a southern gal in the north

“Of all the professional trainings, music is the most demanding. Even medicine, law, and scholarship, though they often delay a man’s entry into married life, do not interfere with his childhood or adolescence.

Music does. No musician ever passes an average or normal infancy, with all that that means of abundant physical exercise and a certain mental passivity. He must work very hard indeed to learn his musical matters and to train his hand, all in addition to his schoolwork and his play-life. I do not think he is necessarily overworked. I think rather that he is just more elaborately educated than his neighbors. …In any case, musical training is long, elaborate, difficult, and intense. Nobody who has had it ever regrets it or forgets it. And it builds up in the heart of every musician that those who have had it are not only different from everybody else but definitely superior to most and that all musicians together somehow form an idealistic society in the midst of a tawdry world.”

–Virgil Thomson, From “The State of Music,” (1962 Second Edition) in Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Musiced. Elliott Schwartz and Barney Childs (New York: Da Capo, 1998), 173-4.

Joshua Nemith’s Cincinnati Pianist Blog.

given the rate that the blog says they are inviting folks – my invite should be in the next week or so

August blahs

remember that yarn I ordered from Elann? the baby lace merino – i LOVED the color and still do but the yarn – not so much.  yesterday i tried to wind the yarn – let me tell you it was NOT happening – i rewound that one ball about three times and then tried to cast on – even using size 1 lace needles – i HATED it.  I don’t think SUPERFINE yarn and I go together.

but the problem is i am CRAVING a red lace shawl – i have been drooling over the shawls in the SIMPLY STUNNING projects (Sharon Miller) and even thinking of ordering a few more from the website (although at the current exchange rate its ludicrous prices) and even to designing my own (i have her book).  but am really disappointed in finding a beautiful red – and actually like the ELANN red – so i went stash shopping and found a pretty deepish red from Mountain Colors BEARFOOT in Ruby River that I had bought earlier this year (one skein) for socks (never having done any wanted to make them in red of course). 

Love the color but its nylon, mohair and superwash – not sure how those combos will do for a lacey shawl… wonder if the superwash means not much give in the blocking process.  however LOVE the colors.

So then after a night of tossing in the lovely (that’s sarcasm folks) humidity of the august heat wave that is our weather this week (and suppose to break tonight please please)… i thought i might try to DOUBLE the Elann Baby Lace Merino.

So late this afternoon I took the one wound ball and an unwound ball – and had fun (yeah really) winding them together – i managed to get two balls of two strands each – I am not sure if I will like it after all but will try to swatch tonight.

but i am still surfing for a pretty fingering weight (i guess thats what works for me) or sock weight red.

any suggestions, please ?

as for CECE – we are stuck on SLEEVE ISLAND.  having restarted the first sleeve twice in order to figure out a good way to do the increases in the lace pattern – not as easy as it is written but finally figured out something that may work (after all how often will the underarm side be seen anyway – but you know, YOU know.)

Funny seeing this as I am in New Mexico …

By Matthew Westphal
August 9, 2007

Richard Gaddes, who has served as Santa Fe Opera’s general director for a decade, has asked the company’s board of directors to begin searching for his successor.

The company announced the news yesterday following the board’s August meeting. Gaddes has not set a firm resignation date, agreeing to remain on the job until a new general director is hired.

“After much reflection, I’ve concluded that the time is right to begin active succession planning,” he told the board. “I have reached age 65, and the company is in a strong artistic and fiscal position. During my immensely rewarding career here, Santa Fe has become my home, and I intend to remain involved with the Opera for as long as it takes to ensure a smooth transition.”

 RTWT
 

Qiviut Cardigan from The Natural Knitter by Barbara Albright. Cardigan designed by Linda Romens.

Photo from zeitgeist yarns blog

Listening to the wonderful GOTTERDAMMERUNG from the Royal Albert Hall while packing and enjoying a lazy Sunday here in hot Albuquerque with family.   We have arrived at the first scene of ACT Three… and its all glorious.

