Promenaders

Last week I went to four Proms over the course of seven days. For those that don't know, the Proms are a series of concerts that happen every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington. They are truly epic with a concert happening every night, sometimes twice an evening and with afternoon concerts on Saturdays. Extraordinary music, extraordinary performances, and the chance to see people you wouldn't normally be able to for a totally reasonable price. (I can't tell you how bummed I am that I missed Steve Reich. Man.) The concerts are broadcast on BBC radio 3 and some of them are filmed for television as well.

Royal Albert Hall is a giant tube of a building, and for the proms the centre circle of seats are taken out and the resulting flat floor space becomes the arena for standing room tickets that you queue up for and then pay £5 for on the day. The proms are named after the standing promenaders that fill up the arena. (Pronunciation Tip: promenAHders not promenAYders)

Last Thursday Meredith played her first ever prom as part of one of her trials. Being the good and dutiful friend that I am, I agreed to come listen and stand for the duration of the concert. I arrived about half an hour before the concert, jumped into the little queue, paid my £5, wandered past a cellist warming up on the staircase ("Nowhere else to sit!")  and then wandered back and forth trying to find the door to the hall (I expected it would be propped open, it wasn't. I felt more than a little stupid when I eventually figured out that just because the doors were closed, that didn't mean that they were locked...), up another small set of stairs and ta-dah! The arena.

Royal Albert Hall is a little overpowering. Ornate and large and filled with people. I hunkered down in my chosen floor spot, but it wasn't long before I realised that I knew the man over there to the left with the little round glasses. Peter conducted the baroque ensemble that I performed with a bit last year and he is a lovely guy. He has a season ticket to the proms and shows up nearly every night over the summer.

Season ticket holders have their own queue and have a guaranteed spot in the arcade as long as they show up at least 20 minutes before the show begins. This is significant when the lines are super long and wrap around the entire block since only about 1,000 people can fit in the arcade. (Or 700? I've heard conflicting accounts of the capacity.) Season ticket holders, it turns out, are their own special breed.

When I went to Peabody my favourite game to play during audition week was, "guess the instrument." It worked best when they weren't carrying their instrument and you had to guess entirely based on looks and how they moved. (Best. Game. EVER.) Sometimes specific instruments were difficult to pick out (harp, flute, and singer have only subtle differences) but I had a 100% success rate with guessing the genre. Jazzers look significantly different to orchestral musicians, and early music geeks have distinctive hair. (I'm so not even kidding about that.) My point with all of this is that Peter claims you can pick out Season Ticket holders. (More or less, some of them are tough if they work in offices and have to wear a suit.) That being said, if the fellow in question has a lengthy beard and is wearing a cycling outfit: that's a season ticket holder.

Being new to this whole environment (Thursday was my second Prom ever, I went to one last year but that is it.) I asked Peter to explain some of the Prommer culture. There's a passel of hardcore prommers who all have season tickets. They stand up at the front, stage left. At the end of the interval they stand up and, with their chests puffed up tio the sky, chant in awkward and weirdly scanning unison: "Arena. to. audience: promenaders. will be. collecting. for. musical. charities. after. the. concert. So far. you have. donAted. over. (Wednesday it was £40,000) pounds.  Thank you."

There are weird little regulars' tics as well:

You can get season tickets or day tickets to stand up at the top of the hall in the gallery as well as in the arena, ("Why would you do that? You can't hear anything from up there!") and whenever the lid of a piano is opened, say for a piano concerto, then the arena hollers, "heave!" and the gallery responds back, "ho!"

If the concertmaster then gets an A from the piano instead of from he oboist- then everyone applauds.

There was, for many many years, a fountain in the middle of the arena. This fountain has been removed this year and there are some people who are not pleased. These people also happen to be season ticket holders of good standing and lengthy service, so they've started a petition. Some even wear T-shirts with the fountain printed on them. Peter, being the crotchety old man he's not old enough to be yet, is stubbornly against signing the petition.

As Peter was explaining the ins and outs of the Proms, another season ticket holder joined in our conversation. Alex is a Classicist. His PhD has something to do with the god Aries and associated war gods. Alex is nocturnal and wakes up in time to come to the concerts, so he talks about getting lunch after the show.



