I have been distracted and busy and not reliable with my blog for the last month or so. If anyone of you out there is in Cyber-World have been following this blog–sorry!
There are several reasons for my busyness–our MMS Spring concert for one. Our June 5 concert was wonderful. Wonderful and different. I planned the concert with the thought of using some of our selections for other performances, and others to prepare us for other pieces later on.
The second half of the program was Swingle Singer settings of Bach and Mozart. It stretched us in ways we haven’t been stretched before and prepared us, I hope, for working on a Bach Motet this fall. The runs we had to sing in a more instrumental way will help us grasp the runs in the actual vocal music of Bach. Or, at least that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it for now.
The first half of the program was settings of Shakespeare. We sang them for another performance and for a fund raiser for our local professional symphony orchestra. That is the reason for my REAL busyness.
In my desire to please my spouse and that local symphony, I hosted a “Musical Feast”–the symphony’s series of occasional small fund raisers–the last Saturday in June. Last September, the date was decided, the music was decided, the menu was decided. All I had to do was put everything in motion. Whew, WHAT WAS I THINKING!
The “theme” was “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”–the reason for that choice was the time of year and date. The first thing I did was to engage an OUTSTANDING musician–David Schrader–and my son, Ben, his harpsichord student, to play Mendelssohn’s incidental music from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” arranged by the composer for piano, four hands, knowing they would use my Steinway to great advantage. I chose a menu to reflect the play and the time of year. I borrowed a tent, chairs and had my kitchen re-painted. I had the patio sealed and cleaned my house within an inch of my life. I gardened so my Midwestern English Garden looked more English than Midwestern. I gave strict orders to my family–especially my husband who begged me to do this–to do what I said and no one would get hurt.
We decided to dress as Shakespeare characters–I was Titania–and my singers had a great time doing that! The MMS rehearsed after our concert cycle was over for this event. The ladies rehearsed the Finale of the Mendelssohn so we could surprise the audience by popping up–much like the Fairies we were portraying.
Everyone who attended, and even those participating, said it was a magical event. It was, and I think we even earned some money for the Symphony, the whole reason we were doing this. But I am beat!
Every part was planned out by me–much like a concert. And now that it is over, I have happy I did it. But in order for me to do something like this again, there will have to be jewelry involved!