Whirlwind Fall: Grammy Submissions and Global Music Awards

from Berkeley

Ensemble for These Times

Dear ever-patient readers in the Blogosphere,

It's been (and continues to be) a whirlwind fall! Just to catch everyone up a wee bit,  Ensemble for These Times' debut CD of music by David Garner, "Surviving: Women's Words" won a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards, received two nice reviews (one at American Record Guide, calling the CD, "fascinating," and "compelling" and the other at Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Reviews, calling it "extremely well done" and "Recommended."), and has been submitted for the 59th Grammy Awards--oh, my; I've been in California and Washington; and E4TT is preparing for the first of our Call for Scores concerts, 56x54 #1.

What's a 56x54 #1, you might ask?  Google's latest algorithm, perhaps? Well, this past December-January, we had our first-ever Call for Scores, as you patient reader-folks might remember.  We were honored (and overwhelmed) to receive 275 scores from 200 talented composers. In the end, we chose 56 fabulous works of varying lengths to perform over the next two seasons (Read more here and here) and we're excited to be performing the first set this week, along with one of David's song cycles from the CD and the world premiere of Bruce Nalezny's "Toccata," dedicated to our fab pianist, Dale Tsang.

So, for a teensy plug (Wait, isn't today's blogpost all a plug, you might also ask? Well, although I didn't mean it as such, just trying to catch up is making it go that way.  Thanks again for your. already praised and much-vaunted patience.), the concert will be on Sunday, Oct. 30 at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Piano Club. Tickets ($20/15) are available at the door or from info@E4TT.org.

Ensemble for These Times

And who is that woman in the green dress in E4TT's new photos above? That, everyone, is the wonderful--not to mention beautiful--cellist Anne Lerner-Wright. Anne played with us last May and June, and we're thrilled to have her with us this season!

As you can imagine, I've been living and breathing E4TT--mostly, as there's lots else going on in my life, all of it good, for which I'm immensely grateful. More over the next weeks and months as time permits.

What I'm reading: The Alphabet and the Goddess and Mercedes Lackey's Elite
What I'm listening to: Scads and scads of fabulous CDs submitted for the 59th Grammys.
What I'm working on: 56x54 #1 plus music by David Garner!

Surviving: Women's Words and a play with few survivors

New CD cover: photo by Michael Halberstadt

...from Berkeley

Today's post starts with a flat-out plug for E4TT's new CD, released on Centaur Records
on April 8, "Surviving: Women's Words."

The CD features pianist Dale Tsang, cellist Adaiha MacAdam-Somer, and--as Miss Piggy would say--moi, performing four song cycles written by composer David Garner for the group, to poetry by four different Jewish women poets. The  culmination of an ambitious five year commissioning project, the CD gives a musical voice to these women's viewpoint and experiences of wartime, the Holocaust, exile, and displacement.

Stephen Smoliar in Examiner.com  describes "Surviving: Women's Words" as "a fascinating project within a project"--alluding to the fact that the project is itself a project of E4TT's Jewish Music & Poetry Project--and goes on to say that "...this album offers four passionate meditations on the Holocaust experience, delivered through a unique and highly compelling pair of voices, those of both composer and singer."

(For the curious, the CD's title, "Surviving," comes from the fourth song in the final cycle on the CD ("Song Is a Monument"), which sets words by Polish-American Holocaust survivor, Yala Korwin. We were honored to be able to use poems written by Korwin, who passed away in May, 2014, only two months after E4TT premiered the cycle. The other poets  whose texts are set muscially on the CD are Mascha Kaleko, Rose Auslaender, and Else Lasker-Schueler.)

"Surviving: Women's Words" is available from Amazon, HBDirect, Arkivmusic, and E4TT. Check it out now or starting May 13, when streaming and downloading will be available for purchase!

And the play with few survivors? Shakespeare's Hamlet, which I saw this evening in a fabulous production by the England's National Theater Live with the inimitable and multiply talented Benedict Cumberbatch (of "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Imitation Game" fame).

Watch the trailer.  Watch Prince Charles deliver Shakespeare's arguably most famous line.

Partly a ghost stoy with a great fight scene, Hamlet is a "greatest hits" play, and deservedly so: much as the opera "Porgy & Bess" is filled with hit after Gershwin musical hit, so too is Hamlet filled with quote after famous Shakespeare quote.  The NTL's stunning production--albeit often very loud--brings out an important sequence in "Hamlet" about the army led by the character Fortinbras--well nigh the only principal character left standing by the final curtain, other than Horatio, whom Hamlet has begged to stay alive to bear witness to his story.

That sequence?  To set the scene, Hamlet has happened upon the Norwegian army on its way to attack Poland and asks the Captain what they're up to. The interchange:
"Hamlet: Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?
Captain: Truly to speak, and with no addition/ We go to gain a little patch of ground/ That hath in it no profit but the name./To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;/Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole/A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
Hamlet:Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Captain: Yes, it is already garrison'd..."

Thus does Shakespeare four centuries ago emphasize the insanity of war--so often waged for "a little patch of ground"--and the suffering that results, and that, you see, is the connection with the CD, as well.

What I'm reading: More Louise Penny Inspector Gamache mysteries

What I'm listening to: Mp3 after mp3 for making the final vocal decisions for E4TT's call for scores :).  Plus the wonderful artist known as Prince, may he rest in purple peace.

What I'm working on: new music by Judith Shatin and Emma Logan, plus Hans Winterberg and songs by Vitezslava Kapralova

In Praise of M.T. Anderson and his Symphony for the City of the Dead

...from San Francisco

First, a big shout out to all the wonderful performers and the enthusiastic audience at David Garner's fabulous Faculty Artist Series program on Monday night!  If you weren't able to join us, I hope you were able to watch the concert stream instead.

Leading up to Monday's concert, I could not put down M.T. Anderson's  YA historical novel, Symphony for the City of the Dead: Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad--a mouthful of a title that says it all. 

Now, first off, I have to admit that I've been a fan of M.T. Anderson's books for years, beginning with his equally engaging dystopian Feed--written before dystopia had completely taken over as the style-du-jour, and Handel, Who Knew What He Liked and continuing with Strange Mr. Satie, Whales on Stilts, and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. (He has many more, but those are some highlights.)