On Wednesday the London Philharmonia was playing, so I went to that as well because I don't pass up opportunities to see Gwen perform. I had been having a lovely picnic with friends in Kensington Gardens (I learned how to bowl for cricket!) and then leisurely walked over to the hall intending to check out what the programme was going to be. Except the line was unexpectedly long and an hour and a half before the concert already went around two corners and halfway up the third side of the block. Did I mention it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella? I was very wet when I made it in, but I still made it.

My first summer in Britain I had the opportunity to play a Handel Opera in a residency programme out in  the countryside somewhere. It was delightful and a powerful learning experience; being completely immersed in baroque recitative meant that for the first time I understood it, and how to play it and how the form of the music seriously affected how the bow needed to be used and where the emphasis of the phrases were and all that. It was fabulous and I got it.


This week of concert going has resulted in a similar realisation- as soon as the Philharmonia started playing the penny dropped- orchestras sound different to each other. I mean, I knew that, but I didn't GET it before that concert started. The basses are amazing and there were all these textures that I could pick out and hear and they were smiling and in to it and it was totally delightful in a way that was unique to that week.

So that's what I've been up to.

Kansas Wedding: The first facebook pictures

Blatantly stealing some pictures here...

Dave always writes arrangements of Happy Birthday for people on their birthdays and their wedding day happened to be the birthday of the organist who played for the wedding AND Sarah's christening. So Dave wrote a very cool barbershop quartet with beat boxing that we proceeded to horribly butcher to much acclaim at the reception. L to R we've got Nik, Me, Martin, Dave, and Joe.

Also: the entrance of the newlyweds! Just look at those smiles!

Kansas Wedding: The Parties

Something I discovered this week is that if you are a friend of Sarah Titterington Ibbett's and you two are close enough that it was important enough for you to come to her wedding to Dave Ibbett in Kansas- then the odds are that you are very cool and totally wonderful. The same goes for if you are a friend of Dave Ibbett's and you flew all the way to Kansas for his wedding.

Not only did I get to see Sarah and Dave get married, I got to meet a whole slew of totally wonderful Titteringtons, make friends with some truly fabulous and loving bridesmaids, hang out with hilarious-constantly-singing groomsmen, and place myself in the middle of a bunch of Oberlin grads who made me feel totally at home.

Was all that emphatic enough? I don't really think so. The level of welcome and consideration was through the roof. And it was all so happy and simply delightful.

Early in the celebration period we had a picnic complete with baby twins! Margot and David were passed around all picnic long and *gosh* they are cute. They have very adult faces and kept whipping their heads around to observe everything very seriously. And then they walked!

On Thursday we had the Hen night/bachelorette party and the stag night/bachelor party. The women started off in the massively capable Maid of Honor Allison's room at the hotel which was heavily decorated in pink. We told stories, played games, drank mojitos, and giggled a lot. The guys played laser tag and had their asses handed to them by a bunch of local teenagers who clearly played laser tag all the time. Then we all met up at the local "Irish Pub" down the street.

We danced to the live band until midnight, played more games, and covered Dave, Dave's little brother Joe, and some of the other guests in bright red lipstick. A raucous and vibrant good time was had by all.

We had a bridesmaid luncheon where I spent most of the time talking to Sarah's Oberlin friend Emily about all sorts of things. There was a bit of a bridal shower and then we went back to the Titterington's house for a surprise baby shower for Meghan, one of the opera singing bridesmaids who is newly pregnant. (I got her a copy of But Not The Hippopotamus an important addition to any baby's library.)

The rehearsal dinner was held at one of the Titterington Uncle's house. Dave had made heaps and heaps of curry two days before (with able bodied help from Nik, Martin, and myself.) and everyone trooped in to the beautiful and spacious house to eat home made naan and tasty dips. Instead of having speeches and whatnot at the wedding, the majority of toasts were made at the rehearsal dinner including a stand up routine by Tim, the best man, and a bizzarro world skit written by Allison, the maid of honor, about an American Dave and an English Sarah. It was very cute and even included a Lady Gaga impression. Dave and Sarah's mom, Beth, had made slide shows of the two of them. It was very cute to see their baby pictures and pictures with each of the wedding party and their families. Meredith and I gave a speech about how we had known that Sarah and Dave were Sarah and Dave long before Sarah and Dave knew that they were Sarah and Dave.

