Romantic Garden Festival Performances

So, now that the first phase of work in our new place is finished I have space in my brain to think about other things!

A couple of weeks ago I had my first performances in the Hannover area: I sang Lute Songs and Jazz Ballads with Gero Parmentier on Lute and Guitar at the Romantic Garden Festival at Rittergut Remeringhausen. 

It's an annual event which involves much retail, food and music in a lovely setting. Gero and I were the headline musical attraction and we performed 4 times for about 20-25 minutes on Saturday and Sunday afternoon respectively. For our own sanity we decided to alternate 2 programs: Songs by Renaissance composers Dowland and Campion and Jazz Ballads. The run-down:

Lute Songs - 
*Come Again (Dowland)
*Fine Knacks for Ladies (Dowland - very appropriate!)
*Wilt Thou, Unkind
*Never Weather-beaten Sail
*Now, oh Now, I Needs Must Part
*A Shepherd in a Shade
*Come Cheerful Day

Jazz Ballads - 
*The Nearness of You (Hoagy Charmichael)
*Misty (Garner/Burke)
*Skylark (Hoagy Charmichael)
*Black Coffee (Webster/Burke)
*At Last (Warren)

We performed under a little pavillion, which was at a slightly unfortunate angle, but people could still sit on the grass or at tables and listen, if not necessarily see us. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny - even if slighty too warm for us!

I really enjoyed working with Gero, who I hadn't known previously. He's a wonderful player and a great accompanist. I hope we'll have a chance to perform together again. Thanks Tobias for the recommendation!

Many friends, pupils came and even my In-laws were there from Italy. Thank you everyone who came especially those I saw and spoke to: Magnus, Franca and Luigino, Dilara and parents, Claudia and family, John and family, Rene, and various colleagues of Magnus' from E.On. I'm quite sure I'm forgetting someone, so please feel my gratitude for your support.

Also, a huge thank you to Thilo and Petra for getting me this gig and to Tania v. Schöning for hiring me to perform at such a lovely event!

"Silence" CD available for Digital Download!!!!

Yes, that's right, you can now download my CD "Silence" right into your iTunes or MP3 player for a very reasonable price.

Please go to CD-Baby and have a listen. If you like it, download it and write your comments on the site.  Meinhard and I receive 91% of the sales from digital downloads from CDBaby. The CD is also available on most major download platforms (i.e. iTunes), but we don't get paid as much for sales. 

You can also buy "real" CDs if you prefer!!

If you don't know CDBaby yet, it's an online distribution service for independent musicians. It started out with just one guy doing it in his shed for his friends and has grown into a huge and well-respected business venture. 

And thank you for your support!

Still a construction site and no internet/telephone

Just a quick notice - I would love to be writing more at the moment (Just gave my first official concerts in Hannover), but we don't have phone or internet at home. It was supposed to be hooked up on 22 August but there's something wrong and they'll be having a look at it sometime this week. Yes, thank you for that precise information so I can plan! Anyway, until I get internet at home I'm relegated to checking my email in an Internet Cafe, so I'm only doing what's absolutely necessary.

So, hopefully more soon! Thanks for tuning in!

Moving house!

I've been going mad with all the stuff I've had to do the last few weeks! Here's what it's looked like:

1. Packing for the move (which is today! Ack!)
2. Wedding in Italy on July 26 (I sang)
3. Renovations began at the new place on July 28 and I've been the overseer!
4. I started using an insulin pump to treat my Type 1 Diabetes this week, which meant several trips to the doctor.
5. Regular teaching schedule.

Today we're actually moving into temporary housing with a friend who's going to be away on vacation for the next 2 weeks. From 08.08.08 we should be in our new digs. Who knows if we be all connected up by then though... :-)

StarShipSofa Round Table

Yes, this is old news. The 2nd StarShipSofa Round Table discussion podcast aired on Wednesday, 16 July 2008. It was Tony Smith, Fred Himebaugh and me discussing the last 2 Aural Delights shows with main fiction by John Varley and Robert Reed. There was a special treat at the end - I sang (unaccompanied and very off-the-cuff) Summertime by Gershwin. It was a request by Tony.

Wedding #2

This was Magnus' friend Francesco's wedding in near Arezzo, Italy. That's in Tuscany. It's beautiful. And if you've ever been there, you know what an understatement that is! It's also the home of famous medieval music theorist the monk Guido of Arezzo, famous for the "Guidonian Hand" a method to teach the Hexachords or "scales" in use back then. Don't ask me how it works, I don't remember!

Anyway, this blog is turning into more of a travel blog than a music blog, so those of you more interested in music than travel will have to bear with me, I promise I'll be posting more on music soon.

M & I traveled to Florence on Friday night. On my brother's recommendation we stayed at the Hotel "Il Bargellino" in central Florence. It's a lovely little hotel with a gorgeous roof courtyard which is open to guests.
On Magnus' sister Manon's recommendation we went to a great restaurant very close to the hotel called "da Mimmo" where they have the real Fiorentina steaks. We met our friends Pierpaolo and Yaki and we all ate these huge, yummy steaks. Tom, I'm sorry I didn't know about them when you and Barb were there!

Saturday, we met Manon and Francesco who were on their way to visit Francesco's parents. They went with us to pick up the rental car and then led us a ways towards Arezzo. We went on our way, visited the Pieve di Romena and the castle nearby, met Francesco who showed us his home town of Poppi, and then wandered around Arezzo a bit before having dinner. Francesco's father had graciously and generously bought us tickets to the famous jousting games . We watch a bit of the parade. The participants of the Joust paraded through town in costumes, with horses, horns and drums, and flags. We had a great time at this ancient competition. And I think it's worthy of its own post. Stay tuned!

The wedding was pretty early on Sunday - 11:45am. By that time it was already around 33°C/91°F and unfortunately the wedding was a bit long and boring, but it was in a beautiful little abbey church in the hills and I enjoyed Alessandra's (the bride) sister's singing. She has a sweet, clear soprano voice and has just started taking lessons (at 30). I hope the lessons don't ruin her voice! :-) I know, I'm terrible!

After the wedding we drove to a Villa where we stood in the HOT sun (or crowded under the few umbrellas) for an hour drinking champagne and eating trifles, then we repaired to a large tent where we had "lunch" (or dinner?!?) at about 3pm. After dinner, we went inside, where it was blessedly air conditioned for desserts. Mmmmmh. The food was glorious.

It was still early after the reception and so we decided to go with Danilo and Manuela (D is a friend from Karlsruhe) to the celebrations of the winning jousting team (Quartiere di Porta Crucifera) and watch the European Cup (soccer/football) semi-final between Spain and Italy. We had good food (which we were basically still too full to eat) and good company. Unfortunately, Italy lost.

Next day, we took it easy, packed, went shopping for Italian food staples and drove back to Florence and flew home. A lovely weekend.

I love the idea of audio books but...

...the reality of accessing them and listening to them (and other digital downloads like music) the way I'd like is another thing entirely. While, personally, I haven't run into any problems regarding DRM (Digital Rights Management) or other download management software and the like, I just read this clear, well-founded article by the owner of Podiobooks.com which led me to a site, where, as an owner of a MacMini and various Apple devices, I'm simply out of luck. Read the article and see if he doesn't have a point.