Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Sataloff’s office has moved from Pine to Broad Street. It is actually much faster and more convenient for me to just zip off the highway and into the numerous parking lots right near the Drexel University Building. The waiting room has all the maroon leather couches from the Pine Street office, but Peggy and Bridget have more spacious studios with wonderful views of the downtown sky line. Today I saw Bridget and Peggy for an hour each, back to back. Maybe that was a mistake. Continue reading
This is the first time that a major Katzenjammer reunion has been held outside of the regular Princeton Reunions festivities. Since graduating in 1982, I have made appearances at most of my major reunions every five years on the ’2’s and ‘7s. The Katz events (SATB a cappella singing group for those who don’t know) are held the next year on the ‘3’s and ‘8’s resulting in two years in a row of too much P’ton Hooplah. 
The Holidays were very early this year, for my 19th year going to Wichita as the “rent-a-cantor” at Congregation Emanu-El. Has it really been 19 years!!!??? The weather was beautiful for Rosh Hashanah as I flew out of a deserted Newark airport on Labor Day. Because of various scheduling issues involving Tony the pianist and the local High School musical, we rehearsed, if you can call it rehearsing, a day early. 
What an amazing experience! I got to play triangle in the Princeton University Orchestra’s two performances of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe. Years ago when I asked Michael if I could play percussion, he had said he wouldn’t trust me to be able to count 247 measures of rest from an instrumental part and then go “ding” in the right place. After all, I was used to singing the ongoing melody from a piano/vocal or full score. OK, I was offended, but I basically agreed. Since then, I have actually played percussion in various small things and not totally messed up. Daphnis, however, was another matter – long, hard, tricky. In the big climaxes there are 8 different percussion parts all whacking away. 
I have decided to take a break from practicing. The Richardson Chamber Players concert two weeks ago was a big success.Yet, as I wooped up to the high C at the end of Bachianas Brasilieras, I realized how much pressure I had been feeling leading up to this concert, and how relieved I was that I had gotten through it. 
The Music 214 concert was last Saturday night, and it was a huge success! During the Fall semester, harpsichordist Wendy Young and I were co-teaching Music 214 – projects in vocal performance, as a Baroque Solo Cantata class. 
I finally have some time to write about Dragon Mother. The whirlwind of the Fall semester has settled a bit over the holiday break and I can look back on the whole process of bringing this project to life. It started almost two years ago in the interval between semesters when I felt restless without enough to do. I decided to ask various composers to write pieces for me in the coming years. 
Heading to Kansas to sing High Holy Days again, I decided to go out there a day early and visit the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. I had seen an article about it in the National Parks magazine and it looked incredibly beautiful. About an hour and a half north east of Wichita, in the Flint Hills, it was a bit too far to go back and forth in one day.