Concert in Berlin

On 8 November 2008 I'll be participating in a benefit/memorial concert in honor of Barbara Thornton, founder of Sequentia, ensemble for medieval music, and director of the women's vocal ensemble, Vox Femina (of which I was a member), who died 10 years ago of a brain tumor, while Vox Femina/Sequentia was touring doing Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard von Bingen.  The concert proceeds will go to the German Brain Tumor Fund (die Deutsche Hirntumor Hilfe).

8 November 2008 8pm / 20:00
St. Johannes Evangelist Church
Auguststr. 90
Berlin, Germany


The concert is organized by my fellow Elysia, Allegra Silbiger, who had a close pupil/mentor relationship with Barbara. Several of the performers in the concert worked with Barbara at one time or another.

I can't believe that it has been 10 years already. It seems like yesterday, somehow. Her death, while we were all on tour, was hard to take. We all knew it was coming and we had all suffered through trying periods (the first tour half a year earlier), while Barbara was still working with us.  But she was a brilliant musician, a real work-horse and inspirational in many ways. She brought the world the music of Hildegard of Bingen in a way that made it immediate, not 900 years old. It was an honor to work with her and I hope that in some way she lives on through me.

Recent and upcoming narrations

I've been very busy with the new home lately, but I've still been doing the occassional narration for the StarShipSofa. Especially poetry. It's still a total blast and I'm looking forward to doing some more meaty stories soon. 

Here's a run-down of my recent bits on StarShipSofa:

- Like the First Morning, Cyril Simsa (Flash Fiction) Episode No. 43
- Fairytale Graveyard, Mikal Trimm (poetry) Episode No. 42
- Judy Resnick, Laurel Winter (poetry) Episode No. 40
- Tideline, Elizabeth Bear (Main Fiction) Episode No. 39
- Moon Over Baton Rouge, Atalanta Pendragonne (Flash Fiction) Episode No. 36
- Staying the Course, Mark Rich (poetry) Episode No. 33
- Goodbye is Meaningless, Laurel Winter (poetry) Episode No. 32

You can find the complete listing of Aural Delights segments here: StarShipSofa Aural Delights

Narrations you can look forward to in the future:
- Ancestor Money, Maureen McHugh (Fiction) - on PodCastle
- King's Man, Samantha Henderson (poetry) - on SSS
- Gunfight at the Sugarloaf Pet Food and Taxedermy, Jeff Carlson (fiction) - on SSS
- 3 Days in a Border Town, Jeff VanderMeer (Fiction) - on SSS
- View from a Height, Joan D. Vinge (Fiction) - on SSS
- More poetry from Laurel Winter, Mark Rich and Mikal Trimm

Also, I'm creating the role of a succubus on Chris Lester's Metamor City Podcast It's one of the first short stories that he released on his podcast, which he simply narrated himself. Once he's finished with Making the Cut (a full-lenghth novel) he'll go back and remaster the early stories. That's where I come in. :-)

Audition!

Sorry, this post is very late. I forgot I never finished it or posted it!

So, I had my first audition in years the other day. I sang for 5 or 6 church musicians around Hannover. It was the strangest audition.

When I first arrived in Hannover I heard that there had just been one of these Audition-for-everyone-at-once sort of events, and that I'd missed it.  I called the office that organizes it to get the names of the musicians so I could contact them and audition for them personally. But no, the woman wouldn't give me that info! It's a German thing - Data privacy, dontcha know? Anyway, she put me on the list for the next one, which was on Tuesday.

I got a letter and a form to fill out about 6 weeks ago. In the letter it stated that they had had so many applicants that they could only allot each of us 6 minutes. Six Minutes?!? The next requirement was that we should sing 2 pieces. One from the standard baroque sacred music repertoire (ie an aria from a Bach Cantata or Oratorio). I'm sorry, but there isn't a single aria that is less than 5 minutes! That leaves 1 minute for the 2nd song. At best. Sigh.

In the end I chose to sing "Ich will Dir mein Herze schenken" from the St. Matthew Passion by Bach, which is a da capo aria, meaning I could skip the repeat of the A section, making it about 3 minutes long. It's relatively fast, has lots of sixteenth notes, shows a good range and has a few endless phrases which Bach is famous for, which I can do well. As my second piece I chose something contrasting, slow with long lilting phrases: Evening Hymn by Henry Purcell. The song is very long, but I figured if they didn't want to hear the rest they could stop me.

They didn't. Which I'm glad of. They were pretty stone-faced throughout my singing, but then when I thanked them and offered them my Curriculum Vitae or resume, they all smiled and seemed interested.

I was the first one on for the day, and I think they were still pretty unorganized (one of the musicians was late and came in during the Bach), so I didn't get any information as to when or if I might hear anything official.

I'm still waiting. I hope that's not a bad sign.  They've probably got singers lined up through Easter at least and so I don't really expect to hear about specific jobs until after Christmas, but it would be nice to get feed back.

We'll see!

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... :-)