Ah, then the final party was the reception. How cool was the reception? (Oh, you don't know yet. Because I haven't told you. But trust me, it was super cool. And it's going to have its own post! That's how cool it was.)

More Games

I've been hanging out with the Fire-Hazard folks recently. The organization is run by a man named Gwyn and since I've been involved in a number of his games, seen him at other events, and been very vocal about my desire to help out- on Friday he asked if I wanted to be and extra helper for Survivor Sports- a set of glow in the dark games at a sports centre by London Bridge. Heck yes I did, so I threw on some tennis shoes and got myself down there were I proceeded to pop a number of glow sticks (oops) and hang black cloth over the entrance way to get rid of a bit more of the ambient light.

One of the things that Gwyn has been hoping for is some footage of Survivor Sports, because wouldn't a video of a bunch of people in the dark throwing glow sticks at each other look cool? It would. But unfortunately the video camera that we had available really, really didn't pick up any of the light from the glow sticks. I ended up taking about 10 minutes of footage over the course of the event and none of it looks like anything other than a blank, black screen with screaming and hollering on the audio track.

The whole night went very smoothly and afterward we managed to find a quiet pub on a Friday night. It was most impressive and we had a great time chatting and getting pysched up for Saturday which was when Gwyn and his team were running four sessions of Heist a game wherein 15 people try to break into a warehouse and steal six toolboxes without getting caught by the guards- you have to disable pressure sensors and motion sensors, pick locks, keep track of what has been taken and what hasn't, and get people out of the holding area when they get caught. It's way super fun.

In my team on Saturday I was in charge of DECEPTION which meant that I had to deliver a package, prop a door open, and keep the guards talking to me as long as possible so that there were fewer guards wandering around inside to catch the rest of my team. This job involved quite a lot of talking random nonsense which, for some reason, everyone on my team who had met me before (even if briefly at a previous game) thought I would be good at...

Other roles included LOCK PICKING, STRONG MAN (one of the boxes was very heavy), SOCIAL ENGINEERING (a lot of how we knew what to do next was done by text message- how high tech!), HACKING (there was computer that we had to get codes off of, I don't remember why.), and COMBAT (they had a nerf dart "stun gun" that would take out a guard for two minutes assuming it properly fired.)

Does this all sound ridiculous? It was, but oh so very much fun.

Back in Seattle

I made it back to Seattle and have settled in nicely- falling asleep at the totally reasonable hour of half nine and then managing to stay asleep past four am! Life is good. The flights were uneventful, if long and I had nice seat mates the whole time. So, whew!

Thanks to Mical and Dan for picking me up at the airport and then taking me for delicious sushi. (I do love sushi) Laine showed up towards the end of the meal which was wonderful also.

But lets take a moment to go back a couple of days, yes? The tykes put on a show! And I have videos of it! It hadn't occurred to me before Wednesday just how difficult it is to take a video of a children's performance. It isn't that the kids are moving around so very much (we had them trained up good) so much as it is the parents popping up every ten seconds to take another picture of their *child!* Which, fair enough, but maybe we could have, like, a press corps section of the hall? All photographs and video cameras in a special designated area where they can just get in each other's way and not disrupt- you know *MY* video? Because I'm all greedy like that?

I will say that my favorite part of the video is during the reception performance when near the end one of the fathers waves his hand to get his tyke's attention and then when that fails to work he snaps. Um. Not like he got angry- he just clicked his fingers...never mind. C. also spends most of the video with her fingers up her nose. (By "trained up good" I mean that relatively speaking. They are only four after all.)

Anyhow- it was a riotous success and super fun, and if you're in Seattle you're more than welcome to come to see the videos which I can't put up online for obvious privacy reasons.

