Tuesday, November 02, 2010

If I only had a brain...

This line from the Wizard of Oz has come to mind so often in the past year it's scary. And I really must wonder. I was hoping that once Dante was weaned I would get my brain from the Wizard, or at least get it back, but it's been a month and there's still hide nor hare of it.

What makes me despair so, you may ask? Read on...

I discovered at 14:35 (2:35pm for the Americans) on Sunday, 31 October 2010 that I had gotten the date of the Hildegard von Bingen concert wrong by a year. Yes, I showed up to sing a concert a year in advance! I have since checked the initial email inquiry that Joachim Dreher made only to discover to my horror that it was always my mistake! He did indeed ask me if I would like to reiterate my part in the program on Sunday, 30 October 2011. I was so addled and didn't even notice that the date I checked was 31 October 2010. When I asked for a copy of the exact program and the date in 2011 was at the top, I decided it was a typo. (The difference 30 to 31 didn't even enter my consciousness!)

Magnus and I arrived at the church in Dillenburg at 14:35 and I ran upstairs to the sanctuary, which was dark and empty. I was worried. Oh no! Did I get the venue wrong? Oh dear... There were people cleaning up from some lunchtime event in the parish hall downstairs where Magnus was feeding Dante and I asked them if they knew where Joachim and the choir were. I got blank stares. There was one helpful man, who said he knew nothing about a rehearsal or a concert and Herr Dreher just left, although he might still be in the rectory. Nope, he wasn't and he wasn't home yet either. And I'd forgotten to enter his new cell phone number in mine. Sigh.

Man, we would've arranged our activities for this weekend much differently had I not thought I had a concert to sing in Dillenburg! Magnus was in the UK until midnight Friday and had to return to England on Monday early early. We probably would've gone to England together and spent a relaxing weekend with friends of ours in Northwestern England. Instead, we had a lovely but rather stressful weekend of travel and rushed visits with friends and the church family.

On the positive side, besides seeing my goddaughter Madeleine and my BFF Pamela, her husband and meeting their 18 month old for the first time, I got to see several friends and acquaintances at Christ the King Church, the Episcopal Church (English language) that I attended when I lived in Frankfurt. I also was allowed to sing spontaneously (thank you Simon!). So all my practicing for the Hildegard program was not for naught! I sang Ave generosa, which was also a bit of an adventure, because although I've sung the song in its entirety a million times, I hadn't bothered to practice the verses the choir was to be singing and it didn't occur to me until I was in the middle of the first verse! Ack! Well, it went extremely well, no mistakes and it was a pleasure to be able to sing for my friends and church family again.

So, now I dread that question - "so how did the concert go?" and blush to answer it truthfully...

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Masterclasses in Europe with Carol Baggott-Forte

Every time I check the stats on my blog (their not impressive to anyone but me, trust me) I see that one of the posts that gets the most hits is one about a masterclass I took with Carol Baggott-Forte. I'm sure these hits are mostly from people trying to find info on her current schedule and for some reason they think they'll find that information here. And as a result, I'm happy to oblige!

Carol will be teaching on the following dates:
23 – 27 November 2010, Iserlohn, Germany
30 Nov – 04 December 2010, Berlin
16 – 20 February 2011, Lyon, France
23 – 27 February 2011, Paris

More dates might be forth-coming, so I would recommend you go to Carol Baggott Forte's Masterclass website La Voix Liberee, where all the rest of the pertinent information can be found.

It's a little late in the game, so it might be hard to get a spot, especially at the classes in Germany, but it's definitely worth a try! I, myself, will be attending the class in Iserlohn. My first trip overnight sans baby! I'm excited, apprehensive and really looking forward to the work with Carol! She's the best there is!

See you there?

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In praise of the Cold Sock Treatment

I have a cold. Perfect timing. I have a concert to sing, the first one in a year and a half (almost), and I got a cold a week before. The timing couldn't be better. Really. I hope you can hear the sarcasm... As a singer, a cold or flu or laryngitis is the worst thing that can happen to you. You can't do hardly anything about it and it makes it, if not impossible, at least difficult to do your job. For me, my voice usually starts suffering about 3 or 4 days into a cold, so getting a cold more than 3 days before a concert usually means I'm in for it.

