USA Trip Part 1 - Wisconsin/Iowa

What a whirlwind!

I've been in the US for most of the past 4 weeks, visiting
family, singing, singing and singing. Now that I'm back in
Germany I've been singing (!) and moving house. More
about that in a subsequent post - first things first!

I flew first to Philadelphia and spent only a night there.
The Lady Chapel Singers graciously covers my travel
expenses, but only to Philadelphia. I flew on to Madison,
using frequent flyer miles, the next morning.

I had one of the most embarrassing things ever happen
to me that night in Philadelphia. I was staying in the
guest apartment in Lisa and Charles building (as usual)
and I went up and went to bed pretty early, I guess
around 10pm). I set my alarm for 6:30 because my flight
was early and I was to have breakfast with Lisa. I got up
when it rang, took a shower, got everything packed up
again, and went down to their apartment. I knocked and
knocked, no answer. Finally, Charles came to the door,
which was the final clue that something was amiss,
because he should have been gone to work already. It
turned out that I'd forgotten to change the time on my
alarm and it was only 1:00 am! Omigod! I was mortified.
Needless to say, I went back upstairs, set my alarm to
the correct time, got back into bed and slept another 5
hours!

In Wisconsin it was business as usual, I called all my
friends to see who had time to spend with me. I saw
Naomi, my longes friend, she came over for dinner. I
went to Julie and Mike's for dinner (who had nearly
forgotten me!) and spent some time with their 3 beautiful
little girls. Mom and I spent a day together. We heard a
recital given by a voice faculty candidate at the UW and
afterwards we went to the Union for coffee with my
favorite music history professor and now friend Charlie
Dill. We went to Ward Brodt Music House where I
bought a new metronome (thank you Tom and Barb!) and
we went to see the move Ray at the 2nd run theater. We
had a great time. I had a fabulous homemade breakfast
at Kathy the Mezzo's, catching up with her. I never did
speak with Wendy personally :-( Next time I hope.

My dad and I took two days and drove to Ruthven and
Spencer, Iowa (north western Iowa) to visit my
grandmother. Recently, following some bad spells with
her health, she'd been moved to a nursing home in the
town she's lived in most of her life, Ruthven. It's just like
a hospital, and she can't really do anything independently
anymore which is just awful for my Gram. But she
looked pretty well, if a lot thinner than I last saw her. She
was in pretty good spirits but it seemed like a terrible
effort for her to even just speak. She says she sleeps a
lot. Not as much as her roommate (who I guess is
always sleeping) but still a lot. She just seems worn out,
but not as depressed as usual. She still has her feisty
streak, which is good to see, but she's gotten much more
cuddly.

Next installment:
USA Trip Part 2 - Philadelphia part 1 and NYC

Sad Hotel No. 5

I haven't been singing much in public lately, but have
been pretty busy nonetheless. I've been preparing for my
upcoming trip to the USA and for the concert I have
immediately following that in March. But more about
those later.

Barbara W., Jens and I performed "Sad Hotel" - the Anne
Sexton project - again end of January. This time in the
Ruhrgebiet, a highly industrialized, densely populated
area of Germany north-west of Frankfurt. The town we
played in is called Moers and is just west of Duisburg.
They boast that with its 100,000 inhabitants it is either the
smallest city or the largest town in Germany. They have
a State Theater there, which is a bit odd, but it is suitably
small considering the importance, or lack thereof, of the
city. We performed in a little hall which held about 40
audience members and we sold it out!

It had a very strange acustic which swallowed all the bass
frequencies so we decided to amplify both me and
Barbara (instead of just Barbara) and to add some reverb
to round out the sound. That helped a little bit. However,
Jens said afterwards, that he was bothered by it since it
seemed to fade in and out. Oh well.