After the show we went to the staff Christmas lunch. I've never been to a proper work Christmas do before so that was very exciting. It was at a restaurant that was technically only a 10 minute walk from school- assuming you went in a reasonably straight line. The music teachers decided as a group not to take a taxi there with everyone else since it was snowing lightly and prettily. In retrospect we probably should have double checked that we knew where we were heading first. It took us about 40 minutes to walk there because we basically went in a giant, cold, snowy circle. What this *did* mean however is that when we finally arrived we were cheered. So alls well that ends well.

We had received an email that morning notifying us that the school had ordered enough wine for everyone to have about half a bottle each and if we wanted more alcohol after that we were just going to have to pay for it ourselves! Hmmph. I want to let you know that in order to set the stage for this next part- remember that there was a performance that morning and that in the lead up to the performance everyone in the basement early years section of the school had been listening to and singing these songs over and over and over and over and over (etc.) again. We were all waking up with the songs running through our head and and all falling asleep with them running through our heads still. There were two in particular that seemed to have special, sticky properties. Those were "Etoile de Noel" (Which is still stuck in my head) and "Snowflake Serenade"

So a group of tipsy early years teachers, a charming and beautiful young music teacher (that's me, guys), and snow dumping it down outside the window- my boss turned and pointed to me and said "this is your fault!" before leading a rousing rendition of Snowflake Serenade in a public restaurant while everyone was wearing colorful paper crowns from the Christmas crackers. Nice.

Norfolk

Norfolk was amazing.

It was blissful weather most of the time and so I frequently went on bike rides around the area- one lane roads (no worries about which side to be on then!) through wheat fields and wild flowers with rabbits jumping out all the time and pheasants and hawks and butterflies and little boys on bikes who challenge you to races. Oh, and centuries old farm houses and a community pea patch that smelled like dill (you have to remember that I actually *like* dill, so this was nice.) And that was just the bike rides!

We put together an opera from scratch in 3 weeks. The instrumentalists were only there for the last week (or, in the case of Will our trumpeter- only the performances. Why did Handel only write trumpet into one movement of a 58 movement work?) and for the first couple of days we were rehearsing around 9 hours a day. So, a little bit in to the deep end after not playing hardly at all for most of the year.

The singers were from all over the place, but a the largest group of them were from DIT in Dublin. Dublin Institute of Technology School of Music and Drama. (Why does a school of technology have a conservatory? Same reason a university synonymous with medicine has a conservatory- the conservatories keep going bankrupt.) There were also a bunch of Australians and two other Americans- my accent was all over the place.

We were housed with various area families. I was with the Lakzo Schroeders- who are wonderful and have 5 children. The first night I was there was very cold; so the older members of the family (The parents Norbert and Tina and their eldest son Tim who played violin with the orchestra) and I sat by the fire in their 17th century living room and chatted about all sorts of things. This proved to be too tempting for the younger members of the family who had all already been put to bed- so one by one they tromped down the stairs with their wet, freshly bathed heads and curled up on their parents laps or on the rug in front of the fire. It was all ridiculously charming.

Everyone got very involved in the making of the costumes, sets, and props. Though mostly the costumes. We needed Roman armor (sawed off flower pots), various Roman lady outfits, christian peasant clothes, etc. All of the singers had at *least* one costume change and all of the costumes were made on site in a little house down the road from the church we were performing in. They were designed and made mostly by Gidon Saks (http://www.intermusica.co.uk/saks)
who it turns out is quite a successful opera singer himself. Like, really successful. And he was making the costumes, 'cause he wanted to. Also, he is a total character and I adore him even though he was slagging off Seattle because he had bad experiences there with Seattle Opera and the Ring Cycle. The costume house was *tiny* by the way. Like, small enough that I could bump my head on the rafters. Gidon is definitely over 6' tall, so I'm not really sure how he survived. He also did a masterclass that I went and watched and was alternately inspired and rolling on the floor with laughter.

