a real update
For one or two reasons, it occurred to me over the past few days to have a look back through my old blog entries, and I've discovered that I've lately come to neglect this blog except as a medium for whinging about stuff (or sharing really random, out-of-left-field observations). This is a pity, as I'd hate for it to give the impression that I'm dissatisfied with life or the world in general - nothing could be further from the truth. I believe my recent LiveJournal pattern is simply an unintended consequence of shifting to Facebook as my main way of keeping connected with friends in this globally-dispersed, TCP/IP-connected age: if all the bright and shiny things in life are shared more quickly and easily on Facebook, then LJ becomes my snark repository by default... even if I don't really have that much in the way of snark.
So, in an attempt to rectify that situation, this entry is intended to be both a more substantial and more complete picture of life at present and my outlook on the world. I may fail somewhat, as much of what is wonderful in the world at the moment is either intangible and/or defies written description... but suffice to say I can think of only a very small number of Things which could make my life better than it already is.
I'll start with the big, obvious bits of my life lately, as I was reminded yesterday (by a comment on my Facebook status) that I may not have been the best communicator of even some pretty significant goings-on. Only some of this is intentional (because I really didn't intend to broadcast certain goings-on, at least until some people had had a chance to hear about them directly), but the majority is simply a case of "oh - didn't I mention I was going to Portugal?"
So, here is some of the bigger stuff that has happened this year:
The Tallis Scholars Summer School
I have already blogged at some length about the TSSS, and that's probably the last entry here that has had much to do with goings on in my life. It continues to be one of the highlights of this year (although there have since been quite a few others, as I'll talk about below).
auditioning for the Sydney Chamber Choir
During the week of the Tallis Scholars Summer School, one of the Sydney choirs with whom I'd like to sing - the Sydney Chamber Choir - held auditions. This was a very worthwhile experience, although (for a couple of reasons) I have not yet been accepted as a member of the choir. The audition went fairly well - I was certainly happy with it. They were very happy with my ensemble work, musicality, aural skills and sight-reading (the sight-reading was fairly challenging, but that part of my brain was thoroughly warmed up by the preceding week's worth of TSSS... I don't think they really expected anyone to get through it quite as completely and as accurately as I managed). During the course of the audition, we discussed that I had not had any vocal training so far, but that I was interested in finding a teacher who would be good for helping me improve my technique while being comfortable with my aim of good choral (as opposed to solo) singing. A few days later, the director of the choir gave me a call to say that (1) they didn't have any current vacancies in the bass section, and (2) they would like me to develop my technique further (i.e. at all) then sing for them again... and then gave me contact details for several recommended singing teachers. As it turns out, this was the ideal outcome: had I been accepted into the choir at that point, I would have had a great deal of difficulty avoiding reinforcing bad habits while trying to learn good new ones. Instead, I was able to concentrate on...
starting voice lessons
Following on from my successfully unsuccessful audition for the Sydney Chamber Choir, in February I began voice lessons with a teacher by the name of Jo Burton. Jo has sung with The Song Company for quite a number of years (although only occasionally since having a kid a couple of years ago), and both teaches and does other professional singing. Most importantly, we're into the same kinds of singing - small groups and choirs rather than solo operatic work. I've found her to be a very good teacher - really good at finding the right way to explain something, or just the right change needed to make it all easy. If anything, the process is frustrating not because of any lack of progress, but rather just the difficulty in taking home her ability to identify just the right little tweak for a given problem... and of course, the fact that I can do far more in technical exercises than I seem to be able to translate into songs.