Dmitri Shostakovich in 1925

Returning  to Symphony...What a brilliant concept! Who'd a thunk one could use the history of a 20th century classical Russian composer to talk about World War II?  It's an obvious call in retrospect, and beautifully done in Anderson's hands.  Symphony works well on a number of levels: at its core, it's a biography of composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) combined with a history of the seige of Leningrad, and it's also a short history on the rise and continuation of Communism in Russia--all informed by and focused on  how both of the latter influenced this enigmatic, great composer who managed to survive in a situation where so many others didn't. (The photo to the right is the young, Harry-Potter-like composer at the age of 19.)

Anderson is honest in his evaluation of what Shostakovich may nor may not have believed and how the exigencies of pleasing Communist dictates may have affected his writing--questions I remember from my own readings in music history. He concludes that we may never know the whole truth in either direction. Nonetheless, we still have the composer's musical testimony, and now we have Anderson's commentary, along with his explanations along the way for non-musical young readers, about musical meaning and meaning in music (not the same thing) for his readers.

Perhaps best of all, reading Anderson's descriptions of Shostakovich's music makes the reader want to go and listen (or re-listen) to his music, especially his towering symphonies and string quartets. How terrific is that, when prose about music--or visual art for that matter--inspires one to go listen to the music itself!

Thank you, M.T. Anderson, for your latest work in cross-arts fertilization...the ultimate in coolth.

What I'm reading: Still Life (the first Inspector Gamache mystery); Margaret Atwood's latest (The Heart Goes Last)

What I'm listening to: Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (this week at SFSymphony!)..but Shostakovich very soon

What I'm working on: Songs by Hans Winterberg, John Harbison and Frederic Sharaf.

Live Streaming!

David Garner

...from San Francisco

This week's post is late--mea culpa! But the good outcome of my tardiness is that I can give you the live streaming link for Monday's concert if you can't be there in person, as I just received it...That link and the instructions are at the bottom of this post.

The concert? Ensemble for These Times' composer David Garner's Faculty Artist Series program on APRIL 4, at 8:00 p.m., Caroline Hume Hall at the SF Conservatory of Music. You can also read Stephen Smoliar's article in the SF Examiner about the concert here. Admission is free, but it's open seating, so David recommends folks get there early.This is a bit of a plug post--surprised?--but keep reading for interesting info about civil rights figure, Mary Pleasant.

Monday's concert features four works, all by David Garner:
First half:
* Vilna Poems (2014), with texts by Avram Sutzkever, sung by soprano Krista Wigle, and played by cellist Evan Kahn, along with members of the SF Conservatory Faculty.
* Mein blaues Klavier (My Blue Piano, 2015), with texts by Else Lasker-Schueler, performed by Ensemble for These Times, i.e., me, pianist Dale Tsang and cellist Laura Gaynon. This is on our new JMPP CD, Surviving: Women's Words, which will be for sale at the concert and is being officially released on April 8 on Centaur Records (Centaur CRC 3490), already available from the group or online for pre-release sales.
*Judith Masur Songs (2016), written for mezzo-soprano Crystal Philippi, to texts by Berkeley poet Judith Masur.

Second half: excerpts from Mary Pleasant at Land's End (2015),  his fabulous, brand-new opera, Semi-staged by Jimmy Featherstone Marcheso, and performed by  mezzo-soprano Crystal Philippi, soprano Julie Adams, tenor Michael Jankosky, and bass-baritone  Philip Skinner with pianist Kevin Korth.

Here's what David writes:
"Mary Pleasant --one of the most complex, mysterious figures in the history of the nation--comes to life in Mary Pleasant at Land's End...with libretto by Mark Hernandez.  The opera traces much of Pleasant's astonishing life, beginning with her days as a shepherd for the Underground Railroad.  Arriving in San Francisco, she becomes a beloved leader in the young city. Eventually, this daughter of slaves stands as one of the richest and most influential individuals of the time. Her championing of people and causes, however, brings her into conflict with a familiar face of wealth and power, and the ensuing struggle plays out in a notorious courtroom drama that mesmerizes the public. Sensationalist press coverage demonizes Pleasant, playing on attitudes towards her race and gender. An essential figure in the founding of San Francisco, and indeed the state of Californi, she is forgotten even as the city bursts into world prominence..." More info at David's website.

If you can't come on 4/4x8 (i.e., April 4, at 8:00 p.m.),  you can watch the livestream. Streaming will start about 5 minutes before the concert. When it begins, you'll see "Live now" below the name, Caroline H. Hume Hall. Select it to automatically see the video with the live stream...at least in theory.

What I'm reading: M.T. Anderson's Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Seige of Leningrad; Elizabeth George's A Banquet of Consequences; Terry Pratchett's final Tiffany Aching novel, The Shepherd's Crown.

What I'm listening to: Mozart's Jupiter Symphony and Beethoven's First.  Also the many, many (did I say many? We received 275!) scores from E4TT's call for scores. Winners to be announced June 1.

What I'm working on: Mein blaues Klavier, of course, along with songs by Winterberg, Sharaf and Garner for April and May.

Happy Pi Day!

Pi Pie

...from San Francisco

Today (well, yesterday by time you read this) is a paean in praise of Pi, the number  3.14159265358979323846264338327950 (stopping after all 10 digits have been included) or, as it's commonly known among us lay folk, 3.14.  Hence Pi Day is 3/14, March 14. Crucial for measuring circles and circular objects, pi is an irrational constant and so it keeps rolling on, digit after digit, never resolving.

March 14 is a verrrry popular birthday (three folks in my family own it, for example), but there are fewer famous folk with it than on some other days of the year.  However, one hugely famous Pi Day celebrity--for whom March 14 is a most appropriate birthday--is Albert Einstein (1878-1955). 

Warning: shoals of a famous mathematical formula ahead, but the digression is brief. If desired, skip the next paragraph to avoid possible eye glazing.

(Einstein's special theory of relativity is represented mathematically with another constant, c.That famous formula? E=mc2, where E means energy, m means mass, and c means the speed of light in a vacuum, which is then squared. The constant, c, is NOT pi, but rather a little less than 300 million (299,792,458) meters/second, i.e., pretty darn fast!)

