bunnies and music and Torah, oh my
Sunday afternoon was Ralph and Lori's bunny melt. It was lots of fun! Think "high tea" combined with the ritual sacrifice of post-Easter half-price chocolate bunnies. (They don't taste the same if you pay full price.) After they are dispatched, they go into the fondue pot. Yum! Laura tried to decapitate some peeps, but peeps don't cut, they just slosh aside. I think she ended up just tearing them apart.
Sunday evening the two newest members of On the Mark, Ray and Jenn, joined us for dinner and discussion. We didn't actually play any music; we went through some of the current repertoire and discussed how we can change things around to best use Ray and Jenn (and fill holes left by Andrea). Both of them have good solid voices (altoish and baritone), and Jenn plays flute, and Ray plays lots of things. I'm excited about all the new possibilities and am looking forward to actually playing! (And discussing the rest of the repertoire over time.)
The reason that Andrea has left the group is that she's been commuting from 4 hours away for this academic year and that's too much of a strain. She expects to keep working there; this started out as a one-year gig but it's working well for her so she's going to stay. We also just learned a few days ago that she's now engaged to someone out there, and they plan to get married later this summer. I'm happy for her! (I've met him and he seems like a nice guy, though I didn't know at the time that it was more than a casual friendship.)
So I guess we probably won't be doing that local concert in July after all; the plan had been for Andrea to return to Pittsburgh for June and July and do that show with us before leaving for good.
Last night's choir practice went well. I was nervous about having, effectively, lost last week due to various people being unavailable, but I think we'll do a decent job at the performance in a week and a half. We have one more rehearsal. "Halleluyah Halleli" is sounding pretty good, which pleases me because it's fairly new and it's one of my favorites. (I've been wanting to do Rossi for a while and finally got the book.)
This shabbat I realized that our morning minyan's upcoming shabbaton (think retreat) is my "birthday shabbat", so to speak. (That Friday is my "3rd birthday".) I've been learning a little of that parsha anyway so I can chant it at Tree of Life that week (on Thursday morning, and perhaps Monday as well). So I sent email to my rabbi asking if I could chant torah at the shabbaton. I'll be seeing him tomorrow for talmud study (yay!), so maybe he'll have an answer for me then. That would be cool. He's been saying for a while that he wants to train some adults to chant torah, but so far he hasn't done anything (visible) about it. I don't know how much I should push; I've reminded him a couple times that I'm interested. Friday night someone other than the rabbi chanted, but I haven't found out yet how that came about. It does give me a good hook for my request, though.
Sunday evening the two newest members of On the Mark, Ray and Jenn, joined us for dinner and discussion. We didn't actually play any music; we went through some of the current repertoire and discussed how we can change things around to best use Ray and Jenn (and fill holes left by Andrea). Both of them have good solid voices (altoish and baritone), and Jenn plays flute, and Ray plays lots of things. I'm excited about all the new possibilities and am looking forward to actually playing! (And discussing the rest of the repertoire over time.)
The reason that Andrea has left the group is that she's been commuting from 4 hours away for this academic year and that's too much of a strain. She expects to keep working there; this started out as a one-year gig but it's working well for her so she's going to stay. We also just learned a few days ago that she's now engaged to someone out there, and they plan to get married later this summer. I'm happy for her! (I've met him and he seems like a nice guy, though I didn't know at the time that it was more than a casual friendship.)
So I guess we probably won't be doing that local concert in July after all; the plan had been for Andrea to return to Pittsburgh for June and July and do that show with us before leaving for good.
Last night's choir practice went well. I was nervous about having, effectively, lost last week due to various people being unavailable, but I think we'll do a decent job at the performance in a week and a half. We have one more rehearsal. "Halleluyah Halleli" is sounding pretty good, which pleases me because it's fairly new and it's one of my favorites. (I've been wanting to do Rossi for a while and finally got the book.)
This shabbat I realized that our morning minyan's upcoming shabbaton (think retreat) is my "birthday shabbat", so to speak. (That Friday is my "3rd birthday".) I've been learning a little of that parsha anyway so I can chant it at Tree of Life that week (on Thursday morning, and perhaps Monday as well). So I sent email to my rabbi asking if I could chant torah at the shabbaton. I'll be seeing him tomorrow for talmud study (yay!), so maybe he'll have an answer for me then. That would be cool. He's been saying for a while that he wants to train some adults to chant torah, but so far he hasn't done anything (visible) about it. I don't know how much I should push; I've reminded him a couple times that I'm interested. Friday night someone other than the rabbi chanted, but I haven't found out yet how that came about. It does give me a good hook for my request, though.