All of that is a roundabout way of saying that I've really got a lot out of my lessons so far: it's like discovering a completely new voice. Before I started lessons, I believed that I had a fairly mediocre instrument, with a useful low end (down to about C2) but a bit thin and reedy higher in the range, running out around about middle C... and essentially, that's what nature had dealt me so I'd just have to make up in musicality, sight-reading, pitch and rhythmic accuracy what I lacked in vocal quality. As it turns out, while I'll never be a star operatic soloist, I've got quite a bit more of a voice than that - I just had very little idea how to use it. Already I've discovered a considerably better sound, and a considerably expanded range. So far, my widest range has been from A1 to G4, although I doubt I'll ever be either a true profundo or a high baritone. I'm experimenting with a range of different solo pieces, but the most exciting thing is the prospect that - with continued training, of course - I should always have the voice and technique to do whatever singing I want to do.
becoming a real Captain
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Now that I've been in the left seat for about half a year, I'm quite settled into the new role. It's interesting, the difference between being a First Officer and a Captain: as an FO, no matter how seriously you take your job (and I always have taken my job seriously, even if it rarely feels like actual "work"), there's always the underlying knowledge that the Captain has the final say, and in the end, everything is the Captain's problem. Now that Captain is me, and it's a very different perspective on the world. In fact, in many ways it's easier than being an FO: as an FO, you have to be a bit of a chameleon depending on the Captain with whom you're flying, but as a Captain it's very simple - run the ship the way you want to run it. And of course, it has to be that way, because it's the Captain who has to answer for how the ship is run.
On a day-to-day basis, there's no doubt that I feel the additional weight of responsibility: no matter how you look at it, I'm completely legally responsible for as many as 39 human lives at a time, and that's significant, no matter how many systems and procedures and regulations there are in place (and there are many) to make it as safe as it is. I don't have to be infallible, but I do have to be very conscientious about owning my mistakes and taking all appropriate steps to mitigate them. I have a far more mature outlook on the world when sitting in the front left seat of an aircraft than I ever do otherwise, and occasionally that means I can be unforgiving of people shirking their responsibilities or being immature in supporting roles... but as far as I know, I'm still a pretty decent guy to fly with. Most importantly of all, I still have an absolutely wonderful time doing it.
a trip to Spain
Of course, now that I'm finally settled in one place, loving my job and my house, what better to do than to go on a couple of somewhat extravagant international holidays? When I walked into the local Flight Centre and asked them to give me quotes on two trips within two months of each other - one to Spain and the other to Portugal - I did get more than one raised eyebrow. And at least once, a comment along the lines of "you do know that Spain and Portugal are right next to each other, don't you?" But that was just the way this year worked out: first, my mother and a colleague of hers were selected to present a paper at a psychooncology conference in Madrid in early June. Mum was already going to be in the USA a few weeks before that, so she made plans to go to Spain a couple of weeks early, meet her colleague, and go travelling. Since Mum and I travel really well together (we did Kenya and Tanzania together about a decade ago), and I had some days in lieu saved up from working on leave last year, and I had never been to Spain before, I suggested that I might use up my days in lieu, fly to Spain, and tag along. Which I did.
Spain was brilliant. A really interesting country, which packs a lot of variety into a relatively small land mass. We started in Barcelona, then to Granada, and on to Sevilla. At that point I was more or less out of days in lieu, so I had to catch the train to Madrid and fly home only a couple of days after arriving in Sevilla. Each city was fascinating in its own particular ways, and all of quite different characters to one another. I would quite like to go back and spend some more time in Spain at some point, but even a short trip like this had room for wonderful highlights such as Gaudì architecture and the Miro museum in Barcelona, the Alhambra in Granada, and simply wandering around Sevilla, as well as cultural experiences such as flamenco, tapas, and siesta.
Although short, the trip to Spain was also one of those valuable opportunities (that I frequently only get while travelling) to take a step back and consider life in depth, and a lot of time was spent working through...
the end of the relationship with my gf
After four years together, this is obviously fairly significant news, so if anyone reading this was not already aware that M and I had gone our separate ways, I apologise. I avoided "broadcasting" this for a number of reasons, not least because I wanted to tell as many people as possible directly and individually, but of course that probably means I didn't tell someone I should have told. Strangely, there isn't a whole lot to tell about the end of our relationship: it's not that anything in particular happened, and it was certainly a good and caring and rewarding relationship while it lasted, but it has come to an end... and that's OK. M has moved out to a nice little share house in Leichhardt, and is pursuing her music career more assiduously than ever; I'm still living in my lovely house in Erskineville, and (as I hope this post shows) both working hard and enjoying everything else life has to offer.
