Friday, January 27, 2012

Weekend Concert Calendar, 1/26/12

My quartet Anthology is performing this Sunday at 2pm at the Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury. You should come! Parking is available. And if you are on the South Shore, come to my church this Saturday at 8 pm for a great voice-and-pianoforte concert by Clara Rottsolk and Sylvia Berry!

Saturday:

Convivium Musicum, "Orlandissimo: A Renaissance Prodigy", 7:00 pm, Cambridge

Wellesley Choral Society, "Mid-Winter Concert: A Folk Song Fest", 7:00 pm, Wellesley

Voices Rising
, "In Her Own Words", 7:30 pm, Boston

Exsultemus, "Music for Voices and Brass from Italy and Germany", 8:00 pm, Cambridge


Sunday:

Anthology, "Hot Music for a Cold Afternoon," 2 pm, Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury

New England Gospel Ensemble, Rockport Music series concert, 3 pm, Rockport

Exsultemus, "Music for Voices and Brass from Italy and Germany", 3:00 pm, Boston

Andover Choral Society, Brahms' Requiem, 4:00 pm, North Andover

Convivium Musicum, "Orlandissimo: A Renaissance Prodigy", 4:00 pm, Brookline

Did I miss anything? Leave it in the comments! Self-promotion for non-choral musical events also welcome.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Wanted: Sopranos

Sopranos! How often are you desired above all other voice parts? Not often enough, right? Well, read on!

The Appalachian Mountain Club puts on 3 weekends a year in the White Mountains where about 100 instrumentalists and singers come together to make music and enjoy the outdoors with activities of the season. These events are called Mountains and Music. I have gone out several times to be the conductor for these events, and they are always a lot of fun. (Side note: also, the food is fantastic.) The next weekend is Feb 17-20 and they are looking for more singers, especially sopranos, to join. (Men are also needed - nothing new there!) More information is here.

I urge you to consider it - it's a lovely and refreshing weekend getaway!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Monday links

You might have noticed the lack of a Weekend Concert Calendar - I am especially sorry about that because there were some amazing concerts this past weekend. The Cantata Singers had a spectacular program reviewed here by the Globe; and I'm also sorry I missed the Lorelei Ensemble's performances. But I was pretty busy singing myself - here's a review of the King's Chapel Choir performance I sang in yesterday. (As the conductor pointed out when he sent out this link this morning, the reviewer seems quite taken with the altos! *does a little Miss-Piggy-style preening*)

If you don't want to read reviews, have a hilarious video of the day - Queen of the Night translated!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Weekend Concert Calendar - not

Sorry folks, no Weekend Concert Calendar today. I'm just too behind right now! Check out bostonsings.org, and I'll let you know what's going on next week!

Correction!

Whoops, when I made that list of all my concerts yesterday, I made a mistake - the King's Chapel
"Baltic Cruise" concert is at 5 pm on Sunday, January 22 (not Sunday, January 29). I hope you all come anyways! The program is really varied and fantastic.

Friday cat post!

Who says kitties are stand-offish? This patient policeman would probably beg to differ.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

My own upcoming concerts

There is a lot of stuff going on in the next couple of months!

First of all, Anthology has a few concerts coming up. On Sunday, January 22 we will be performing at 2 pm at the Wellesley Public Library. The following Sunday, January 29, also at 2 pm, we will be participating in the Greater Boston House Concert series by performing at the Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury. And on Sunday, February 19, we'll be performing at 3 pm at First Parish Cohasset. The Cohasset concert will be the first performance of our new program that we are calling our "Love Concert" - it is full of music suitable for weddings and romance - but we will premiering some of those new pieces in our repertoire in Wellesley and Roxbury! Hope to see you there.

Also on Sunday, January 29 I'll be singing with the King's Chapel Choir, in a program called "A Baltic Cruise." It will include choral music from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Russia. I'm working hard on my Russian and Latvian! That will be at King's Chapel in downtown Boston at 5 pm.

On February 10 at 8 pm in Boston, and February 12 at 3:30 pm in Providence, I'll be singing with Schola Cantorum in a program of motets and madrigals by Lasso and De Rore. This group is a collection of really excellent early music singers from the Boston area and beyond, and it's always a treat to perform with them.

And finally, this coming Saturday my chorus Cantilena is going to begin a recording project! We will be recording our December Christmas concert, and releasing that next fall. We are looking for people to help fund this project, as recording projects are always extremely expensive. You can always go to our homepage and click the Donate button in the lower left corner. (There are also some giving levels, you can see them in this PDF!)

Monday, January 09, 2012

Monday link

Let's have some Rowan Atkinson doing Beethoven. Two great tastes that taste great together! (Thanks to Facebook for this one, I don't remember who posted it.)

Friday, January 06, 2012

Friday cat post

Teehee. Enjoy this clever spoof by an ad agency. Cat videos are the future, people!

The comments claim it's a copycat of Kittywood Studios. I take no sides - enjoy both!

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Weekend Concert Calendar, 1/5/11

Happy New Year! If you haven't made a resolution to support local music by going to lots of concerts, you should. Start this week!

Your options are limited, but quality! On Saturday evening, the Green Mountain Project is on Saturday at 7:30 pm at St. Paul's Church in Cambridge. This is the brainchild of local Scott Metcalfe, as well as soprano Jolle Greanleaf and others. From their website:

Our highly acclaimed Green Mountain Project goes to Cambridge, MA with our new program Vespers of 1640, which features works drawn from Claudio Monteverdi’s monumental collection Selva Morale e Spirituale, as well as works by Gabrieli in honor of the 400th anniversary of his death. This performance already happened in New York - you can read the New York Times gush about it here.

And on Sunday, the Arabella Ensemble will be at the Arlington Street Church at 5:30 pm singing songs for winter by Bach, Sibelius, Brahms, and others.

Monday, January 02, 2012

Monday links

Happy first Monday of 2012! Have some links - these have been piling up, so I actually have quite a few for you.

Alex Ross has a list of great performances from the past year (with some economic ruminations thrown in.)

An interesting reflection on the dangers of the cult of the prodigy.

Is it too late for a Messiah parody? Delightfully done!

Do you ever talk with vocal fry? After listening to the very helpful example, I know I occasionally do!

In truly terrible news, Opera Boston is closing. Extremely sad.

In happier news, Hildegard von Bingen is going to be canonized! About time, right?

This is about teaching, not music specifically, but what musician never ends up teaching? This teacher has put a lot of thought into preventing gender bullying in her classroom - well worth a read.

Also about gender, Amelia's post about the movie Missrepresentation is worth a read. So true that "you can't be what you can't see."

Finally, this reflection on why we make music by local Paul Cienniwa is really lovely (and I am usually a grouch about that sort of article, so you know it must be good!)