Friday, August 28, 2009

Waterloo


Anyone else thinking of the ABBA Eurovision contest?????
Thats right, I'm at the scene of one of the most famous battles in world history. But, I'm not here as a tourist, and I even skipped the tour of the battlefield...something I'm sure I will regret, but I am hard at work on the orchestrations for "Songspiel", and with "Le Cabaret de Carmen" starting rehearsals in Sardinia next week I have supertitles to translate, lines to learns, and blocking to remember. Alas...

Tonight my good friend Reinhard Andries will conduct Kantores at a wonderful festival called Le Nuit des Choeurs. It is novel idea where each of many choirs performs 20 minutes of music and the audience rotates between the performance. I'm happy to bring my piano chops to it, but I'm afraid they are rustier than I would have them be. Alas...again.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Brugge


I'm off today to probably the most beautiful city in Belgium. I'll be in Brugge for a couple days rehearsing with Kantores, a wonderful choir directed by my good friend Reinhard Andries. We are doing several performance at a festival in Wallonie, and I look forward to reporting more from there. Then off to Sardinia next Saturday to beginning putting together AOT's first international performance, our "Le Cabaret de Carmen". There will be a lot to do, turning a warehouse into a theater, lighting, restaging, and musical rehearsals. In the midst of the Ignoti Dei will perform a concert of sacred Italian music from the 18th Century. But, there will also be good friends, lots of exotic and authentic Italian food, and the best wine in Europe (we won't tell Sophie Roland, AOT's General Director that, she is under the impression that the French have the best wine!).


I look forward to giving updates as to the progress of the production. I hope the fact the Sardinia has remained detached culturally from the mainland won't mean it is too hard to find internet access. Besides work on "Carmen", AOT has two other large projects on the horizon: our Crumb/Couperin show in Bloomington, IN (part of the New Frontier Project demonstrating the future of technology and opera and using two of AOT's regulars, Rebecca Duren and Emily Noel), and of course of Kurt Weill presentation with Sylvia McNair. Busy times for everyone involved!

Monday, August 24, 2009

Cleaning house


Its one of those days where I spend lots of time clearing the dust off of AOT's e-sources (ie the website, the blog, the facebook page, and now the flickr page). It is a steep learning curve for me, but healthy none-the-less. It is the way AOT eats its veggies!


Tomorrow I am leaving for a brief performance at a festival in Belgium, and then AOT's first international performance in Sardinia. We are doing "Le Cabaret de Carmen" as part of the Ente Concerti festival in Sardinia. That should be a blast, but it takes me away from home (and regular internet access) for a number of weeks. So I'm in a rush to get everything done before I leave!


(Notice the new Facebook gadget on the side of the blog! If you're not yet a Facebook fan of AOT's...sign up now to get all the updates on us you could ever want. I have also posted the 2009-2010 season here finally, and made my recording recommendations.)