paid music gigs
A funny thing has happened since moving to Sydney: I've started getting paid to perform music. This had previously only happened once before (and entirely by accident - I simply got handed a cheque after my last orchestral performance in Phoenix), and is a little amusing because I have never had aspirations to be a professional musician. For a start, professional musicians practice, and I'm too strongly inclined to fall back on my sight-reading skills. That's not to say I don't enjoy developing my musical skills: I certainly do, and somewhere down the track I look forward to reaching a standard where I can become a regular member of one or more semi-pro music groups, but my practice only happens to a recreational and personal development level. Nevertheless, so far this year I've managed to find myself in a gig at the Sydney Opera House (with a group of mostly American high school bands [yeah yeah... "and this one time, at band camp"]) - where I even got my very own dressing room backstage, a choral performance with the Sydney Chamber Choir as part of the World Youth Day events, and (just earlier this afternoon) a performance of an organ concerto arrangement at St Andrew's Cathedral, all of which have been paid. I'm certainly not about to give up my day job, but it's still been a lot of fun, and a bonus to have some pocket money too.
early music workshop in Brisbane
Earlier this year, a Brisbane-based choir called SoLa Voce organised an early music workshop to be led by the amazing Andrew Carwood (formerly of the Tallis Scholars, and whom I met at last year's Tallis Scholars Summer School). Given the chance to spend some more time learning from Andrew Carwood, I didn't hesitate to sign up for that workshop. Unfortunately, not long before the workshop was scheduled to happen, Andrew became very ill, so had to cancel, and the tireless folks at SoLa Voce were left to scramble to find a replacement so that the workshop would not simply be cancelled. Scramble they did, and very successfully too: the workshop was quickly re-announced with Gabriel Crouch at the helm, and so about a month ago I flew up to Brisbane for a musical weekend.
As it turns out, Gabriel was excellent - quite different to Andrew, but still very knowledgeable, and very rewarding both as a tutor and a conductor. It was also a brilliant opportunity to catch up with many of my good friends from choral circles - many of whom now seem to be in Brisbane, but a few of whom also flew into town especially for that workshop. The standard was also very high: I'm not sure how they gathered such a good quality mailing list, but although it was a similar size group of participants to TSSS, there were hardly any people there who couldn't keep up or were "just along for the ride"... which meant we could really make some quite good sounds along with learning a great deal in a very intense but enjoyable workshop. There were lots of highlights of the weekend - lovely people, great music (Carissimi's Plorate, filii Israel probably my favourite among the repertoire), and if nothing else, it was a superb warm-up for...
the Sintra International Singing and Choral Conducting Course
Some would regard it as extravagant to fly half-way around the world (in peak travel season, no less) just for a one week music workshop. And they'd be right. But as extravagances go, this was tremendously worthwhile. And I don't begrudge the cost of the airfare nearly as much as the punishment of spending that many hours in a row stuffed unceremoniously in the back of a plane (I say I again that being a long-haul pilot is not for me). Nevertheless, my self-discipline of sleeping on the destination time zone worked well in both directions, and so I arrived in Sintra pretty much ready to go... and commenced an absolutely awesome week of music-making. It's hard to know where to start with relating the experience of the Sintra course - we had a wonderful conductor (David Lawrence), an excellent vocal coach (Ghislaine Morgan), a tremendous range of music (a whole spectrum, from Lassus to several contemporary composers), a spectacular setting (the Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra), and most important of all, and a great bunch of singers (take the top one third of the Tallis Scholars Summer School participants, and that's about what we had in Sintra, both in numbers and in ability) - not just very capable musically, but also just lovely people.
