List of Podcast appearances

OK, I've been at this awhile but it's only just occurring to me that I should start an (as yet incomplete) running list of my podcast appearances complete with links, etc. Here it is with the most recent first:

• -- Poetry Planet No. 7: "2012 Rhysling Award Showcase", StarShipSofa No. 256
• -- Main Fiction: The Timpanist of the Berlin Philharmonic, 1942 by Kim Stanley Robinson, StarShipSofa No. 249
• -- Poetry Planet No. 6: "Moon Imaginings" StarShipSofa No. 245
• -- Poetry Planet No. 5b: "Time Travel - Part 2" StarShipSofa No. 229
• -- Short Fiction: "Urchins, While Swimming", by Cathryn M. Valente PodCastle No. 198
• -- Short Fiction: "Unwoven", Tim Waggoner, Tales to Terrify No. 5
• -- Poetry Planet No. 5a: "Time Travel - Part 1" StarShipSofa No. 223
• -- Poetry Planet No. 4: "Coming Home" StarShipSofa No. 208
• -- Poetry Planet No. 3: "Rhysling Award Showcase", StarShipSofa No. 202
• -- Poetry Planet No. 2: "First Contact", StarShipSofa No. 192
• -- Poetry Planet No. 1: "Introduction", StarShipSofa No. 184
• -- Fiction: Kingspeaker by Marie Brennan, Podcastle No. 122
• -- Music: Theme Music for Blood and Chrome Podcast
• -- Transcriber Editorial: StarShipSofa No. 130
• -- Fiction: Love Among the Talus by Elizabeth Bear, Podcastle No. 96
• -- Poetry: Clone Assassin by Lyn C. A Gardner, StarShipSofa No. 102
• -- Fiction: Daughter of Botu by Eugie Foster, Podcastle No. 63
• -- Flash Fiction: A Hand and Honor by Brenda Cooper, StarShipSofa No. 91
• -- Main Fiction: Gunfight at the Sugarloaf Cafe and Taxidermy by Jeff Carlson, StarShipSofa No. 88
• -- Main Fiction: Vinegar Peace, Or the Wrong-Way Used-Adult Orphanage by Michael Bishop, StarShipSofa No. 82
• -- Nebula Nominee: - 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss By Kij Johnson, StarShipSofa No. 72
• -- Poetry: Three Poems - Marble People, Chess People and Gargoyle People by Bruce Boston, StarShipsofa No. 71
• -- Sofanauts: No. 5 May 16, 2009
• -- Poetry: If Cold Is A War by Ann K Schwader, StarShipSofa No. 70
• -- Poetry: Time Trapped by Ann K Schwader, StarShipSofa No. 69
• -- Fiction: Room Service by Donna George Storey, Nobilis Erotica No. 113
• -- Poetry: Our Fallen Do Not Fall by Ann K Schwader, StarShipSofa No. 61
• -- Poetry: On Any Given Midnight by Ann K Schwader, StarShipSofa No. 60
• -- Poetry: Fifty Cents by Mark Rich, StarShipSofa No. 57
• -- Music: Silent Night, Diane à 3, StarShipSofa No. 56
• -- Fiction: Ancestor Money by Maureen McHugh, Podcastle No. 36
• -- Main Fiction: A View From A Height by Joan D. Vinge, StarShipSofa No. 54
• -- Poetry: An Eccentric In Orbit by Laurel Winter, StarShipSofa No. 53
• -- Poetry: King’s Men by Samantha Henderson, StarShipSofa No. 47
• -- Poetry: Fairytale Graveyard by Mikal Trimm, StarShipSofa No. 42
• -- Poetry: Judy Resnick by Laurel Winter, StarShipSofa No. 40
• -- Main Fiction: Tideline by Elizabeth Bea, StarShipSofa No. 39 
• -- Flash Fiction: Moon Over Baton Rouge by Atalanta Pendragonne, StarShipSofa No. 36
• -- Poetry: Goodbye Is Meaningless by Mark Rich, StarShipSofa No. 33 
• -- Poetry: Goodbye Is Meaningless by Laurel Winter StarShipSofa No. 32
• -- Poetry: How To Make Love To A Shark by Laurel Winter StarShipSofa No. 30 
• -- Poetry: Time Travel Verb Tenses by Laurel Winter StarShipSofa No. 29 
• -- Poetry: They Arrived by Mark Rich, StarShipSofa No. 27
• -- Poetry: Godlet by Laurel Winter StarShipSofa No. 26
• -- Main Fiction: Sledge Makers Daughter by Alastair Reynolds StarShipSofa No. 17
• -- Main Fiction: Lightling Out by Ken MacLeod StarShipSofa No. 16
• -- Main Fiction: Infinity Syrup by Laurel Winter StarShipSofa No. 10
• 
  

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Report: Raggio di Sol - Concert "Colors of Life"/"Farben des Lebens"

Raggio di Sol gave a concert on Pentecost Monday (as it's called here). The first one since I joined the group. The concert went well but not without more than it's fair share of drama before-hand. One of our female singers, and alto, got into a fairly serious bicycle accident after our penultimate regular rehearsal. She spend several days in the hospital, underwent surgery on her arm and suffered from a mild concussion. It was clear that she wasn't going to be able to perform, so Alfredo asked one of the singers who's supplementing the ensemble in September's big benefit concert to fill in. As fate would have it, she came down with the flu and had no voice, so had to cancel at the last minute. Such it is with singers. You just can't sing if you have some infection in the upper airways!