The performances took place in St. Mary, South Creake (http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/southcreake/southcreake.htm) There is a roster on the wall of vicars for the congregation and it goes back to the 1100's. Cool, huh? I had never seen a church before that had both historic graveyards and a very current graveyard. I spent a lot of time hanging out with Robert Pilch (d.1879) and Susanna Collins (d.1798) as well as the George brothers (d. Oct. 1916, Nov. 1916, 1919). We had built a stage in the center of the church so that the opera was in the round. A little bit weird, but effective. We weren't allowed to have our final, ending party until everything was completely cleaned up and put away and the church put back to rights. We managed to complete this in an impressive hour and a quarter.

There was a wonderful community spirit throughout the whole place and I'm hoping to go back again either for the Easter concert of another of these operas that they do in the summer. It's a strange thing though- I've never heard of any other summer program that was entirely invitation only and depended so completely on who you know. Peter is the one who got this gig for me. Thanks, Peter!

My IPE

I took my own sweet time writing about this one, huh? Thanks for your patience!

Basically- it went totally swimmingly. The three of us met up at 5:30 and took over the green room at Bishopsgate Institute to do some run throughs and basically just make sure that we knew what we were doing. I made sure we timed them all as well because I was massively paranoid that we were going to cut various sections short and end up with a 5 minute piece instead of 10. This was a totally valid fear as our first run clocked in at 6 minutes...

Fortunately we all relaxed and began to focus on things like dynamic change, the pace of the piece, and actually began listening to each other instead of just trying to remember what came next. We rehearsed for about an hour, brought all of the equipment downstairs, did a quick sound check to make sure that the balance between the instruments and the various amplification methods were working and then sat down to watch the start of the show.

There were six of us performing that evening. Kate, Jorge, Andreas, Heather, Nick, and myself. Kate's piece started off the evening and it was beautiful and well played and enjoyable to listen to. I had spent the whole day up until that point being really excited about the performance instead of nervous; but as soon as I heard Kate's piece I began to get nervous and stayed that way through most of the rest of the concert. Every one's pieces were interesting and engaging and it was a lovely concert.

During the intermission I went over and talked to Jo who said happy fourth of July and then did finger fireworks for me. She made the shapes with her hands and did a remarkably accurate vocal sound track to the fireworks. We decided our favorites were the swirly ones that have that really high pitched whine. I know this sounds weird, but it was totally cool and I left feeling like I really had seen a fireworks show. With all my favorite colors too.

Anyhow, back to the show- we were on last and I play the first notes of the piece. Thank god for vibrato- that way you can shake and not harm the music! It only took about 30 seconds to relax and start really enjoying what we were playing. By the penultimate section I was grinning hugely and putting my whole body into my playing.

We got a huge round of applause and I spent the rest of the night continuing to grin. Cos, Kate's bassist from her band The Rude Mechanicals came up afterwards and told me that my piece had been his favorite, that he was impressed with how well I managed to combine acoustic and electronic elements. I told him it was my first piece and he was shocked! Yay!!!

Unlike my Senior recital at Peabody where it took me months to be able to listen to the recording of my recital, I listened to this piece within 15 minutes of having played it. And then I listened to it again. And I've listened to it a couple of times since, because I still get a big kick out of it.

To celebrate I brought Dave and Gemma, and Jon and Ella back to our flat for some food where we then proceeded to play Boggle and Pit until 3:30 in the morning. It was super fun, and a verbal enough crowd that the competition in boggle was intense.

I am trying to figure out how to post the recording of the performance on the blog, but blogger doesn't host sound files, so I am exploring other hosts for that. In the meantime, if you would like to hear it, email me and I will see if I can get the file small enough to email back to you.

Independent Practice Enquiry (IPE)

Our final project for the year- 10 minutes of music written/created/led by you. One of the very few things we are technically graded on and talked up a bunch, so we're all a bit nervous. Mine was supposed to be this cool cross arts improvisation collaboration thing. Remember when I wrote about that? Long story short- scheduling people was harrowing and impossible, so it has now changed completely. Now I am doing a piece based on MLK Jr's "On the Mountaintop" speech with my friends Dave and Jon. (Hi, Jon!)

We have been working on it for just over a week now (started last weekend) and because of our schedules have only had about two and half hours together to write the piece and rehearse it. I've spent most of this week panicking quietly- but we managed to have 15 minutes together today and ran the piece. We are still going to need to do some serious rehearsing the hour before the show starts, but we've pulled it together! We have a totally stable structure, it is going to be just about long enough (provided we don't cut any of the improvisations too short), and best of all- after tomorrow night it will be DONE. Which means I am practically DONE for the year. Which is awesome.