But this time, the moment I started feeling it coming on, I started taking care of myself. I canceled my teaching on Monday afternoon and tried hard to lay low. I started doing "nose showers" (which is a direct translation of the German "Nasendusche", or nasal irrigation. This is the best thing for clearing out sinuses. And is a boon for anyone who is prone to sinus infections or has allergies (me!). If this sounds like you and you don't have one of these contraptions - WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?! I started drugging myself. Out of habit, from almost 2 years either being pregnant or nursing, with mild stuff (Sinupret) especially for sinus infections. Also drinking lots of Sage tea and inhaling with a special Eucalyptus oil mix (Bronchoforton) and contraption that I got here at the pharmacy. I also got some enzyme tablets from the pharmacy to help the swelling in my nasal passages.

However, I decided drastic measures were in order and I really needed my voice not to suffer and be mostly better by Sunday, 31 October. So, I looked it up in the Schiltz family recipe book (my Aunt and cousins are Schiltzes) for the Cold Sock Treatment procedure. This is it in a nutshell: Take a bath or a hot shower or soak your feet in hot water to get yourself really warm. Dress warmly for bed. Wet cotton socks in cold water (just the foot part) and wring out well. Put them on your feet (truly heinous, but not as bad as you might think!) and put on a thick pair of wool socks over them. Jump into bed and go to sleep. The idea, is that your circulatory system is so busy getting your feet warm again that all the fluids drain from your head and upper respiratory system. IT WORKS!!!! I am truly amazed.

To be honest, I also took an Actigrip tablet (An Italian medicine something like Vick's Medinight in a pill), so I can't be sure to what extent either measure did the job, BUT Tuesday evening I had a low-grade fever and my sinuses and nasal passages were almost completely blocked. I slept well, was able to breathe and the next morning I felt so much better! Magnus predicted that I would feel worse again once the Actigrip wore off, but that never happened. last night (Wednesday) I did the Treatment again and forgot to take another Actigrip. I feel even better today. And the best part is, that I seem to still have a voice... Pray, cross your fingers or press your thumbs for me please that the improvement continues and I don't have to cancel or be terribly disappointed with my performance on Sunday.

Thank you Colleen!!!


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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Of concerts and recitals

I forgot to mention a few other news-worthy items in my last post. Don't know how it could happen. I mean how many concerts have I sung recently? None! My last public performance was shortly before Dante's birth 13 months ago. My next performance will be on Oct. 31st. And no, it will not be an evening of Halloween music (is there such a thing? I must look into this!). I'll be reprising my performance of various pieces by none other than Hildegard von Bingen, one of my most favorite composers and a fascinating figure in History (or Herstory, considering she was a woman doing amazing things in the middle ages). This is the 4th or 5th time I've performed this particular program with the Schola Hildegardensis of Dillenburg, but it's been several years since the last one. It'll be wonderful to do it again and to see the women in the group and work with Joachim Dreher (the organist/choir director at the Herz Jesu Pfarrei in Dillenburg). It feels great to have something to work toward (I work best with a concrete goal) and the voice feels pretty good. Perhaps a little rusty, but not like one would think after months of use solely for lullabies and children's songs.

So, in the unlikely event that you actually live near Dillenburg, Germany and would like to come hear me sing, here are the pertinent details:

Schola Hildegardensis (Direction/Leitung Joachim Dreher) with Diane Severson, Solo
Music by / Gesänge von Hildegard von Bingen
Sunday/Sonntag, 31 October 2010, 17:00 (5:00 pm)
Pfarrei Herz Jesu, Dillenburg (Kirchberg)

Shortly thereafter, I'm providing my singing pupils with an opportunity to perform one of the songs we've worked on for the others. This is not a public performance. It will take place in my studio (at home!) and only those taking lessons from me will make up the audience. I used to do these regularly when I lived and taught in Frankfurt and this is the first one I've organized here in Hannover. Each singer will perform one song and it'll be about half/half classical music and pop/Jazz. A nice mix. At the end, I'll sing a few songs. I hire a pianist for these things, since I am a miserable accompanist and I'd like to listen as well. There will be 8 pupils singing, plus me, so it'll only last about 45 minutes at most, I'd say. Each pupil will have a brief rehearsal on the day with the accompanist.