There are many great quotes attributed to Einstein, many nearly aphorisms. I find Einstein, his story, and his words infinitely inspirational--and I hope you will, too. 

Albert Einstein

Here are a half dozen:
            
             Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

            Try not to become a man [or woman in today's more egalitarian verbiage] of success, rather try to become a man of value.

            Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe.

            Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

            We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

            Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

Interested in more Einstein quotes? Visit Brainy quotes.com.

Who are a few other less-scientific Pi babies?  Quincy Jones, Billy Crystal, and among musicians of olde, George Telemann.

Happy Pi Day, everyone!

What I'm reading: I just finishe Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (recommend by Lee Wind's excellent blog). It's a great book, even though or especially because--depending on your perspective--the title immediately causes the Styx song to stick in one's ear like an earworm. Speaking as one, mind you.

What I'm listening to: When "Come Sail Away" isn't running through my head....I was able listen to Schubert's Winterreise recently.

What I'm working on: David Garner's Mein blaues Klavier, for my next concert (April 4)--it's also on our CD that's coming out on April 8!!!--and songs by Hans Winterberg for May 31 and June 2.

Promises, Promises...

...from Berkeley

San Diego Zoo Safari Park

With yesterday having been Leap Day, it seems fitting to think about time...Missing time, lost time, and making up time... Leap Day allows us to find a place for the lost time in the Gregorian calendar,  so that "real time" and the calendar stay in sync.  Likewise, in my case, the month of February flew by so quickly, that I, too, am out of sync and need that lost time to catch up with promised answers and topics from previous blog posts. Hence today is a day for catching up on overdue promises...A bit of housekeeping, as it were, but hopefully a bit more interesting than housekeeping, both to do and to read.

First, where did that mysterious picture up top and from two weeks ago come from?

As the caption (omitted in the original post) says, this is the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, on an amazingly warm (84 degrees!) day in early February.

Moving on to the even more shamefully overdue promised story about the origins of Verdi's opera La Traviata from many weeks ago....

Like many operas--a topic to explore on another day and another post--La Traviata comes from a successful literary work in another genre, in this case, the novel La Dame aux Camelias by Alexander Dumas fils (1824-1895).  Dumas based his protagonist on a real-life Parisian courtesan, Marie Duplessis who, much like Verdi's Violetta, died of tuberculosis.*  (The story was turned into a play as well. The moral of the story here? Good tales bouncily bound across genre borders as easily as Peter Rabbit.)

La Traviata premiered in 1853 in Venice and was set, against Verdi's wishes, in the turn-of-the-previous-century past. It wasn't until several decades later that stagings of La Traviata were moved to the 19th century "present" as Verdi had desired.

As is so often the case, opening night was a bit of a flop, with the requisite booing, including ample criticism that the 38-year old soprano, Fanny Salvini-Donatelli (pictured here) was far too old and far too...ample to play a character who died of consumption, or even a woman who would have been appealing enough to be a courtesan.** Nonetheless, La Traviata soon grew to become one of the world's most beloved operas, and Violetta one of opera world's favorite heroines.

*Any idea whichother famous, equally beloved soprano character in 19th century opera also dies of TB? Comment if you do and feel like it!

**This is an old, regular cavil for opera: plus ca change, etc., it would seem. But in my opinion, unlike in musical theater, where looking the part is much more crucial, opera singers need first and foremost to sing gloriously; looks should be a distant second.

What I'm reading: Deborah Crombie's The Sound of Broken Glass; Nest by Esther Ehrlich

What I'm listening to: the wonderful excerpts played in the first few episodes from the second season of Amazon's award-winning "Mozart in the Jungle."  Excerpts today included the overture to Le Nozze di Figaro; Schubert's 8th Symphony, Beethoven's 5th, Mozart's Rondo alla turca  and more Mozart, Mahler... What great music: Amazon should market a downloadable playlist!

What I'm working on: David Garner's Mein blaues Klavier, which goes into rehearsal this week for a repeat performance on April 4--just in time for the CD release on April 8...

What is it about the ancient Greeks?

...from Berkeley

Singing Elisa

I continue to almost-but-not-quite* binge-read my way through Deborah Crombie's marvelous Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery novels.  Over the weekend, while performing my debut as Elisa in The Handel Opera Project's chamber performance of Handel's rarely performed but ravishing score of Tolomeo, I also finished the fifth in Crombie's series, Dreaming of the Bones.  I found the denouement surprisingly moving--surprisingly, because being moved isn't what one always finds in British murder mystery novels.

To avoid any spoilers, let me just say that vengeance not-quite-a-la-Elektra rears its retributive head in Crombie's #5. Crombie refers to Elektra several times in her tale, including at the very end, which got me contemplating vengeance, as my Handelian character, Elisa, has her own, much, much milder attack of a different kind of vengeance. (A princess who is spurned by the man she loves--who turns out to be a prince in disguise who loves another--Elisa luckily lets her better self comes to the fore before she poisons said unlucky lover, whom she, instead, lets live and love. She doesn't quite get as far as loving the one she's with, but hey, she's a Handelian princess, right?)

All this brought me back, yet again, to that other "E" character, Elektra--especially as I just performed in a house concert of Strauss' Elektra again this past summer--and to her primal cry for vengeance, vengeance driven by the will of the Greek gods externally manifesting the internal needs of the human psyche. Which all goes to show that in such a deeply Jungian, collective-consciousness sense, in their plays, mythology, and all-too-human gods, the ancient Greeks got it right, mining key human emotions--vengeance,  retribution, and expiation all being at the core of so much tragedy, right down to this very day.

Perhaps the most moving of all for Elektra and Crombie #5 is the single voice crying aloud against evil that was once committed, and for it to be made right.Who'd a thunk that a mystery novel could generate such disturbing, philosophical thoughts? And yet the best ones do.

What I'm reading: Deborah Crombie's #6, Kissed a Sad Goodbye

What I'm listening to: Can't get Tolomeo out of my head, nor, for that matter, the Poulenc, Delage, and Tailleferre from last week.

What I'm working on: songs by John Harbison and David Garner, for concerts later this spring and our tour to Krakow this summer.