Each day consisted of "breakfast" (i.e. coffee and maybe some sweet baked item) at the local bakery, then hiking up the hill to Quinta da Regaleira for rehearsals. Although the Quinta is in fact only about 100 years old, it's all done to look like it's much older... and somehow that manages to avoid looking tacky, so instead it felt a bit like we were rehearsing in somewhere terribly ancient. Lunch (usually at the very pleasant café at the Quinta) was followed by small group sessions (if we felt like doing such things), and more rehearsals, before heading back down into the town to find dinner and generally hang out with each other until late in the evening. There were several major differences between SISCCC and TSSS earlier in the year: first, the conductor. I greatly respect Peter Phillips, and his achievements in creating and directing the Tallis Scholars cannot be overstated, but he's really a very difficult conductor to sing for. In contrast, David Lawrence is an absolute delight to sing for, and is clearly both extremely knowledgeable and a delightful person. Second, the size and quality of the whole group of singers meant that I largely felt no need to seek out small groups - since there were only 20-something of us, and all at quite a high standard, we could enjoy the speed of learning and the quality result without having to hand-select smaller groups distinct from the full choir. But there was certainly one great similarity: excellent, excellent people. All different walks of life, all different ages, nationalities and backgrounds, but all well worth spending time to get to know well beyond the musical experience.
The final concert was - aside from a few rocky moments in the first couple of pieces - a great success, and I was very glad that I had an extra couple of days after the end of the course to hang out in Sintra, relax, and decompress just a little before loading myself back onto a plane to come home. It was also really rewarding to find that - having had almost half a year of regular singing lessons - I could now do so much more (and sustain so much better) through the week... and really hold my own across the board, not just as the one who gets all the pitches and rhythms right.
I suppose I could talk about Portugal too, but mainly I experienced Portugal as the setting for the course, and for that it was perfect: lovely weather, a beautiful town (Sintra, that is... Lisbon's quite interesting too, but I really only spent about half a day there), and such a relaxed atmosphere. You know it's a different world when the official town clock - that chimes every quarter hour - is running three minutes slow. This is not a culture that places a high value on punctuality.
... and I think that accounts for most of the "events" in my life so far this year.
Ongoing stuff:
Upcoming stuff:
Not a lot, really! Largely more of the same. And that is a very good thing. There are a few things going on and planned (negotiating a new Enterprise Agreement at work, more travel [although none international planned at this stage], continuing some renovations to the study), but I'm rather looking forward to a few months without my calendar quite as tightly packed as it has been of late.
Well, there you have it. If anyone is any more enlightened about life in my world, I'm glad. If not... well, it's probably useful to do a brain dump like this once in a while anyway.
So, in an attempt to rectify that situation, this entry is intended to be both a more substantial and more complete picture of life at present and my outlook on the world. I may fail somewhat, as much of what is wonderful in the world at the moment is either intangible and/or defies written description... but suffice to say I can think of only a very small number of Things which could make my life better than it already is.
I'll start with the big, obvious bits of my life lately, as I was reminded yesterday (by a comment on my Facebook status) that I may not have been the best communicator of even some pretty significant goings-on. Only some of this is intentional (because I really didn't intend to broadcast certain goings-on, at least until some people had had a chance to hear about them directly), but the majority is simply a case of "oh - didn't I mention I was going to Portugal?"
So, here is some of the bigger stuff that has happened this year:
The Tallis Scholars Summer School
I have already blogged at some length about the TSSS, and that's probably the last entry here that has had much to do with goings on in my life. It continues to be one of the highlights of this year (although there have since been quite a few others, as I'll talk about below).
auditioning for the Sydney Chamber Choir
During the week of the Tallis Scholars Summer School, one of the Sydney choirs with whom I'd like to sing - the Sydney Chamber Choir - held auditions. This was a very worthwhile experience, although (for a couple of reasons) I have not yet been accepted as a member of the choir. The audition went fairly well - I was certainly happy with it. They were very happy with my ensemble work, musicality, aural skills and sight-reading (the sight-reading was fairly challenging, but that part of my brain was thoroughly warmed up by the preceding week's worth of TSSS... I don't think they really expected anyone to get through it quite as completely and as accurately as I managed). During the course of the audition, we discussed that I had not had any vocal training so far, but that I was interested in finding a teacher who would be good for helping me improve my technique while being comfortable with my aim of good choral (as opposed to solo) singing. A few days later, the director of the choir gave me a call to say that (1) they didn't have any current vacancies in the bass section, and (2) they would like me to develop my technique further (i.e. at all) then sing for them again... and then gave me contact details for several recommended singing teachers. As it turns out, this was the ideal outcome: had I been accepted into the choir at that point, I would have had a great deal of difficulty avoiding reinforcing bad habits while trying to learn good new ones. Instead, I was able to concentrate on...