I think I forgot to mention that my mother-in-law asked me to sing for some of her friends at a Kaffee Klatsch while we were in Italy recently. This is the first time she's ever done so. And I was happy to do so. So many of Magnus' family have never heard me sing and I took that opportunity to repeat the program for the family that came to Dante's birthday. This was the program:

Durante, Danza, danza fanciulla
Caccini, Amarilli mia bella
Giordani, Caro mio ben
Händel, Ombra mai fu (Xerxes)
Händel, Lascia, ch'io pianga (Rinaldo)
Mozart, Ach, ich fühl's (Zauberflöte)
Schubert, An die Musik
Schumann, Widmung
Händel, Oh, had I Jubal's Lyre (Joshua)

I must say, it went extremely well. I had put together a CD of the accompaniment (karaoke style) and stood in front of the TV and sang to about 10 people sitting on the terrace. I suppose the whole neighborhood could have listened too. Needless to say, they loved it. I'll probably do it again. It was fun!

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Sunday, October 10, 2010

StarShipSofa Stories Vol. 2 and other news

So, in addition to being my father's birthday (Happy Birthday, Daddy!!!!) and my friend Sandra's birthday as well (Happy Birthday, Sandra!!!) today is the launch of my favorite podcast's 2nd Volume of "Best of" StarShipSofa stories. These are Science Fiction stories that ran on the show this year, since Volume 1 came out. There are some great authors represented including Gwyneth Jones, Nancy Kress, Jeff VanDerMeer and my friend Larry Santoro. A slew of great artists have illustrated each story and Dee Cunniffe and Skeet Scienski have done a wonderful job with graphics, layout and the cover art. Can you tell how much I love that this book is coming out? Have a look at the promo video and more detailed information on contents and how you can buy it here and see for yourselves. Of course, Volume 1 is equally as awesome and if you missed that one you should buy both!! :-)

News on other fronts:

Dante turned one year old!!! We spent a week in Italy with the Nonni (that's grandparents to those who don't speak Italian) and had some relatives over on the day with a cake and everything. I actually gave Dante little bits of the yellow cake part of the cake. The first time he's had anything sweetened with sugar! Of course, he loved it and wanted more, more, more! He got some lovely presents from various people over the last few weeks - thank you everyone, so much! I'll add a picture of us with the cake later...

I attended a wonderful concert with Magnus the other day. Thomas Quasthoff singing selections from his recently released 2nd jazz CD. He's a classical singer of amazing quality and we decided to treat ourselves to this concert to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. I intend on writing a proper review in English and in German, but haven't found the time yet.


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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Hugos, PodCastle

OK, I'm very slow from the starting line, but my favorite Podcast, the one I narrate for occassionally, StarShipSofa with Tony C. Smith has just become the first ever Podcast to win a Hugo Award! This happened in Melbourne, Australia where the WorldCon was held this year. The award is for Best FanZine. Which means it is an amateur magazine (of sorts) contributed to by fans of Science Fiction. This couldn't describe the StarShipSofa better! Tony is the master mind who gets authors to donate their fiction and herds probably a hundred volunteers to do narrations and articles (on the genre history, science news, online fiction, comics, movies, book reviews, you name it). It's heroic, really. He truly deserves this award. But so do all of us that contribute to it. We are a truly wonderful community that enjoys each other as much as Science Fiction!

Also, my most recent narration to go live is "Kingspeaker" by Marie Brennan. It's over on PodCastle and you can listen to it here: "Kingspeaker" It's a very nice little story, which I think was perfect for me to narrate. It's nothing earth-shattering, but lovely. Definitely not a waste of a half hour, if you have it.

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to my most recent follower, Robyn Bradshaw. She and her husband are members of the aforementioned StarShipSofa family. She did some transcribing for the book, The Captain's Logs (did I mention that here?1?) and her husband is a fabulous musician, (you should google him if you don't know who he is) who's written a couple of songs for the Sofa. The two of them have some narration up their sleeves, too, I'm told. Thanks for subscribing, Robyn!