*Oh and why almost-but-not-quite binge reading?  Well, beyond my first time singing as Elisa over the weekend, I also performed some lovely French music in concert on Tuesday with Ensemble for These Times and on Wed. as well. It's hard to binge-read at full throttle when you're performing, as adequate sleep and concentration are prerequisites for singing well and staying healthy.  But I have to admit that the Duncan-Gemma duo created quite a temptation, taking all my professional will power to put them down.

The Boulanger Sisters

Nadia Boulanger in 1925

Lili Boulanger

A week or two ago, I had the opportunity to think about French music, specifically French music after 1900.  The opportunity? A serendipitous bit of advance program planning that dropped into my lap. It felt a bit like old home week in a very nice way, revisiting la France et sa musique--a musical "land" I'd spent a decent amount of time in the 90's with the Athena Trio and the talented Sylvie Beaudette and Jan Roberts-Hayden, touring and ultimately recording the program that became our CD "Fabulous Femmes."

So back to 20th century French music, programming, and women composers. I started thinking about the Boulanger sisters, Nadia and her younger sister Lili.  Without doubt the most influential musical pedagogue of the 20th century, Nadia taught literally scads of today's major composers. Her influence fans out exponentially if you include second generation Boulanger students, i.e., those composers who studied with those who studied with her.

Nadia won second place in the Prix de Rome, and lil' sis' Lili won it, the first woman to do so.  A talented composer in her own right, Nadia always insisted that her sib was the better of the two.  Yet Lili, never strong in constitution, died tragically young, before her 25th birthday.  In response, Nadia virtually ceased composing and turned her full attention to teaching, where she was already active, performing and conducting.

This leads to an interesting game of what if.

Imagine for a moment...

What if Lili had survived?  What then? 

Well, first of all, the world would probably have a wealth of works by Lili and Nadia--a wonderful legacy of both their musical talents and not a bad thing at all.

But what about all the composers who Nadia taught, such as Walter Piston, Marc Blitzstein, Elliott Carter,  Philip Glass, Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland, and locally, David Conte, among many others?  Might their compositional voices have developed differently?  What might the shape, color, and sound of classical music in the second half of the twentieth century, let alone today, have been like without Nadia Boulanger as such a major pedagogue, if, for example, she had continued  to split her attention between teaching and composing? Or if she'd decided to stop teaching and simply compose?

The mind boggles.

Much like so much of chaos theory, in which the beating of butterfly wings halfway across the globe can change things a continent away, a single event had untold significant consequences. In this case, stunning tragedy begot a stunningly positive legacy.

What I'm reading: Poetry by Czeslaw Milosz and Paul Celan; Meet at the Ark at Eight (yes, those were my chuckles you heard), Luna, The Princess Curse, Playing Juliet, and that fabulous international mystery set in Berlin, The Lady in Zagreb.

What I'm listening to: Clara Schumann's Op. 6 and Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertaenze (inspired by a lovely concert played by a friend and wonderful colleague recently); music by Nadia and Lili Boulanger.

What I'm working on: Winter Solstice Songs by Elena Ruehr, Kay Ryan Songs by Laura Schwendinger, Bartok folk settings, and songs by Vandor,  in other words, my  November performance repertory for E4TT.  (And a big shout out to the PJCC for presenting us this weekend for that repertory! Wonderful concert, with a great audience.)

The Winds of Change

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...that (plus the appropriate diacritical marks that I'm not currently able to get on Blogger) was the title for Jewish Music & Poetry Project's enewsletter in September.

What's changing?  Well, for one, I'm making a New Year's resolution (albeit, in the middle of October, so it's either late or early, depending on your point of view). And what is said resolution?  To post on my blog weekly. Shorter posts, undoubtedly, but weekly.  Regularly.  No more of this random occasional-ness that has frustrated many of you, my friends, colleagues, and fans.

Any takers wanting to bet on how long this new leaf will stay turned?  Comment here with your best guess.  May the cynical among you be disappointed...or at least inaccurate. Want to see if I actually manage to blog in a week, which would be unprecedented?  Tune in one week from now.  Or even better, sign up for the blog feed and find out the answer to this burning mystery.

What else? Well, how about the new name for Jewish Music & Poetry Project:  Ensemble for These Times? Our new logo is up above. And check out our spiffy new website at e4tt.org, too, if you feel so inclined. The JMPP will continue as a project of the ensemble and our mission will continue as before (new, nearly new, forbidden and forgotten music that is relevant to today)--but with a broader horizon and a much shorter/simpler URL for the website: e4tt.org vs. jewishmusicandpoetryproject.org. Dale Tsang is still the fabulous pianist, and David Garner if still my co-director and an amazing composer.  Watch over time to see our new commissioning initiatives, call for scores, and more.

Our first E4TT concert of the season? Coming right up this Thursday, Oct. 29, at Laney College, a program of all contemporary music by local and national U.S. composers.

What I'm reading: I recently finished: the first two books in Michelle Knudsen's engaging YA Trelian series. (Watch for her third volume to come out in April, 2016) and the very moving I Am J. Wonderful poems by Czeslaw Milosz. 

What I'm listening to: music by Missy Mazzoli, Derek Bermel, and Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915.

What I'm working on: songs by John Harbison, James Primosch, Kurt Erickson, Elena Ruehr, and John Reager, all for E4TT's Thursday concert, natch.

Dear ever-patient blog readers,

It has been a shamefully long time since I last posted here: I vow to do better going forward!

But it's been a very full, exciting and busy 15 months, with a performance tour in Hungary--for which I learned to sing in the beautiful but challenging language of Hungarian--recording a new CD, premieres of new music by Laura Schwendinger, William Ludtke, and David Garner, translating 4 middle grade novels and 6 middle grade graphic novels from Italian and French into English, a family reunion in NY, my normal performing schedule...and more. So hopefully you'll all forgive my absence on these blogging pages and understand the  hiatus.

The CD recording sessions took place last month, with the Jewish Music & Poetry Project's pianist Dale Tsang and cellist Adaiha MacAdam-Somer. Intense but satisfying.  Keep an eye on the Centaur Records online catalogue in 2016 (or this space, natch) for the release of Surviving: Women's Words, song cycles by David Garner of texts by four different women poets.