starting voice lessons
Following on from my successfully unsuccessful audition for the Sydney Chamber Choir, in February I began voice lessons with a teacher by the name of Jo Burton. Jo has sung with The Song Company for quite a number of years (although only occasionally since having a kid a couple of years ago), and both teaches and does other professional singing. Most importantly, we're into the same kinds of singing - small groups and choirs rather than solo operatic work. I've found her to be a very good teacher - really good at finding the right way to explain something, or just the right change needed to make it all easy. If anything, the process is frustrating not because of any lack of progress, but rather just the difficulty in taking home her ability to identify just the right little tweak for a given problem... and of course, the fact that I can do far more in technical exercises than I seem to be able to translate into songs.
All of that is a roundabout way of saying that I've really got a lot out of my lessons so far: it's like discovering a completely new voice. Before I started lessons, I believed that I had a fairly mediocre instrument, with a useful low end (down to about C2) but a bit thin and reedy higher in the range, running out around about middle C... and essentially, that's what nature had dealt me so I'd just have to make up in musicality, sight-reading, pitch and rhythmic accuracy what I lacked in vocal quality. As it turns out, while I'll never be a star operatic soloist, I've got quite a bit more of a voice than that - I just had very little idea how to use it. Already I've discovered a considerably better sound, and a considerably expanded range. So far, my widest range has been from A1 to G4, although I doubt I'll ever be either a true profundo or a high baritone. I'm experimenting with a range of different solo pieces, but the most exciting thing is the prospect that - with continued training, of course - I should always have the voice and technique to do whatever singing I want to do.
becoming a real Captain
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Now that I've been in the left seat for about half a year, I'm quite settled into the new role. It's interesting, the difference between being a First Officer and a Captain: as an FO, no matter how seriously you take your job (and I always have taken my job seriously, even if it rarely feels like actual "work"), there's always the underlying knowledge that the Captain has the final say, and in the end, everything is the Captain's problem. Now that Captain is me, and it's a very different perspective on the world. In fact, in many ways it's easier than being an FO: as an FO, you have to be a bit of a chameleon depending on the Captain with whom you're flying, but as a Captain it's very simple - run the ship the way you want to run it. And of course, it has to be that way, because it's the Captain who has to answer for how the ship is run.
On a day-to-day basis, there's no doubt that I feel the additional weight of responsibility: no matter how you look at it, I'm completely legally responsible for as many as 39 human lives at a time, and that's significant, no matter how many systems and procedures and regulations there are in place (and there are many) to make it as safe as it is. I don't have to be infallible, but I do have to be very conscientious about owning my mistakes and taking all appropriate steps to mitigate them. I have a far more mature outlook on the world when sitting in the front left seat of an aircraft than I ever do otherwise, and occasionally that means I can be unforgiving of people shirking their responsibilities or being immature in supporting roles... but as far as I know, I'm still a pretty decent guy to fly with. Most importantly of all, I still have an absolutely wonderful time doing it.
a trip to Spain
Of course, now that I'm finally settled in one place, loving my job and my house, what better to do than to go on a couple of somewhat extravagant international holidays? When I walked into the local Flight Centre and asked them to give me quotes on two trips within two months of each other - one to Spain and the other to Portugal - I did get more than one raised eyebrow. And at least once, a comment along the lines of "you do know that Spain and Portugal are right next to each other, don't you?" But that was just the way this year worked out: first, my mother and a colleague of hers were selected to present a paper at a psychooncology conference in Madrid in early June. Mum was already going to be in the USA a few weeks before that, so she made plans to go to Spain a couple of weeks early, meet her colleague, and go travelling. Since Mum and I travel really well together (we did Kenya and Tanzania together about a decade ago), and I had some days in lieu saved up from working on leave last year, and I had never been to Spain before, I suggested that I might use up my days in lieu, fly to Spain, and tag along. Which I did.