The weather was extremely cold and they'd been heating
like mad all day, which unfortunately played havoc with
the baby grand piano's tuning. They had just had it tuned
and in the couldn't hold it because of the change in
temperature. We had intended to record the program the
next day, but decided against it because of the tuning
problem. An out of tune piano (if it's not too bad) is OK
for a concert, but inacceptable for a recording unless it's
intentional. Sigh. Hopefully, we'll get it recorded
sometime.

We were well taken care of. These were colleagues of
Barbara's and she does other projects there as well. I
just heard from her today that they'd like us to do a
repeat performance sometime soon. They suggested
March 12 but I already have a concert on that weekend
and have rehearsal all day on the 12th. Oh well, another
time, hopefully in April.

More on upcoming events later!

Sad Hotel, Messiah and Magnificat in quick succession

Whew! A free moment! I haven't written anything about
the series of concert I had bang, bang, bang after I
returned from the US. But here it comes!

I arrived back on Sunday, November 28 and on
December 1 was my first concert. It was a repeat
performance of Sad Hotel - the one with poetry by Anne
Sexton. It took place in the Holzhausenschlößchen
(which means the Little Holzhausen Castle) here in
Frankfurt. I was so glad that we were performing this
program in Frankfurt, but I expected more people to be
there. I think that of the people that were there about a
third of them were people one of us performers new! I
mean, that's great - I'm so pleased about the friends that
came, including 2 writer friends - but there were only
about 25 people there and that's not very many! Oh well,
the program was very well received and the people at the
castle were so friendly and helpful. It's too bad that Herr
Greve (the boss) wasn't there. I would have liked to ask
him about Elysium performing there. I suppose I still
should...

Two days later was Christ the King's annual Sing-along
Messiah. I was singing the soprano solos. I love this
event. It's really a lot of fun. People who think that they
know the Messiah enough to sing in the chorus without
weeks of rehearsal come and sing. The soloists all come
from our church. There is a brief rehearsal with the choir,
a shortish break with refreshments and then the
"performance". If I do say so myself, I sang pretty well.
Especially "Come Unto Him". I really enjoyed it. I think
I'll use that aria as an audition aria in the future. Magnus
and Cristina came up from Karlsruhe. Cristina sang along
in the choir! All of the other soloists sang very well,
especially, Bruce Hunter, Bass. He really sang
magnificently! I was amazed at his breath control. I'll
have to ask him about it sometime. Jeffrey Coulas
(Tenor) said he has some sort of trick! Hmmm.
Afterwards, we went to Novità - my third night in a row!
We also went there after Sad Hotel and after regular
choir rehearsal as usual.

Friday morning I had gotten a call from a cantor in
Wiesbaden asking me if I had time to jump in for another
soprano soloist on Saturday evening. I had time and an
added bonus was that I actually knew the more important
of the two pieces she was going to sing: Magnificat in C
Major by Zelenka! I performed the piece in Dillenburg
about 2 years ago. I only had to sing the first movement
in Wiesbaden. I would've preferred to have more time to
prepare but it turned out quite well. I also sang "Laudate
Dominum" by Monteverdi as ersatz for the solo cantata
by Scarlatti the other soprano was going to sing, which I
didn't know.

Engagement!!!!!!

I haven't written here for so long for a few reasons: 1) I
was on vacation in Wisconsin with my family for
Thanksgiving and couldn't access my email, 2) Once I
returned from the USA I had 3 concerts with different
programs within a week and so was simply too busy and
3) because I have this big announcement and wanted to
have time to write a good blog about it!

Magnus and I are engaged!!!!!!

While we were in NYC Magnus proposed. He had
planned a lovely evening out, bought a ring (in Frankfurt,
when I was at a concert rehearsal!) and proposed during
dessert! It was very romantic and just like him. We ate
at Cafè des Artistes on 67th and Central Park West,
which is one of the restaurants that Pamela
recommended to Magnus (she guessed what was up but
can keep a secret!). It's a cozy, romantic french
restaurant and the food was wonderful. I had the best
potatoes ever (and there was really nothing fancy about
their preparation, just boiled potatos - can you tell I'm
Irish?!?)!