Back to the present, I just returned from the annual craziness known as Comic Con, which was just as packed and huge as ever--possibly even more so. There's always some concern that it's gotten too big (legitimate) and that it's becoming too much of a pop culture haven (also legitimate), but it remains a fun and energy-packed time.  For me, it's a chance to check out the swag (books, books, and more books!), attend panels, see friends, and visit the SoCal wing of my family.  A shout out to First Second, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year with not one or two but three Eisner Awards, for The Zoo Box by Ariel Cohn and Aron Nels Steinke, This One Summer by Mariko and Jilliam Tamaki (which I read earlier this year and recommend), and The Shadow Hero by the multitalented Gene Luen Yang whose Airbender: The Last Avatar, from Dark Horse was the other half of his best writer award; also to Graphix/ Scholastic for its Eisner-winning Sisters by Reina Telgemeier, and to all the other Eisner nominees and winners.  Now everyone gets to catch their breath until next year's Con.

It's less than a month until another big annual conference in SoCal, although one that's a little tamer than Comic Con, thank goodness: the annual SCBWI conference from July 30-Aug. 3. I'm thrilled to have been asked to give a workshop on translating, quite the honor, as it's the first time they're having a talk on the subject.  Check out Avery Udagawa's interview with me on the SCBWI blog if you feel like it...

 In a far more sobering note, an important professor  of mine from grad school died this week at the age  of 81, Alan Curtis.  Alan had a major impact on  the early music movement, both at the keyboard  and also conducting Handel and Monteverdi.  And he had a major influence on me:  performing in the Collegium as a grad student with  him directing-- particularly my singing the role of Nino in Cesti's  Semiramide with the inimitable Elizabeth Anker-- was crucial in my decision to be an opera singer.  Requiescat in pace to him, and to also the towering  dramatic tenor, Jon Vickers, who passed away last  week.

Watch a marvelous interview with Alan Curtis  during recording sessions for Alcina in 2009, with Joyce Didonato and other wonderful musicians.

To hear some Monteverdi live, check out West Edge Opera's Festival 2015, which will include Monteverdi's Il ritorno di Ulisse in Patria, conducted by Music Sources' Gilbert Martinez.

What I'm reading: all the marvelous books I got on Comic Con! More later...

What I'm listening to: the first edits of the JMPP's CD, to give feedback to our wonderful team of audio engineer, Jason O'Connell, and producer David Garner; Elektra (Strauss, for performing).

What I'm working on: new-to-me Bartok settings for 2015/16 concerts; the Fuenfte Magde from Elektra by Strauss for a concert performance in August.

Grand Budapest Hotel, Miklos Rozsa, and World Premieres by Garner and Ruehr

Photo by Michael Halberstadt

Here in very occasional blog-land, I'm trying out a new way of going about this, using my trusty old 'droid mini Nexus tab (yes,  I was  a VERY early adopter on that particular trend) and a brand new Logitech keyboard that my kid got me for my birthday present.  (What a great kid!) Although it's for iOS, it seems to play very nicely with the Android OS, with only a few differences from what I'm used to, at least thus far.  Time will tell: perhaps the ease and beauty of use will persuade me to make this blog a regular thing (gasp!), instead of a random and very occasional one.

Speaking of which, everyone's subscriptions for the blog have gotten somewhat...messed up: for example, if you were subscribed here before Google killed off Google Reader a while back, you no longer are--and some subscriptions somehow went with that as well.  So if readers could pretty please resubscribe (it's now much easier, though), that would be a wonderful thing and greatly appreciated.  It took me a looong time to notice (actually I never did: an attentive reader told me she was having trouble with the subscribe feature), and even longer to fix it. Mea maxima culpa.  

Coming up this very weekend (on Saturday, March 29 at 8 p.m. in Berkeley...subtle hint, no?)  is the JMPP's next program of premieres at Trinity Chamber Concerts (2320 Dana St.... yet another even more subtle hint, yes?).  It's a great lineup: David Garner's newest song cycle for the group, to texts by Yala Korwin, Garner's new additions to his cycle Phoenix, Elena Ruehr's new song cycle Winter Solstice Songs, to texts by Berkeley poet Marcia Falk, plus Ruth Lomon's arrangement of her song "The Butterfly" for soprano, cello, and piano, and works by Czech and Hungarian composers Sandor Vandor, Miklos Rozsa, and Vitezslava Kapralova.  All this plus a composer/ poet Q&A at the start wth Garner and Falk.  Elena Ruehr had hoped to come, but in the end wasn't able to do so. Performers are cellist Adaiha MacAdam-Somer, Dale Tsang, and yours truly.

To all those wonderful readers and fans who correctly answered the JMPP's newsletter quiz (about which of this program's composers won 3 Oscars), congratulations!  If you'd like to find out the answer--and incidentally hear about the JMPP's future concerts--you can sign up at info at jewishmusicandpoetryproject.org.  Here's a visual hint, as well;).

Before I end this endlessly shameless (or shameful?) plug, in more exciting news, the JMPP is honored and thrilled to have received a grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation Community Arts Program, in support of our March 29 concert.

Moving on to other topics: The Grand Budapest Hotel.  Yes, a movie!  Without giving away the plot or committing other acts of heinous spoilers, this wonderful Wes Anderson film is a comic, quirky, sweet and sometimes bittersweet paean to a time that has long passed, lost in the chaos of the events of the 20th century.  Highly recommended.

What I'm reading: Jasper Fforde's fabulous "Thursday Next" series. If you like Terry Pratchett and serious lit, too, you'll get a kick out of this smarmily tongue-in-cheek alternate universe series. And, on a far more serious note: Who Shall Live: the Wilhelm Bachner Story by Samuel Oliner and Kathleen Lee.  A chilling look at Eastern Europe in the 1940s under the Nazis, and one brave Jewish soul who saved many.

What I'm listening to: Andrea Chenier (the opera), Lorde, Bach (can one ever get enough of this intellectual master?), Mahler (ditto!), Prokofiev, Gershwin, and Crumb.

Music I'm working on: the pieces for Saturday's concert, natch, plus music for the Vinaccesi Ensemble's program at the Legion of Honor on April 5.  More on this last coming next week, should this occasional blogger manage to blog again soon. 

