Fun concert on Sunday; voice lesson; 2500m swim

It was a fun concert on Sunday afternoon, with a wide range of musical selections.  There were many people participating in the concert, apart from the choral society and myself.  There was a marvellous Telemann sonata from Dan Douglas on recorder, with a harpsichordist that was unfortunately missing from the poster, so I don't know his name.  The same is true for a flautist who played in two or three pieces.  The pianist for most of the concert was a fellow named Tom who was educated in Regina, and he was a marvellously sensitive accompanist, particularly in the Schubert Der Miller und der Bach.  As well he was a great 'orchestra' in everything else, something that I was very pleasantly surprised to find in Belleville; being a good pianist is one thing but being a good accompanist is much rarer.

As well there were other vocal soloists who stepped up from within the choir, and Spencer Evans and his son Oscar stole the show with some jazz numbers late in the second half.  Spencer is a long-time Kingston Jazz fixture, and his son Oscar is around the same age as Malcolm.  Oscar plays stand-up bass and trumpet while his dad plays piano and clarinet and sings.  I took advantage of this wealth of jazz talent and cracked out my trombone for the encore: it was Cab Calloway's famous "Minnie the Moocher", and the whole audience obliged with lots of loud call-and-response singing on the "Hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-hi" bits.  I must honestly say that I really enjoyed this moment; I now am among the very few people have ever had the marvellous opportunity to have a room of roughly 500 people repeating exactly what is being sung to them in scat style.  Also it was great to play trombone for the "head" of the song with Spencer and Oscar, my first "paid" trombone gig, I think, and my first performance of trombone since the Sharbot Lake days of the 1990s.

I had quite a lot of family supporters present for the concert, and many arrived at my parents' place a bit beforehand.  My sisters and nephew were there, but also two of my aunts, and three extended family members made the trip down from Pembroke.  To be fair they came also to wish my Aunt Judy a happy birthday, but they also came to the show, which was great.  I have long since grown accustomed to the practice of singing concerts in other cities where I know absolutely no one, and so it is a special treat for me to have someone known to me in the audience, let alone many people!  There were many old friends from my Belleville days, including my drama teacher, director, and fellow actor from long-ago productions of community theatre, and my English composition teacher from high school... it was really wonderful to see them again, and to be able to share my present-day art with them.

I had to leave quite early to make it home last night: I had a lesson at 10:00 this morning and I wanted to be well-rested.  Happily the baritone Matthew Robertson, a regular student of Bruce's, arrived a little early, and we got right into a warm up and then worked through the Schubert Erlkonig.  It was really a pleasure to teach such a good singer, and we were able to really spend a lot of time picking Erlkonig apart.  There are infinite layers to consider in this song, and so we went a little over time, but I was really excited to work with Matthew, and it really energised me for the day.

I had a catch-up call with Bruce in Victoria: his show is going extremely well and is getting wonderful reviews.  He's back in Toronto in another week, so we are both looking forward to that.  Then I had a nice long swim of 2.5km, which felt wonderful.  I haven't swum that distance since May of last year, so it was quite satisfying, especially given the fact that my right shoulder has been recovering from injury since October.  I have the feeling that it benefits a lot from front crawl swimming, and I've noticed that I have recently been able to sleep on my right side again after many months where that would have been painful...

When I arrived back from the swim it was early afternoon, which corresponded with evening in Brussels, so Maggie and Duncan and I had a Skype session to celebrate his 16th birthday, which for them involved a nice curry dinner and a carrot rum cake with cream cheese icing.  Happy Birthday Duncan!

Tomorrow will involve a nice long run in the morning, and then perhaps an Elijah rehearsal with Don Tarnawski in the afternoon, assuming that my voice is feeling rested.  Don arrived from Montreal this evening and will be coaching several singers here in the house for the next couple of days... 

at home in Toronto

I'm sitting at the dining room table at Bruce's house, drinking espresso and finalising car payments online... certainly the public internet makes so many things much easier than even a few years ago when everything needed to be done on paper in the bank branch.  I was able to digitally sign the car loan documents while in the Montreal Airport yesterday using my smartphone, and the funds appeared in our account this morning.  I made the bank transfers to the car dealership and it would seem that all is a go for Maggie to pick up the new VW on Tuesday the 30th, which is also Duncan's 16th birthday.  She'll have to be clear with him that the car is NOT a sweet 16 present...

It's been a tiring couple of days.  Immediately after the concert in Waltershausen I was lucky enough to catch a ride back to Belgium with Rob, Barbara, and Adriaan, three of the singers, rather than waiting until the next morning to leave, and thereby losing an entire day.  Maggie met us at the carpool spot and so we were home and in bed by around one in the morning.