So, what were we to do? Some of the pieces we couldn't shuffle the rest of us around to fill in the gab, so they got axed, others we could. This is the program we were left with:

Pierrre Attaignant (1530) - Tourdion
Thoinot Arbeau - Pavane
Michael Praetorius (1571 - 1621) - Kyrie XXII
- Gloria XVII
G. P. da Palestrina (1525 - 1594) - Sicut cervus
Orlando di Lasso (1532 - 1594) - Lebensregel
Mateo Flecha? (1481 - 1553) - Riu, riu chiu

Thomas Morley (1558 - 1603) - Hard by a Crystal Fountain
Heinrich Schütz (1585 - 1672) - Verleih' uns Frieden
Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643) - Sfogava con le stelle
- Anima mia perdona
- Che se tu se'il cor mio
- Luci serene e chiare

We had to leave off pieces by Thomas Tallis, Giovanni Gastoldi, Melchior Franck and Andreas Hammerschmidt. A real pity, but hopefully we be able to perform them at a later date.

I think despite the truncated offerings, that the concert was well received. The church was not full, by any stretch of the imagination, but neither was it empty which was positive, given that it was the end of a long holiday weekend when most people go away. Our hard work trying to memorize the Monteverdi paid off for the most part. They were emotive and pliant which is what they need. Even if we couldn't do them memorized because Ingo was stepping in for Irma.

I was especially pleased to see a couple of my voice students (and parents) there as well as a neighbor and some colleagues of Magnus'.

Upcoming singing events include 2 concerts in Poland singing Hildegard von Bingen with my good friend Allegra Silbiger's group, the benefit concert with Raggio di Sol and more Hildegard in Dillenburg. Hopefully, some more performances will be added before the end of the year.

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Report: Pop/Rock Concert

OK, I've been so busy lately that I completely forgot to blog about a recent concert I did. I mentioned it before - Me and two others covering pop and rock music.

Anyone who knows me, knows that this isn't really my thing. However, since meeting Janusz, who takes singing lessons from me and is an avid midi-file/keyboard player, I've been playing around with singing pop music. I find it awkward to sing (I'm a soprano after all), it sits all wrong in my voice, and if I sing it comfortably, it sounds all wrong. That's changed a little lately, since I started working with Carol Baggott Forte, actually. And our choice of repertoire and the keys we do it in have helped too. Here's the list of songs I sang:

Carole King, You've Got a Friend
ABBA, Mamma Mia and Money, Money, Money
Morris Albert, Feelings (yes...)
Mike Oldfield, Moonlight Shadow
Those Were the Days
Moody Blues, Nights in White Satin
BeeGees/Barbara Streisand, Woman in Love
Madonna, La Isla Bonita


The other two sang mostly Polish (they both are) and German pop. Renata and I sang back-up for each other on a few songs.

This was a sort of open rehearsal, since we've never performed this stuff outside of Janusz's living room. Oh, wait. Actually, Janusz and I did a gig for a Christmas party for a friend of his. But we only did 5 songs - 3 Christmas, Woman In Love and Hey, Jude. Anyway, Janusz has mountains of equipment to transport and set up and he wanted a chance to go through the motions, as it were. Ideally, we'd like to get gigs playing at weddings or receptions/parties, that sort of thing.

Well regardless, it went off quite well. I was rather pleased. I didn't manage to memorize anything though, which is not so great, but I didn't flub anything! W00t! I have issues with memorization. I grew up and went through college never realizing I had problems with texts and memorization. But that's worthy of another post!

There were quite a few people there - around 80 or so. Most were friends and clients of Janusz's but 8 or so were friends and pupils of mine. I've gotten feedback and except for the occassional "you can tell you're a trained singer", which in this case is not necessarily a compliment, all positive.

This coming weekend I have a wedding to sing, in which I'm to sing Schubert's Ave Maria (in Latin) and a pop song - Das Beste by Silbermond. I sure hope I have to sing the pop song first. I'm sure I can switch into classical singer mode easily, but it's my pop-singer mode I'm insecure about.

Also this "weekend" (it's "Pentecost Monday" which is a holiday here in Germany) the little 8-person choir I sing with ("Raggio di Sol") is giving a concert of Renaissance and Baroque music. Now THAT's my thing.

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Poetry Planet No. 2 - First Contact - LIVE!

The second edition of Poetry Planet for my favorite podcast, StarShipSofa, went live today! To listen to it and also the first episode go here.

This is a long one! 30 minutes! But it's chock full of poetry goodness! 10 poets are represented with their offerings on "First Contact". And quite a wide variety of imaginings they are! That sounded a bit like Yoda. Here's the illustrious list and links to their websites, blogs etc:

Scott Green - "First Contact"
Green Genre Poetry and
Poetry in Manchester

Mike Allen - "The Thing in the Gutter" and "On Discovery of a Habitable Planet"
Mythic Delirium

Ann K. Schwader - "The Ones Who Met Them"
Website
Yaddith Times LiveJournal

Dennis M. Lane


Marge Simon

David Kopaska-Merkel

Dreams and Nightmares magazine

Elizabeth Barrette
PenUltimate Productions Website
Wordsmith's Forge LiveJournal

Mary Turzillo


Rich Magahiz
Poem "Your Color Palette 2011"

Larry Santoro
Bluffton in the Driftless

I hope to be able to make announcements of poetry events, awards, contests and the like at the end of each show. This time we have:

The Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

and

The Rhysling Award Candidates

Enjoy!!!

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