The Pianist of Willesden Lane

While it's been a blink of an eye in occasional-blog land, time has passed in the "real" world, where it's been several months since I last posted. Since then, I've shared the friendly skies with about a half dozen airline  companies with varying levels of comfort, even though the Eastern European tour was postponed. (Why? Think government shutdown (see below) and you'll have a clue on that one.) And just last month, both the Vinaccesi Ensemble and the Jewish Music & Poetry Project  had wonderful performances, at SF Music Day, Live + Free and Cafe Europa, respectively. For Cafe Europa (and the tour) I'd been learning to sing in Hungarian, thanks to a patient Hungarian coach and native speakers.  In my so-called spare time, I've been studying Hungarian as well: what a beautiful language.

Now that's it's November, Thanksgiving is drawing nigh in a once-in-a-millenium confluence of Thanksgivukkah which makes it already time to work on holiday concerts. Amazing how 2013 has flown...

In the meantime I saw a fabulous production last night with some great family friends. It's a must-see.  So if you're in driving distance, buy tickets and run, do not walk, to the absolutely brilliant production at Berkeley Rep of The Pianist at Willesden Lane, a one-woman show narrated and performed by pianist Mona Golabek, based on the true
story of her mother (pianist Lisa Jura), who was saved by the grace of the Kindertransport before WWII. A moving performance and a work of art, now extended to January 5, 2014.

On to more contemporary and mundane matters: the U.S. government shut down. Yes, that affected yours truly.  The JMPP was to be in Eastern Europe in October for a tour sponsored by the U.S. Embassy and part of the Daniel Pearl World Music Days.  But due to the shutdown, we've been postponed. Latest word is maybe, maybe...hopefully maybe Fall 2014.  Keep your fingers crossed and we'll keep you posted.

Oh, and did I mention that my accomplished sister, law professor Robin Feldman, testified as an expert witness on patent trolls for the hearing by the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations' this past Thursday, entitled "The Impact of Patent Assertion Entities on Innovation and the Economy?"

Am I proud of her, or what?  Check out her learned tome on the subject, if you're curious--Rethinking Patent Law--and her testimony, starting around 13:20 in the following clip:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=932oen0UjwE .Yes, that's her with the clear diction, cogent argument, and excellent delivery--not to mention the lovely sweater. Great job, Ms. Feldman!

Recently read: Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1, by Marissa Meyer).  Excellent.  Just when you think you've seen every twisted spin on retold fairy tales worth reading, a new one comes along that knocks your socks off.  As does this one.  It's based on...you can guess, I'm sure.

What I'm reading: The Golden Dice: A Tale of Ancient Rome (by Elizabeth Storr, the sequel to her award-winning The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome) and Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races.

What I'm listening to: Beethoven Sonatas (Moonlight, Op. 26, Op. 13, Op. 31, Waldstein), songs and arias by Rameau and Campra, lots of concerts by my busy friends, including the talented Michael S.

What I'm working on: other than Christmas concerts, lots of new music by Elena Ruehr, David Garner, and Kurt Erickson, for preview in January and premiere by the JMPP in April at Trinity Chamber Concerts; music by French Baroque composers for the Vinaccesi Ensemble's appearance at Noontime Concerts on Jan. 21 as part of Noontime's annual French Festival.

Two wonderful musicians: George Mesterhazy and Zheng Cao

In the universe of my very occasional blog, here's a very much belated post about a colleague and marvelous jazz pianist, plus a slightly less belated post about another wonderful musician and talented mezzo-soprano.

I met George Mesterhazy through a Mensa-musician friend, a trombone player named Herb Roselle who thought we'd enjoy knowing each other and talking music, and connected us.  Herb was right...and I had the pleasure and privilege of hearing George play live in San Francisco a couple of years ago.  Such a special player, arranger, and composer!

George passed away in his sleep in April 12, 2012 (yes, over a year ago: I'm embarrassingly delinquent in this post, with my apologies to all), and Herb has given me permission to post this clip of a soulful, lyrical Tennessee Waltz that he recorded when George let him put a digital recorder inside George's piano as he played.

Enjoy...

Another inspiring, generous, and fabulous musician passed away this year on Feb. 12 after a long battle with cancer: mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao. Formerly an Adler Fellow and long associated with SF Opera, Zheng premiered Bonesetter's Daughter (operatic setting of the wonderful Amy Tan novel) and was beloved among audiences and colleagues for her passionate performances and warm, rich mezzo-soprano voice.  There's an open Facebook group as a memorial to her, Zheng Cao celebration, and a public memorial is planned on June 24 at 3 p.m.  Hear her warm, rich portrayal of "You'll never walk alone" in 2011.

Two beautiful stars in the musical firmament for us all to keep alive in our hearts.

What I'm listening to: Salamone Rossi's madrigals and canzonettas; Barbara Strozzi duets, especially "Begl' occhi"; Elena Ruehr, David Garner, and Laura Schwendinger, Ruth Lomon.

What I'm studying: Ruth Lomon, Viteslzava Kapralova, Gabriela Lena Frank,  Edwin Geist and David garner for the  upcoming JMPP concert (May 19, San Jose).

What I'm reading: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children; Job by Joseph Roth, The Time Keeper by Mitch Alboum, and Stoner by John Williams.

Vinaccesi, CDs and Premieres

The Vinaccesi Ensemble at the Legion of Honor, at the end of our March 17, 2013, La Belle Vie concert.

L to R, Jonathan Smucker, Kindra Scharich, Susie Fong, Nanette McGuinness, Hallie Pridham.

Time for some more shameless plugs...

But first, for those inquiring minds who might want to know, the Vinaccesi Ensemble's concert was wonderful, with a large, generous audience, terrific presenters/ hosts (thank you, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music and Legion of Honor!), a lovely space, and a wonderful harpsichord, courtesy of John Phillips.  A great time was had by all on both sides of the proscenium--not that there actually was a proscenium, mind you.  The picture above comes from a friend's iPhone, at the end of the concert.