The next day I took Yoshi for a nice long run: we warmed up and cooled down with the usual 1km walk before and after, and did a pretty good 12km run at a 5:56 minute/km pace.  I never hit the high heart rate zone, which indicates a perfect effort level, although perhaps that's because I often had to stop for moment to let Yoshi catch up to me: it was 23 degrees and so much hotter than either of us are used to, and so he was a real slow-poke.

After I got cleaned up and we had lunch, I made pack list and got my suitcases ready, and then Bryan and Kiana picked us up, and we drove together to Brussels.  Malcolm and Duncan met us at a great restaurant called Neutnigenough not far from the Grand'place, and we enjoyed a delicious (but overly large) meal there before walking over to Ancien Belgique for the Tedeschi-Trucks band concert.

The band was really wonderful, and Bryan was particularly emotional, as his recently deceased father was a huge fan of this band, and Tedeschi-Trucks is probably Bryan's favourite group.  Susan Tedeschi is a talented "soul" singer, and an excellent solo guitarist, and Derek Trucks is the nephew of Butch Trucks, drummer for the Allman Brothers band, and one of the greatest guitarists of all time.  Certainly as a slide virtuoso he is unique... they were backed up by a big band, with a pianist/organist, two kit drummers, sax/trumpet/trombone, and three backing vocalists.  The highlight for me was the slide guitar duet jam near the end of the show that featured Trucks and the trombonist Elizabeth Lea.  As a former trombonist and slide player, of course I was into it.  Elizabeth was awesome... here's a fan-shot video of a similar performance from late 2018:

The concert wasn't too long, and so we were home and in bed well before midnight, but Yoshi was a bit unsettled and I woke up many times throughout the night before finally giving in and getting up at around 5 a.m.  Christophe our neighbour had some deliveries to make near Boom that morning, so Malcolm and I went with him in his truck, and he dropped me first at the airport at around 6h45 and then carried on to drop Malcolm at his school.

For the first time in my life I was at the airport too early to check my bags, so I sat down to relax for a bit until the luggage desk opened., and read some of my emails.

We have already received a great review for the Thuringer Bachwochen concert... unfortunately for me, they had the wrong singer listed in the programme booklet as the lower bass voice, and so the journalist also perpetuated this error.  But they will correct that for the online article, and also the German radio stations MDR Kultur und MDR Klassik, which recorded the performance for broadcast on the evening of Sunday, April 30th.  Despite this annoying error I am quite pleased with my first German performance and first live radio broadcast in Germany.

As well it was nice to recieve a very positive review in the newspapers in Gran Canaria... here is a very loose translation of my short mention:

The cast of soloists shined in moments of authentic mastery. All this, without a director... ...the baritone Matthew Zadow as Pilatus gave proof of the requirements of culture and of vocal faculties. (La Provincia - Sunday, April 21st, 2019)

The flights were okay, although pretty crowded.  I had a two-hour wait in Montreal, and then was in Toronto by around 15:45.  Then I took a bus, the subway, and another bus, and walked in the door of Bruce's at 17:20; my travel time door-to-door worked out to be around seventeen hours.  I managed to go to sleep around 22:00 and woke up this morning at 6:00, so I hope that will get me started on acclimatising to the new time zone.

This morning I'm making some phone calls, and waiting until the lane swimming opens at 11:30... then it will be time to sort out all of my music for the Belleville Choral Society concert, and to try to sing through it in advance of the first rehearsal on Saturday.  I'm heading down to Belleville around noonish on Friday so maybe I'll get in some singing then too, but it seems likely that I will rest instead...

Setting up in Gotha

The church here is located right next to the Rathaus or city hall in Waltershausen, just next to the city of Gotha.  Eisenach, where Bach was born, is maybe 40km west of here.  The lower parts of the tower of the church dates from 1458 but the present church was completed in 1720, and the organ was installed in 1730.  It's really quite an amazing building with three rows of balconies, with a beautifully painted ceiling.

Yesterday was a very tiring day; I was up at around 6h, and Maggie and I drove to the carpool near Zaventem.  Then it was a long drive in a hot car to get here by around 15h, and we rehearsed until 20h.  Then we checked in at the hotel, and had a massive dinner of white asparagus, white potatoes and a schnitzel the size of a newspaper.  I have seen nothing resembling a leaf since Saturday, so I was happy to eat some cucumber and red and green peppers with my scrambled egg this morning at the hotel breakfast.

Unfortunately there is really no time to do or see anything other than the inside of the hotel room and the inside of the church.  Today we have our raccord at 12h, and then the concert at 15h, which will be recorded for broadcast by German radio.

I have found that three of the other singers are driving immediately to Hasselt, maybe 85km from Wavre, so we hope to arrive late in the evening tonight, and Maggie will come to meet me.  This gives me the great advantage of sleeping in my own bed an extra night, seeing Malcolm and Duncan a bit more, and also packing at leisure tomorrow.  I also hope to get in a run with Yoshi tomorrow...