Cistercian Elysium

OK, now that my busy performing period is over I'm just as busy as I was before! Don't ask me what I'm doing - it doesn't seem like much. Teaching and travelling that's it basically.

However, I will attempt to catch up on the last few gigs and interesting things that have been happening lately.

Elysium had a concert in early September in Heiligengrabe again. (Allegra, Amy and I had performed there without Anna in May) We performed the same program but this time we had Anna with us, which is much better, plus the rest of us had done the program once already, so it was that much more together. We had a few days of rehearsals in which we integrated Anna and added a new piece. The concert was part of a bigger event this time - the opening of the museum on the convent premises. The church was full - full of politicians and cultural ambassadors. Before our performance there were 5 (!) speeches by various important people. It was nice to perform for a big audience but I could have lived without sitting in the back of the cold church for 45 minutes before beginning! Oh well. The performance went really well and I really enjoy that program. I think we might expand it into a full-length program for us. We performed with an organist in Heiligengrabe and only had to have about 30 minutes of music for ourselves.

After the performance there was a reception where we met several interesting people from various cultural offices. One man was particularly keen on having us record the program at the convent to sell there as a promotional thing for the convent. I'm not sure what's going on with that now, I hope it comes to fruition!