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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

National Buy a Book Day - September 7!

Hi Everyone!

I'm a member of a couple of groups over at GoodReads.com and recently one of the members of Beyond Reality posted an idea of his: National Buy a Book Day.
We all know bookstores (brick and mortar ones anyway) are in trouble. Publishers and authors are having trouble. I love books. I have way too many of them. Wait a minute! Is that possible? Well, I barely have space for all my beloved books. Nonetheless, I would dearly love to support my favorite bookstore (A Room of Her Own) in Madison, my home town, but I'll have to settle with a bookstore here in Germany.

The idea is that you go to a real bookstore on September 7 and buy a new, full-price book. That's all. It's that simple. It can be any book, any price, but it should be new and not a mark-down, so that bookstore, author and publisher all garner the maximum profit from the sale.

If you want to read more go here. And if you want to help the initiative (which is the brain-child of one average Joe - Philip Athans - not anyone who really stands to profit from it), then post about it on your own blog, re-tweet it, link to it and mention it on any forums you might visit between now and then. I'm going to!

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Whew! Completed story narration

Yes, in a whirlwind of activity I managed to get the narration of a story, "Kingspeaker" by Marie Brennan completed for PodCastle by the deadline! w00t! I will let you all know when it goes up there. Probably within the next few weeks.

Now I still have a story and 3 million poems to do for StarShipSofa. Magnus is gone all next week, so I should manage to get at least the story done! I've gotten a start on it already, as I mentioned in an earlier post, but then this rush-job PodCastle story came along. Sorry Tony!

And make room for a new follower, people! Well, Larry, I don't know how long you've been following my blog (openly!), but I just saw your mug as my most recent follower, so I'm welcoming you now! Isn't there some sort of notification available?

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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

StarShipSofa promo

Two posts in two days! Your cups runneth over! :-)

I just saw the new (actually the first) promotional video for my favorite podcast StarShipSofa. It's very cool. And since I do narrations for the show, you can see my name up in lights! Here it is:

Monday, July 19, 2010

HELLO! Hello? hello? ello? lo?

Is there an echo in here?!? There surely must be since I haven't written a post since New Years, it seems! Wow. Well, maybe this will be the first of many new posts. We'll see...

An update:

My son Dante continues to occupy most of my time. He's adorable and fascinating and funny. And I'm smitten.

I'm continuing to teach, and in January I started teaching again, full-time, so to speak, meaning that I managed to get all of my pupils and a couple of new ones to commit to coming on one of 2 days per week. I'm now teaching Monday and Friday afternoons and usually into the evening. I have a babysitter who watches Dante in the Living Room while I teaching down at the other end of the apartment. It works pretty well. I'm considering changing Fridays to Thursdays, so that we can have a long weekend and I won't necessarily have to reschedule all the lessons.

I recorded another story for PodCastle in March and neglected to blog about it - "Love Among the Talus" by Elizabeth Bear. A nice little story that you can listen to here

They've asked my to record another story for them and Tony from StarShipSofa has also asked for a recording, this one by Gwyneth Jones! I'll be sure to blog more about them when I've finished and when they air.

I had an audition rehearsal with a local cabaret a cappella group here in Hannover called Ferrari Küßchen, which went pretty well. It would be a big commitment, but a great opportunity and something different for me. It would definitely get me out there singing, which is what matters to me at this point. :-) It's not a done deal yet though. We are going to have more meetings/rehearsals, and Magnus, Dante and I are going to spend a performance day with the group to see what it involves. I probably wouldn't start performing with them before January anyway. I'll keep you posted!

So, I'd say that's enough for now! If you are still around drop me a comment, and let me know! Thanks!

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Friday, January 01, 2010

Christmas and New Years eve 2009 in Italy

Here I am sitting in a train on the way back home and writing this post on my new iPhone. How cool is that? Ok, well lots of people have been doing this for years but I was never able to afford a laptop or other such things. So I guess I've finally entered full geekdom at the ripe age of 40! But now on to business:

Some of you may know that I was concerned about going to Italy for Christmas this year with Dante so little.