And a quick note about a world premiere earlier this week, of Pulitzer-Prize winning and Grammy nominee Steven Stucky's The Stars and the Roses, beautifully performed by Noah Stewart and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Joana Carneiro.  A shimmering three-song work (to poetry by the ever-wonderful Czeslaw Milosz) with transparent textures for the orchestra and lyrical writing for the glorious voice of the former Adler fellow. Stucky dedicated the piece to his about-to-be-wife, whom he charmingly told the audience he was flying off to marry after the concert: a sweet introduction to a lovely piece.

Back to the plugs...

Coming up this week, I've got two important events.  First, on April 1 (no fooling!), the Vinaccesi's premiere CD will be officially released on Centaur Records.  Benedetto Vinaccesi the Solo Cantatas contains all 8  extant solo cantatas by the group's namesake, that quirky, stylish and inventive Venetian composer.You can buy the CD from Centaur, directly from the ensemble, from Arkiv Music, etc. (Centaur CRC 3270).*

The CD includes the above musicians, plus bass Kirk Eichelberger and archlutenist Sarge Gerbode.

Hmmm, that's long enough for now.  Not to be tantalizing, but the next plug will come tomorrow or next day.  In the meantime, Happy Passover and Happy Easter to all.

What I'm reading: Sadly, I've now finished all the Martin Walker Inspector Bruno books that have been written thus far.  Hopefully there will be more soon.

What I'm listening to: Garner, Stucky, Erickson, Vinaccesi, Salamone Rossi, Elena Ruehr, and much more, natch!

*A blog with a footnote?  Could it be!  But every once in awhile, my erstwhile academic hackles rise again. and this is one of those moments: we couldn't have made the CD without our fantastic recording engineer, Michael Demeyer, nor without the help of a grant from the Musical Grant Program, which is administered by the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music and supported by the Heller Foundation, the Hewlette Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, and San Francisco Grants for the Arts.

Vinaccesi Ensemble at the Legion of Honor

It's been an amazing 2013 thus far, with a plethora of fabulous musical events every weekend, so many of them performed by my wonderful colleagues.  So much good music, so little time...at the risk of sounding too   wide-eyed and "gee whiz" about things, the Bay Area is such a wonderful place!

Today's post is a last-minute shameless--or should I say shameful?--plug for this Sunday's concert that my Baroque chamber group, the Vinaccesi Ensemble, will be performing: March 17 at noon at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.  It's part of the La Belle Vie 2013 series at the Legion of Honor, co-produced by the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music and accompanies the Legion's exhibit, the Royal Treasures from the Louvre: Louis XIV to Marie Antoinette, which has just been extended to March 31.

For this concert, Vinaccesi Ensemble (me, mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich, tenor Jonathan Smucker, Hallie Pridham, Baroque cello and gamba, and Susie Fong, harpsichord; our bass Kirk Eichelberger will be on the road and unable to join us) will feature music performed in Paris during the lifetimes of the Sun King and Marie Antoinette, that is, between 1630 and 1790, which will include pieces by Marais, Couperin, Rameau, Handel, de la Barre, Gluck, the young Mozart, and the ever popular Monsieur Anonyme, as well as a melody by the royal Sun King's father, Louis XIII. 

Susie Fong will perform on a newly-completed harpsichord based on a 1707 Nicholas Dumont instrument by renowned Berkeley harpsichord maker John Phillips, who will discuss the instrument during intermission and after the concert.

AND...equally exciting, the Vinaccesi Ensemble's new CD--due to be released on Centaur Records on April 1, no fooling!--has shipped and is available for purchase from the ensemble and at the concert.  Benedetto Vinaccesi: the Solo Cantatas has all 8 extant solo cantatas by the group's inventive and stylish Venetian namesake. (More on this in a future post perhaps?)

As a quick side note, the 28th Jewish Music Festival in Berkeley produced the world premiere of David Garner's Vilna Poems, with texts by renowned Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.  Garner's compositions are always moving and ever-lyrical, and this song cycle--beautifully performed by Lisa Delan, soprano, Kristin Pankonin, piano, David Krakauer, clarinet, and Matt Haimowitz, cello--is no exception.  You can hear Garner's radio interview with Sarah Cahill on KALW in which he talks about about this and others of his pieces (including the song cycle of his I'll be premiering in April, "Phoenix"--but more about that on a future post).  The second half of the program centered on a breathtaking performance of Messiaen's  ethereal--and timeless--Quartet for the End of Time, by Krakauer, Haimowitz, Kay Stern and Kathleen Tagg.

As a second quick side note, I have several more belated and overdue topics for my always-occasional and ever-delinquent blog.  Perhaps the month of March will be a good one for slightly more timely posting, or at least catching up?  Time will tell... but as we're enjoying an early, lovely spring here in Berkeley, hope--at least in this blogger's heart--springs eternal.

And as a third and final side note, March 14 was my birthday (as well as that of my niece and my stepsister--three Pi day birthdays shared with Albert Einstein in one fabulous family ;)) and I wanted to thank all my  wonderful friends who wished me a happy birthday today!

The regular disclaimer: I'm talking about friends and acquaintances in this post...

What I'm listening to: Strauss, Wolf, Garner, Geist, Handel, Gluck, Mozart, Lomon, Ruehr, Golijov, Gabriela Lena Frank, and much, much more. This is a busy month!

What I'm working on: all of the above.

What I'm reading: Martin Walker's Black Diamond (the third in his excellent Inspector Bruno series); Cinda Williams Chima's Seven Realm series, and more....

Fabulous Poppea

Just a quick note today:  run, don't walk, to see West Edge Opera's fabulous Poppea.  

There are only two more shows, Feb. 1 and Feb. 2., so time is of the essence!

With a period chamber ensemble stylishly conducted from one of two harpsichords by Music Source's Gilbert Martinez, WEO has another hit on its hands.  And with now-G.D. Mark Streshinsky at the helm, the company continues to make consistently brilliant artistic decisions in the pieces chosen, how they are updated, and how they are trimmed down.

For Poppea, WEO has pruned the excellent score (by musicologist and conductor Alan Curtis) to Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea into two roughly one-hour acts, and--a canny decision-- left the opera in the original Italian--Gott sei Dank.  This is one opera that I'd rather see in Italian any day.