These pictures are from our rehearsal in my room which was cramped and hilarious, but I don't think you quite get the feel for the cramped hilarity from these photos. But trust me, it was impossible to move.

Extra Special Offic Blog: The People

From Left to Right we've got:

*Tristian who is the full time filing temp. He makes my job enjoyable and we spend a fair amount of time talking about music, how we are both maybe a little *too* detail oriented, our favorite little habits that we have that make filing more fun than it has any right to be, and generally palling around. He says "You know, literally..." way too much.

*Brenda who is filing boss extraordinaire. She has been working at Finsbury for a long time and the filing cabinets are very definitely hers. She makes me smile, calls everyone darling, and is good at figuring out just when I need to switch tasks so that I don't cross my eyes and crumple into a little over-filed ball. She is also the master at finding lost files.

*Simran and Sammy. Simran had Tristian's job before I showed up and everyone shifted up a position. Simran is very friendly and welcoming and is one of the reasons this office is frequently giggling. Sammy is...HR person? Coordinator of the secretaries and filing people? She runs our office- but I'm not sure what her title is. Also: lovely person.

In D.C.

I took the MARC train last night at 10:30 and ended up in DC about an hour later. The door to the car I was riding in didn't open, so a lot of people missed their stops- which was kind of problematic, but did make for a nice bonding experience. We eventually figured out how to open the door by the time we got to Union Station, which is good- because commuter trains are not good for spending the night on.

Anne is staying with Sarah and Desh right now, so it is like a whole wedding reunion right now, which I am enjoying. I woke up this morning to pancakes and Car Talk. I don't think you can have a much nicer Saturday morning than that.

Consort rocks my socks

So I wrote this big list of things that I wanted to do while in Baltimore and one of the first things I wrote was "play in consort!" And I am very pleased to say that I was able to do so today. Man, I miss consort. Hannah Pressley, whom I went to Seattle Conservatory with and whose path I keep crossing has just started playing gamba. Her lesson was right before consort so we convinced her to join us (Risa said that we were the consort press gang!) (I don't think we were imprisoning Hannah for months/years at a time on a boat in Her Majesty's Navy- but you know.)

I love love love love love consort. And I remembered how to play gamba better than I thought I did. I miss playing with John and Andrew and how random our conversations get and how much we barrel through the music screwing things up left and right but still having a grand old time. Also I miss how great consort can sound, and the accidentals that early music compositions tend to throw in at arbitrary points.

We took some pictures. John suggested the pose.

I was so happy to have been playing that after consort I found Angela and we played duets together. I was borrowing Joy's fabulous new bass which was so much fun to play. We got out Beethoven and I was in heaven. Such a bouncy bow, such a beautiful sound, so much fun to play with Angela again. *sigh* Life is good.

Some things I like about Baltimore

People handing out cupcakes in the street because they are bored at work.
My OASIS sign that is still being used 4 years later.
The view from Zane's living room window.
Lovely friends and tasty food (Zane, Angela, Karen, Will, Me. Tasty food not pictured)
The fact that looking silly is downright encouraged. (This is at Angela's reception, we are trying to imitate the poses from the plaster frieze, basically we are failing, but amusing ourselves anyway.)

This is getting ridiculous

I continue to see people who have absolutely no right to be in Baltimore right now. Just as an example: today I was down past Federal Hill at Passport Health where I got all inoculated for my Gambia trip (whew, one thing less to worry about) and it was such a gorgeous day that I decided to walk back to Peabody. As I was walking from the Science museum in the Harbor towards the rest of the Harbor I heard a wind band with drums. Since it is part of my philosophy of life to always follow the drums (wherever I hear them) I sought out the marching band.

The band was coming towards me, marching away in their green uniforms, and I thought they looked cute with Baltimore glowing in the sun behind them so I got out my camera to take some pictures.
As they got nearer I realized that they were from Roosevelt HS, and I thought- isn't it funny how you can find the same school names with the same colors all over the US?