We were talking about the contacts he had made at the
conferences he had just come from. He asked me how I
felt about living in any of the places he'd made contacts.
When I got around to Chicago I said, "Chicago is a great
city with lots of potential for me musically AND it's close
to family." Magnus reached into his pocket (I hadn't
noticed the bulge!) gave me a small box and said,
"Speaking of family - will be my family?" I was so
surprised! I had an inkling that he was planning
something and that it would be a small ceremony, but I
wasn't expecting it then! Also, the ring is absolutely
gorgeous and although I'm not surprised he bought one, I
am surprised at just how lovely it is! Also, it fits perfectly
(he guessed the ring size!)! Needless to say, I said yes,
but I couldn't really see to open the box (It was wrapped
too) and then couldn't really see the ring except how it
sparkled. All I could say was, "Which finger?!?" Well, it
fits just right on the proper finger for both Italy and the
US (the left one).

At any rate, I'm very happy, and quite a bit relieved, if I'm
honest! We have started making plans or at least talking
about it. The date is set tentatively for May 2006 in Italy.
Mark your calendars...

The Big Apple

I'm in New York City!!!
Got here yesterday and of course it's so overwhelming...
I've been here quite often before, but you forget how much is really going on.
Tomorrow I will have my lesson with my beloved teacher Cornelius Reid. I can hardly wait. Unfortunately, it will be the only one this trip. He is taking his wife to the hospital. I hope she will be OK. But I'm disappointed nonetheless. But at least I will have one lesson!
M. the cook will be joining me here tomorrow and I'm sure we will have a wonderful time exploring this place together.
More later.

promising diabetes research

I just have to share with all of you:

A medical researcher at Harvard, Denise Faustman, has
cured diabetes in mice! She was actually just searching
for a way to keep transplants from being rejected. She
used a well established and natural method to destroy the
T-cells (the immune cells) responsible for destroying the
islet (insulin producing) cells. Then she retrained the
diabetic mouses system not to reattack its own tissue by
injecting tissue from the spleen of a healthy mouse. She
then expected to perform islet cell transplants on these
mice to see if it would work, but then found that it was
unneccessary because the islet cells had rejenerated!!!!!
Isn't that amazing? I often thought that the islet cells
should be able to rejenerate and if the immune system
could just be persuaded not to attack then all would be
well. Aparently, most medical researchers didn't think
they could. I wonder why, because it is common
knowledge that the body rejenerates all cells except brain
cells every 7 years. Why shouldn't the islet cells do it?

Do a search on google for ' "Denise Faustman" diabetes'
and you'll find tons of articles on her work and related
topics.

What makes my blood boil is that she had trouble finding
funding to persue testing on human subjects (with
diabetes)!!!! Pharmaceutical companies turned her down
- that's not surprising though, since they certainly have
little interest in millions of people suddenly having no use
for insulin and all the rest of it. But also the Juvenile
Diabetes Research Association turned her down!!!! They
are now in the process of trying to replicate her work,
which is working. I don't know what politics are involved
in that, but it is unfathomable to me and unconscionable!
Anyway, she got funding from Lee Iacocca (of Chrysler
fame), who wrote a check for $1 Million to start a fund
which should raise $11 million for the research. His wife
died of diabetes complications in 1983, so he is very
interested!

It makes me want to send Dr. Faustman a birthday card
or fly there and kiss and hug her! It's very exciting - and
so simple too. A two phase, out-patient procedure and
then let the body take care of itself. WOW. I hope it
pans out.

New Website

OK, I spent way too much time tinkering around (there
were a few glitches), but it really did go super fast - you
know they claim that you can have one of your own up
and running in 15 minutes and all of that for free! You're
probably wondering, "WHAT?!?"

My new website of course!

The address is:

http://www.divadiane.bravehost.com

Nothing fancy, and it's not finished, must add several
more pages, but it's functional...

Enjoy!