Spain was brilliant. A really interesting country, which packs a lot of variety into a relatively small land mass. We started in Barcelona, then to Granada, and on to Sevilla. At that point I was more or less out of days in lieu, so I had to catch the train to Madrid and fly home only a couple of days after arriving in Sevilla. Each city was fascinating in its own particular ways, and all of quite different characters to one another. I would quite like to go back and spend some more time in Spain at some point, but even a short trip like this had room for wonderful highlights such as Gaudì architecture and the Miro museum in Barcelona, the Alhambra in Granada, and simply wandering around Sevilla, as well as cultural experiences such as flamenco, tapas, and siesta.
Although short, the trip to Spain was also one of those valuable opportunities (that I frequently only get while travelling) to take a step back and consider life in depth, and a lot of time was spent working through...
the end of the relationship with my gf
After four years together, this is obviously fairly significant news, so if anyone reading this was not already aware that M and I had gone our separate ways, I apologise. I avoided "broadcasting" this for a number of reasons, not least because I wanted to tell as many people as possible directly and individually, but of course that probably means I didn't tell someone I should have told. Strangely, there isn't a whole lot to tell about the end of our relationship: it's not that anything in particular happened, and it was certainly a good and caring and rewarding relationship while it lasted, but it has come to an end... and that's OK. M has moved out to a nice little share house in Leichhardt, and is pursuing her music career more assiduously than ever; I'm still living in my lovely house in Erskineville, and (as I hope this post shows) both working hard and enjoying everything else life has to offer.
paid music gigs
A funny thing has happened since moving to Sydney: I've started getting paid to perform music. This had previously only happened once before (and entirely by accident - I simply got handed a cheque after my last orchestral performance in Phoenix), and is a little amusing because I have never had aspirations to be a professional musician. For a start, professional musicians practice, and I'm too strongly inclined to fall back on my sight-reading skills. That's not to say I don't enjoy developing my musical skills: I certainly do, and somewhere down the track I look forward to reaching a standard where I can become a regular member of one or more semi-pro music groups, but my practice only happens to a recreational and personal development level. Nevertheless, so far this year I've managed to find myself in a gig at the Sydney Opera House (with a group of mostly American high school bands [yeah yeah... "and this one time, at band camp"]) - where I even got my very own dressing room backstage, a choral performance with the Sydney Chamber Choir as part of the World Youth Day events, and (just earlier this afternoon) a performance of an organ concerto arrangement at St Andrew's Cathedral, all of which have been paid. I'm certainly not about to give up my day job, but it's still been a lot of fun, and a bonus to have some pocket money too.
early music workshop in Brisbane
Earlier this year, a Brisbane-based choir called SoLa Voce organised an early music workshop to be led by the amazing Andrew Carwood (formerly of the Tallis Scholars, and whom I met at last year's Tallis Scholars Summer School). Given the chance to spend some more time learning from Andrew Carwood, I didn't hesitate to sign up for that workshop. Unfortunately, not long before the workshop was scheduled to happen, Andrew became very ill, so had to cancel, and the tireless folks at SoLa Voce were left to scramble to find a replacement so that the workshop would not simply be cancelled. Scramble they did, and very successfully too: the workshop was quickly re-announced with Gabriel Crouch at the helm, and so about a month ago I flew up to Brisbane for a musical weekend.
As it turns out, Gabriel was excellent - quite different to Andrew, but still very knowledgeable, and very rewarding both as a tutor and a conductor. It was also a brilliant opportunity to catch up with many of my good friends from choral circles - many of whom now seem to be in Brisbane, but a few of whom also flew into town especially for that workshop. The standard was also very high: I'm not sure how they gathered such a good quality mailing list, but although it was a similar size group of participants to TSSS, there were hardly any people there who couldn't keep up or were "just along for the ride"... which meant we could really make some quite good sounds along with learning a great deal in a very intense but enjoyable workshop. There were lots of highlights of the weekend - lovely people, great music (Carissimi's Plorate, filii Israel probably my favourite among the repertoire), and if nothing else, it was a superb warm-up for...
