anything, but the attempt got my adrenaline going, and I self-medicated a little with a gin and tonic on the plane ride, which was very comfortable, as always with Jet Airways.

Once in Toronto I caught the airport bus, and in ten minutes was riding the subway back to my old neighborhood, and to Bruce's place, where I'm staying over tonight.

Tomorrow I'm off to Belleville and from there, Kingston, to sing the first convocation ceremony Tuesday morning. Tonight the house is pretty quiet as everyone is occupied with their own activities, and I don't think I should go to bed just yet, so I'm going to go have dinner with my friend Darren, and we're going to see the early showing of the new X-men movie. Purely parental research, you understand, to see if it's suitable for my young ones...

Happy Birthday for Malcolm

blog entry 17:04 14 mai, TGV, near Charles de Gaulle stop

The train was slightly delayed, about ten minutes leaving, but we seem to be making good time, and I should still manage to catch the local train from Gare Midi heading to Louvain La Neuve L'Université that leaves 43 minutes past the hour, arriving at Watermael at 27 minutes later.

The audition went well; this is twice in a matter of a few weeks that I've led off with the Papageno aria, which is a quite new one for me, and I think it's getting better each time; certainly I feel like I'm able to do more with it each time I present it. Several people whom I trust have told me to learn Papageno, and I never really bothered before. When I think about it, I wonder why I didn't? I've sung the other two arias and two duets (with Pamina and Papagena) in concert, but have never memorized them, and never sang the suicide aria before deciding to add it this spring.

Another thing I've tried is to streamline my audition repertoire a little bit, leaving out arias from older characters and larger roles, to make my list of arias a little more youthful and a little less ambitious. By that I mean that someone might hire me to do a secondary role or a bit part, but no one in a major European house is going to take the chance and have me, still a virtual unknown in Europe, sing Count Almaviva!

As for the Papageno, it's all just daydreaming at the moment, as no one has hired me yet to sing it, but one can always hope. I do so love singing Bach and Schubert in German; if I were forced to pick my three favorite composers (a pointless task considering the possibly choices) it would probably have to be those two, and Mozart. Since the only other opera of his I know that is sung in German (Abduction from the Seraglio) doesn't have a baritone part in it, that leaves Flute. The good news is that it is still one of the most performed operas in the world, if not the most performed, and there are lots of Flute specialists who've basically paid for their houses on the strength of its roles, the Queen of the Night being a prime example. Papageno is the real mensch, the genuine human being in this opera, the figure everyone can identify with Not a bad thing to lock down.

Today is Malcolm's birthday, and tomorrow his brother comes home. We have a busy weekend ahead, with Brussels Bowling Birthday part II: this time it's personal on Saturday afternoon, followed by St. John's International School's Family Day on sunday. That's pretty much a command performance, and it will occupy most of the afternoon. Tonight I get to tell Malcolm that his birthday present is going to see AC-DC in Amsterdam with his dad! Simonas and his father are going too, so it promises to be a good time. Duncan is going to be sooooo jealous.

Starting Monday we are blissfully back into the normal routine, although not for long, because next weekend I leave for Canada for three weeks. That should be quite a challenge for Maggie and the kids, having to go to garderie earlier in the day, and come home later. Malcolm with have to go to étude and get his homework done there, before he comes home, without the benefit of his dad cracking the whip. His report card had some trouble spots on it that I want to try to fix, and unfortunately he has a whole raft of year-end tests, ten of them, with half of them taking place while I'm still away, and half just after I get back. I won't be able to help him with preparing for those after this week, so that's going to take some time out of my schedule this week, and he's going to have to take charge of the preparation, with some help from Mom. His strengths still seem to be in Math, Geometry, Grammar and Spoken Language, something that was also seen in his English studies. The dictée is still tough for him, and unscrambling mixed-up sentences is very difficult because he doesn't always have the vocabulary out-of-context. When you think of how hard this must be for him, he's really doing very well, and already has more grammar (in any language) than his parents put together. He asked me the other day, "what's plus-que-parfait in English, dad?" I've long ago stopped trying to b.s. my way out of those questions, and check google and wikipedia to find several answers instead, until I've got a pretty good sense of what to tell him.

18:34, less than an hour out from Brussels
How can I tell I'm back in the north? Three guesses, rain, rain and rain. We're passing a regional airport right now, I'm not sure which one it is. Probably Lille; that's the last stop before Brussels. I'll have to dig the umbrella back out from my suitcase and have it ready for when I arrive home.

19:19 Well I spoke too soon... looks like we won't get into Brussels until almost 20:00... that's the last two times that I've taken the SNCF that they've been fine going south, but have been late coming back.

That's about it, maybe I'll write a bit more tonight when I'm home with an internet connection, just before I post.

midnight May 14th, 2009
Maggie made an interesting comment this evening as she was falling asleep: she asked if I remembered this night, ten years ago. I hadn't thought about it until she mentioned it, but I realize now that it was prophetic of what was to come: I spent my first night as a father away from my wife and new child, because of music. In actual fact, I slept that night of May 14th, 1999 at the cottage, at Maggie's suggestion, because I had just sung a "Blue Skies in the Community" show in Northbrook, and staying over at the cottage made the most sense. It's funny how things repeat themselves, with me being away because of music, but things were a tiny bit different this year: I was here for the chocolate cake tonight, and the opening of presents.

Happy birthday, Malcolm!