The singing and acting is uniformly excellent--as the talent pool in the Bay  Area is wide and deep.  Perhaps one of the biggest strokes of genius was to cast the marvelous soprano Christine Brandes as Nerone (Nero).  With soprano Emma McNairy as Poppea, the red-hot onstage chemistry between the two sensually smolders as Poppea seduces her way to an empress' throne, aided and abetted by a hilarious cross-dressing Arnalta (Brian Thorsett)--who looks to do a mean mani-pedi.  Paul Thompson is suitably stoic as an end-of-life, emphysema-stricken Seneca (an interesting touch), and countertenor Ryan Belongie and soprano Tonia D'Amello present an appealing--and much more innocent--couple as foils to Nerone and Poppea.

WEO's productions continue to be don't-miss events.  You can help the company grow, as they've received an NEA matching grant.

Warnings and disclaimers: 1) don't take the younger kids, though--the bedroom scenes and video graphics are relatively explicit for opera; 2) .many of the folks here are friends and acquaintances.

What I'm reading:  Poetry by Ruth Stone, Connie Wanek, and Chana Bloch, Mercedes Lackey's Collegium Chronicles; the newest Thea Stilton Graphic Novel; James Alan Gardner's Expendable.

What I'm listening to and working on: Handel and Caldara cantatas, new music by S.F. composer David Garner (Phoenix, for the JMPP's premiere on April 5 at Old First Concerts), excerpts from Gluck's Orphee (the French 1774 version) for the Vinaccesi Ensemble's concert at the Legion of Honor in SF on March 17 and much, much more.  This is a busy, busy season--and I'm grateful!

Back from Berlin!

After an easy return to the U.S. and a fabulous family Thanksgiving--I hope everyone also had a wonderful Thanksgiving!--I'm returning to post on my shamefully occasional blog.

Yes, oh faithful and forgiving blog readers, today's post goes into the shameless plug department, to quote, shamelessly, from the recently retired Car Talk show hosts, the "Tappit" Brothers.

But first, a tad of catching up...
The last part of my trip was a whirlwind of train rides (Go, Eurail!), meetings, a beautifully played, moving concert in Berlin, archival research at the Akademie der Kuenste and snippets of sightseeing here and there.  Budapest, for example, is ever so schoen (oh, so lovely)!

The moving concert was "Musik der Erinnerung," performed by the Neue Juedische Kammerphilharnomie Dresden, conducted by Maestro Michael Hurshell at the Synagogue Rykestrasse.  The NJKD program explores orchestral music by some of the composers that we also focus on in the Jewish Music & Poetry Project.

Which leads me to the shameless plug.  Coming up on Sunday, December 9 at 3:00 p.m., at the Berkeley Arts Festival, 2133 University Avenue in Berkeley, pianist Dale Tsang-Hall, cellist Adaiha Macadam-Somer, and I will perform new music to poetry by Jewish women writers, as well as "forbidden" music, i.e., by composers whose works were banned and whose lives were altered--or worse--during the Holocaust.

The program includes songs and solo piano music by: composers Alexander Zemlinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Erich Korngold, Pavel Haas, Edwin Geist, Vitezslava Kapralova, and David Garner, the collaborative composer-in-residence and co-director, with me, of the JMPP, to poetry by Mascha Kaleko, Annette von Droste-Huelshoff, Rose Auslaender, Richard Dehmel, and more..

If you're interested in coming to the concert:
    

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Speaking of David Garner, kudos and congratulations!  After years of writing terrific, cool, and beautiful music, he has been nominated for a 2013 Award in Music by the American Academy of Arts & Letters!

What I'm working on: music for our December 9 concert (natch)

What I'm reading: after waiting for from the ever-popular and well-stocked Berkeley Public Library, Gone Girl.  Definitely worth the wait.  A twisted murder mystery about a woman who goes missing.   Without adding any plot spoilers, suffice it to say that the usual suspect is...suspected, but the missing woman's body is...missing.

What I'm listening to: Dresden songwriter Ursula Kurze's CD, which she was kind enough to send a copy of to me. Very nice.  She has a setting of Mascha Kaleko's "Gebet" (which David Garner also set), that's quite different from his.  It's always interesting to hear two different artistic minds approach the same text!

Back from Deutschland

This past spring, I did more than my normal share of crossing the Atlantic pond back and forth and then back again, in too short a time span, with meetings and auditions in Germany, Italy, and Austria. I made some great new friends, enjoyed visiting with some old ones, and got some positive results from the whole effort(more on those when contracts are firmly in hand...)

While I was in D-land, I started studying scores by some wonderful Jewish composers who perished in the Holocaust, in preparation for a program I'm putting together for 2012/13. Looking through these pieces evokes such unspeakable sadness. It's horrible when a life is cut short by human action, be it the life of a talented young artist, a mature composer, or "just" a normal person. The Kaleko/ Garner project, Chanson fuer Morgen--which we premiered in April--addresses this, too.

Now that I'm back, though, it's Vinaccesi time. Is that some kind of rare northern Italian vintage micro-brew? Not one bit, not even a sip.

Besides being devilishly difficult to spell, Benedetto Vinaccesi is the name of an obscure seventeenth century Italian composer, most of whose works didn't survive to the present. He's also the namesake for the Baroque chamber group I'm in, the Vinaccesi Ensemble. We are recording all 8 of his extant solo cantatas later this summer and we'll be performing 6 of them at the end of July in SF. They are quirky, expressive pieces, and well worth investigating.

Shameless plug: the Ensemble has some great players and singers: Jonathan Smucker (tenor), Kindra Scharich (mezzo-soprano), Kirk Eichelberger (bass), Amy Brodo (cello), Sarge Gerbode (archlute), and Jonathan Davis (harpsichord). Check us out at Old First Concerts on July 29! If you mention this blog when you say "hi" afterwards, you'll make me smile.


What I'm reading: I just finished Alyson Noel's fabulous Evermore YA series--a coming of age sextet that deals with transformation and spiritual growth. Noel takes the issues, characters, and voices she first began developing in Faking 19 and hones them to a high level.

What I'm listening to: The Ring, Das Rheingold! The SF Ring was all-around fab. Now it's my turn to learn Das Rheingold from the inside out, as I prepare to sing Freia this fall. Plus a fun jazz CD by a new friend from Berlin, Bettina Pohle.