France, Essentially

I realize that I have not posted in some time; this is for several reasons, the first of those being that for the past week I have been in Connecticut at the Amherst Early Musical Festival singing Troubadour and Trouvère pieces with Anne Azèma and Shira Kammen. The second reason for this negligence is the fact that my computer has been broken, and I have literally just now figured out how to jerry-rig everything back to normal until it gets fixed properly. The third reason is that work at Gillette Stadium has started for me - how fun is that? Not quite as fun as 12th century lyric, but necessary nonetheless.

A few words about the French Medieval Song Project with Anne and Shira - the first that comes to mind is "wow," though perhaps a little more profound would be the word, "clarifying." Wow certainly describes the overall class. The hands-on instruction all thirteen of us received was top-notch, and incredibly insightful, as well as encouraging. The two gave a concert on Tuesday night that was absolutely to die for, and I must say, it was worth the tuition

just for that alone - quite honestly, it made me cry it was so beautiful at one point.

I would say the class was "clarifying" in the sense that it kicked me in the right direction. I realized that I really do want to perform this rep, and that in order to do it, I have to bust my hump, so to speak. It was clarifying in terms of grad school searching (though equally more obfuscating in some ways), and in terms of what I am capable of as a musician and a student. Even furthermore, I now have Anne Azèma's voice incessantly in my head saying, "If you all want to continue working with this repertoire... learn French." Mon Dieu, learn French? After hearing Anne speak/sing flawless, beautiful, melodious French for a week, after listening to NOTHING BUT FRENCH MUSIC either sung OR PLAYED BY THE BLOODY RECORDER AND HARPSICHORD, I now have a bucket-load of motivation (well, maybe not so much from the recorder bit) to do so. So naturally, in my vast spare time, I have started to learn French - C'est bon... for now.

In other news, I just got a Blackberry (organization... maybe?) and am reading Aleister Crowley's Qabalistic Writings edited by "our man" Israel Regardie. (Inside joke - Globalization class with Hannagan, bless his heart.) I will have to discuss this latter bit far more in detail in a later post, as this book is a MUST READ for any student of Qabalah or Crowley or just about any religion. The guide to symbolism and the allegory of numbers is simply staggaringly (invented adverb) brilliant.

Sorry this wasn't such an exciting post, though I am unfazed by this, as I still currently have three subscribers, and don't have high hopes for many more, particularly as two of them are my parents (thank you, Mike Hofmann). Regardless, hope this post finds you in a happy state, well, and relaxed.