Singing Hildegard in Poland

This is really seriously after the fact, and I apologize, but no one ever accused me of being timely, so there you have it!

My good friend and colleague, Allegra Silbiger (a member of my girl-group Elysium), asked me to fill in for a singer in her ensemble for medieval vocal music, "Diadema", for a pair of concerts near Krakow, Poland. I thought about it for about 2 seconds, said yes, and then wondered how I was going to manage with the Boy.

As it turned out, it was even more difficult to find someone to babysit than originally anticipated because the concerts were in the middle of the school summer vacation in Lower Saxony and all my regular girls were away. However, one had a friend who was still in town and we were able to have her babysit on a teaching day before I left, so that Dante could get to know her a bit.

So, at about noon on Thursday I left home first for Berlin to meet up with the other women in the ensemble and fly onward to Krakow. Magnus was traveling until I don't remember when that day. The train and air travel all went off without a hitch and we arrived at the Tyniec Abbey (full of Benedictine Monks), where we were staying and singing on Sunday, 25 July 2011, at dinner time, albeit a bit late.

We were shown our rooms and advised that the doors to the guest house are locked at 9:30pm and that if we were going to leave the building that we should be sure to return closer to 9:00pm. Silence was to be observed after 10pm. Morning bells would ring at 5:45 and breakfast would be from 7:30 to 8:30. Phew! It was going to be a restful weekend! And I wondered if I would be able to spend even a couple of hours visiting Krakow, "Poland's most beautiful city"? More on that later.

The rooms were small but clean and serviceable. I did, in fact, go to sleep around 10:30 every night and slept until 7:30 (with a brief interruption for the bells) so I did come home pretty rested! Woot! We were fed in the refectory, but women were not allowed to eat with the Monks. They were somewhere else. Unfortunately, 2 of 3 meals consisted of bread (pasty white stuff mostly), cheese, cold cuts, tomatoes and cucumbers. Lunches were hot and quite tasty, but it took me merely a day and a half to realize that I wasn't going to see a fresh fruit for 5 days and so I went into the village and bought some. Which was delicious. Fresh and regional peaches! Mmmmmh!

We rehearsed most of the day on Friday, in the concert hall in the beautifully renovated/remodelled building where the guest house was as well. Considering we had only rehearsed together the one time in Berlin, it went very well. To our credit, the others in the group have sung together numerous times, Allegra and I are like a two-headed, Hildegard-singing monster, and I'd done the Benefit concert in Barbara Thornton's honor a couple of years ago with them and other add-ons as well. I guess it shouldn't have been such a surprise. Nevertheless, I did feel a bit like I didn't know a couple of the pieces well enough, but that soon passed.

The weather sucked. Except for Saturday, which was at least sunny, if not exactly warm. After the concert on Saturday we sat out on the patio of the cafe on the premises (closed by that time) and watched the sun set spectacularly.

The Saturday concert was at the Benedictine Convent about a half hour's drive from Tyniec. The tiny church had a very interesting acoustic, which was a bit hard to suss. The place was filled pretty much and the audience included about 10 children under the age of 8, who were unbelievably well-behaved. I guess all that church-going trains them pretty well. The performance went very well and we were satisfied. We got a standing ovation. A Consul from the German Consulate in Krakow and her family were in attendance and we spoke to them at length. They were pleasantly surprised and taken with the music, which they'd never heard.

Sunday's concert was at Tyniec in this beautiful hall. The acoustic was wonderful for Hildegard and vocal music. It was a pleasure to sing there.

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Pending Poetry Planet Projects

I suppose, being on vacation would mean I'd have gotten around to posting about this sooner, but sand is no place for an iPhone. And I still have a 2 year old to look after once in a while!

ANYWAY, PP No 3 "coming home" has been significantly delayed. Had a snafu with Audacity while editing and had to revert to a back-up version which was unedited. That happened 10 days before going on vacation and I spent 5 of those singing in Poland. Nevertheless, it will go live as soon as I can finish editing it and submit it to Tony.

In other news, I had the brilliant idea to podcast the top 3 poems in each category of the 2011 Rhysling Awards. I went about gathering permissions, bios and back-stories and am eased to say it's all set! I had huge problems getting in touch with Robert Frazier because my ISP apparently sets off some spam filter function and rejects my email. Just like that. Luckily, Bruce Boston came to the rescue and acted as middle man. I'm hoping to get that show done before the end of August.

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Poetry Planet No. 3 and concerts

Oh NOOOO! Editing the rough recording of the next Poetry Planet for StarShipSofa and Audacity crashed. Thought I'd only lost about 2 minutes of work, because I'd been a good girl and saved after almost every change. No such luck. Upon reopening the file Audacity claimed it couldn't open it (or the back up file) because there was no data on it. AAARRRGH! Luckily there was some other back-up file of the same recording, but it was the rough recording with none of the edits. Arrrrgh. Well, it could've been worse. I might've had to re-record everything....

In other news, today I leave for Poland. I'm singing 2 concerts with women's medieval singing group Diadema, directed by my good friend Allegra (from Elysium). We will be singing at this beautiful convent near Krakow. The program will consist mostly of music by one of my favorite composers and historical figures: Hildegard of Bingen.

Then I have a few days at home and it's off to the Italian seaside for 2 weeks in the sun! Yippee!

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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