the Sintra International Singing and Choral Conducting Course
Some would regard it as extravagant to fly half-way around the world (in peak travel season, no less) just for a one week music workshop. And they'd be right. But as extravagances go, this was tremendously worthwhile. And I don't begrudge the cost of the airfare nearly as much as the punishment of spending that many hours in a row stuffed unceremoniously in the back of a plane (I say I again that being a long-haul pilot is not for me). Nevertheless, my self-discipline of sleeping on the destination time zone worked well in both directions, and so I arrived in Sintra pretty much ready to go... and commenced an absolutely awesome week of music-making. It's hard to know where to start with relating the experience of the Sintra course - we had a wonderful conductor (David Lawrence), an excellent vocal coach (Ghislaine Morgan), a tremendous range of music (a whole spectrum, from Lassus to several contemporary composers), a spectacular setting (the Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra), and most important of all, and a great bunch of singers (take the top one third of the Tallis Scholars Summer School participants, and that's about what we had in Sintra, both in numbers and in ability) - not just very capable musically, but also just lovely people.
Each day consisted of "breakfast" (i.e. coffee and maybe some sweet baked item) at the local bakery, then hiking up the hill to Quinta da Regaleira for rehearsals. Although the Quinta is in fact only about 100 years old, it's all done to look like it's much older... and somehow that manages to avoid looking tacky, so instead it felt a bit like we were rehearsing in somewhere terribly ancient. Lunch (usually at the very pleasant café at the Quinta) was followed by small group sessions (if we felt like doing such things), and more rehearsals, before heading back down into the town to find dinner and generally hang out with each other until late in the evening. There were several major differences between SISCCC and TSSS earlier in the year: first, the conductor. I greatly respect Peter Phillips, and his achievements in creating and directing the Tallis Scholars cannot be overstated, but he's really a very difficult conductor to sing for. In contrast, David Lawrence is an absolute delight to sing for, and is clearly both extremely knowledgeable and a delightful person. Second, the size and quality of the whole group of singers meant that I largely felt no need to seek out small groups - since there were only 20-something of us, and all at quite a high standard, we could enjoy the speed of learning and the quality result without having to hand-select smaller groups distinct from the full choir. But there was certainly one great similarity: excellent, excellent people. All different walks of life, all different ages, nationalities and backgrounds, but all well worth spending time to get to know well beyond the musical experience.
The final concert was - aside from a few rocky moments in the first couple of pieces - a great success, and I was very glad that I had an extra couple of days after the end of the course to hang out in Sintra, relax, and decompress just a little before loading myself back onto a plane to come home. It was also really rewarding to find that - having had almost half a year of regular singing lessons - I could now do so much more (and sustain so much better) through the week... and really hold my own across the board, not just as the one who gets all the pitches and rhythms right.
I suppose I could talk about Portugal too, but mainly I experienced Portugal as the setting for the course, and for that it was perfect: lovely weather, a beautiful town (Sintra, that is... Lisbon's quite interesting too, but I really only spent about half a day there), and such a relaxed atmosphere. You know it's a different world when the official town clock - that chimes every quarter hour - is running three minutes slow. This is not a culture that places a high value on punctuality.
... and I think that accounts for most of the "events" in my life so far this year.
Ongoing stuff:
- I love my job
- I love my house
- I'm playing a lot of good music with the Strathfield Symphony Orchestra
- I'm really enjoying Sydney
- I still wish some people were not as far away as they are... but I treasure those nearby and those further afield whenever our paths cross
Upcoming stuff:
Not a lot, really! Largely more of the same. And that is a very good thing. There are a few things going on and planned (negotiating a new Enterprise Agreement at work, more travel [although none international planned at this stage], continuing some renovations to the study), but I'm rather looking forward to a few months without my calendar quite as tightly packed as it has been of late.
Well, there you have it. If anyone is any more enlightened about life in my world, I'm glad. If not... well, it's probably useful to do a brain dump like this once in a while anyway.