The midwife was all doom and gloom about everything that could go wrong. So there was that to worry about. Clearly he's too young to fly, so we had always intended to take the train. A long trip: 11 hours. But just in case we had bought tickets early knowing we could get a refund if we ended up staying home. I was having nightmares about all the stuff to drag along and how provisional the set-up would be.

But we couldn't have been more wrong. I had seen that he was doing better And better with activities and since I'd figured out how to get him to sleep easily at home I decided we should risk it.

Aside from some anxiety that we would miss our connection in Munich due to delays or that it'd be super stressful with kit and caboodle, the trip was amazingly easy and restful. Dante was peaceful and our seats were great. We'd reserved the infants compartment, which is specially designed to accomodate a carriage. We had it to ourselves. From Munich however it was just a regular compartment, but again it was just us. We made the connection no stress at all!

We stayed with Magnus' parents as usual, but thankfully they'd moved the huge wardrobe into another room so M's tiny room had a bit more space for the 3 of us. His mother had fixed up the crib that had been in the family since M's grandmother slept in it and it is beautiful. Here's a picture:

They had also moved one of the sofas into the spare room so i'd have a comfy place to feed Dante.

Since we arrived a few days before Christmas Dante had a few days to get acclimated before the hordes arrived. He did great! I was so relieved. The only trouble we had was that he had real difficulties burping, and he'd cry and cry if he was still hungry, which makes it impossible for him. Our solution was for Papi to do the burping. Oh, also, he went through the third developmental/growth spurt and so he had a couple of days fraught with crying fits. But it wasn't unbearable.

Because everything was so new and exciting he was awake a lot. But that also meant that he slept well at night. Phew!

People were very respectful and I didn't have to pass him around. He was generally very tranquil and happy. He laughed a lot. He also discovered his hand and his eyes can now track things without moving his head. :-)

In 6 hours now we'll be home, so i'd say a very successful venture! Yay!

Oh and Happy New Year to one and all!


Christmas and New Years eve 2009 in Italy

Here I am sitting in a train on the way back home and writing this post on my new iPhone. How cool is that? Ok, well lots of people have been doing this for years but I was never able to afford a laptop or other such things. So I guess I've finally entered full geekdom at the ripe age of 40! But now on to business:

Some of you may know that I was concerned about going to Italy for Christmas this year with Dante so little.

The midwife was all doom and gloom about everything that could go wrong. So there was that to worry about. Clearly he's too young to fly, so we had always intended to take the train. A long trip: 11 hours. But just in case we had bought tickets early knowing we could get a refund if we ended up staying home. I was having nightmares about all the stuff to drag along and how provisional the set-up would be.

But we couldn't have been more wrong. I had seen that he was doing better And better with activities and since I'd figured out how to get him to sleep easily at home I decided we should risk it.

Aside from some anxiety that we would miss our connection in Munich due to delays or that it'd be super stressful with kit and caboodle, the trip was amazingly easy and restful. Dante was peaceful and our seats were great. We'd reserved the infants compartment, which is specially designed to accomodate a carriage. We had it to ourselves. From Munich however it was just a regular compartment, but again it was just us. We made the connection no stress at all!

We stayed with Magnus' parents as usual, but thankfully they'd moved the huge wardrobe into another room so M's tiny room had a bit more space for the 3 of us. His mother had fixed up the crib that had been in the family since M's grandmother slept in it and it is beautiful. Here's a picture:

They had also moved one of the sofas into the spare room so i'd have a comfy place to feed Dante.

Since we arrived a few days before Christmas Dante had a few days to get acclimated before the hordes arrived. He did great! I was so relieved. The only trouble we had was that he had real difficulties burping, and he'd cry and cry if he was still hungry, which makes it impossible for him. Our solution was for Papi to do the burping. Oh, also, he went through the third developmental/growth spurt and so he had a couple of days fraught with crying fits. But it wasn't unbearable.

Because everything was so new and exciting he was awake a lot. But that also meant that he slept well at night. Phew!

People were very respectful and I didn't have to pass him around. He was generally very tranquil and happy. He laughed a lot. He also discovered his hand and his eyes can now track things without moving his head. :-)

In 6 hours now we'll be home, so i'd say a very successful venture! Yay!

Oh and Happy New Year to one and all!