Then they got nearer and I recognized Scott Brown and I started freaking out a little bit. I caught up with the mothers behind the band and one of them actually recognized me as "that teacher with the hyphenated name" 's daughter. (Never let it be said that I do not resemble my parents) So I called Daddy, but then I had to hang up because I saw NANCY ROSE! Which was just about the most exciting thing ever:
Because what is she doing in Baltimore? And this isn't the first case this trip either. Jason P. should be in Germany- but I ran into him at the computer lab. Paul A. should be in LA, but he picked me up and twirled me around outside of the Yacht Club. Claire P should also be in LA, but has apparently moved back to Baltimore. Gwen F. should be in Austria, Robin M. should be anywhere but at school...the list goes on. It is getting downright silly.

Today was my last chance to see Robin, so we met up for 10 minutes outside her car before she had to run off. I told her about seeing the Roosevelt Marching band and she told me that clearly all of this was happening because I had brought the magic with me to Baltimore. But look at that look on her face when she is looking at her daughter Samara- clearly it is Robin who brought the magic.

More Baltimore

Ronni came to visit on Saturday, and it was so very nice to see her. I picked her up from the train station at 9pm and we went and got desert at XS (a sushi/desert bar/breakfast food restaurant- because why not?). She is at Columbia School of Journalism right now and it has been a hard, but exciting and fruitful year. She is almost done because her school is normal and finishes in May (as opposed to July. We still have another whole term- I can't comprehend the school year being almost over).

We chattered away for hours and it was really nice to talk about what each of us is getting overly enthusiastic about. (We actually started chattering before we had even received the menus. The waitress was very nice about having to come up to us three times before we had actually looked at the menus and decided what to order.) Ronni is having to look for jobs now which is a frightening thing when what you do is music/arts criticism and newspapers are folding (heh!) or cutting down on arts space all the time. She is still doing a lot of reviewing for the Washington Post and has amazing contacts now (because she is completing a degree from the Columbia School of Journalism...) so she'll be fine. Last year at this time she was an opera singer who, you know, happened to be freelancing with the Washington Post.

More later, I'm off to go hang out at the Renaissance Ensemble rehearsal

Open Call take 2

Last Wednesday was the last open call of the term (maybe the year, the last officially scheduled Open Call) So what Christian did was he let us run it ourselves and oh was that a massive disaster.

There were tons of people, maybe 20? And there were plenty of ideas but no one stuck with any of them, and people weren't really listening or helping much, and there were always people just standing on the edges and the improv went on forever and it was tedious. Just tedious.

So it was a remarkably uncomfortable experience, but what is cool is that those of us who were involved have been seeking each other out to talk about it ever since. Talking about what would have made it better and how we could avoid those sorts of problems in the future. People weren't really playing to their strengths- there were two instruments out of cases for 20 people...and the musicians kept talking which meant it felt like an amateur, poorly done theatrical show with no plot.

The thing that I think is so amazing about musicians and actors getting together is how much can be communicated non-verbally. If you think about it words and speech are just this top layer of information that humans are passing around all the time. When I met Latana's mother she wouldn't let me speak English to her. Now, keeping in mind that I do not speak French it is either extraordinary how easily we understood one another or else it is totally to be expected. (Or a bit of both, we can go with a bit of both)

There is a core of us, I think about 10 people who are very eager to keep Open Call going next term. And now we know how NOT to run things, which is an invaluable lesson. On Thursday evening in the basement I was sitting with Latana catching up on emails when Matt, a flautist who had to leave early from Open Call, came and sat down- we talked for over an hour about how/why the free improv didn't work, what kinds of ground rules you need for that sort of thing (not much: just listen), how much of an impact a tiny bit of structure can have, how you can choose to go with the group or go against it but that in order to go against it there has to be something cohesive to cut through: if everyone is just going wildly nuts in the center of the room you can't cut that- you can only add to the cacophony.

I might be able to take a drama/improv class next term about storytelling. (The one this term was a circus, I'm sorry I missed being in a circus- next year?) Cross your fingers for me that scheduling works out- I'm really hoping it will.