In trolling my feeds – The Collaborative Piano Blog (which always has pithy relevant items) had this …

Schumann’s Rules for Young Musicians

I will post the entire set at my Music blog… wonderful advice!

Now back to the Rhinemaidens…

On Tuesday morning at 6 am, I left Newark Airport for Albuquerque, New Mexico.  One of my sisters lives there and I joined my mother and a family friend for a week’s visit.

It will be a welcome change from the HEAT and HUMIDITY that we have had in the Northeast along the Hudson River this past week…. ugh!  Even the cats were not happy – laying stretched out on the cold tiles of the bathroom (Katie) or in front of the Vornado fan in the hallway (Cordelia). 

It was an uneventful flight except that I was looking forward to a long nap on the second leg from Cincinnati to Albuquerque and my seat mate thwarted those plans.  He was one of those chatty men – talked the ENTIRE trip and thank goodness he had been a fighter jet pilot (Naval) and then a carrier commandeer so at least there were interesting stories.  I tried several times to pause or end the conversation by mentioning that I had been up all night and was tired (yawning); but somehow I couldn’t manage to convey my message.  Oh well, I learned a lot about the military perspective of the current war and government.

This is the skyline of Albuquerque.  Albuquerque is home to the University of New Mexico (UNM) and Kirtland Air Force Base as well as Sandia National Laboratories and Petroglyph National Monument. The Sandia Mountains run along the eastern side of Albuquerque and the Rio Grande flows through the city north to south.

Today we are traveling a few miles northeast to Santa Fe and will be staying there thru Friday – seeing DAPHNE tonight and TEA tomorrow night with a backstage tour for today and the dinner buffet at the opera house before the opera and then hanging out in Santa Fe tomorrow during the day. 

I am experiencing a horrific allergy attack – since my arrival yesterday afternoon – have had to triple my dose of lotaradine and take sinus headache medicine as well; this is one of the worst in many years… hopefully it will be better tonight as I am especially looking forward to seeing Erin Wall in DAPHNE.  And to the entire SFO experience.

Reports later.

AUGUST 5 MITSUKO UCHIDA, PIANO
BEETHOVEN’S FINAL SONATAS PART II
Sunday, 4:30pm
Venetian Theater
Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111

Ms. Uchida has chosen Caramoor as the only New York presenter of these programs.

It’s an unbelievable thing that I’m doing the one thing I love, and people pay me for it! – Mitsuko Uchida

I happen to agree with this review –

August 7, 2007
Music Review | Caramoor International Music Festival
Beethoven’s Final Sonatas Blossom in Complex Simplicity
By ANNE MIDGETTE

KATONAH, N.Y., Aug. 5 — Virtuosos are often praised with the statement that they make the music sound easy. The last 3 of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas did not sound easy when Mitsuko Uchida played them on Sunday afternoon at the final concert of this year’s Caramoor International Music Festival. The beginning of Opus 109 — Sonata No. 30 — sounded like a tangled wealth of notes that took all the work of 10 fingers to keep under control. This was, of course, an interpretive decision; if the music sounds difficult in the hands of Ms. Uchida, it is definitely because she wants it to.

The underlying question — spotlighted in Beethoven’s late works — is whether it is the point of music to sound easy at all. It is a question that continues to resonate. (Do people listen to classical music to relax or to be challenged?)

Beethoven’s music is commonly portrayed as a struggle. It was certainly a struggle to those confronting it for the first time. It can hardly be described as merely “pretty,” and it still poses considerable challenges, both technical and dramaturgical, to players and listeners. Yet the struggle in many of the final works is precisely about the difficulty of achieving simplicity.

Caramoor International Music Festival – Music – Review – New York Times.

figs…

see the recipe below from the inadvertent gardener

Grilled Figs with Rosemary and Honey
(Serves two)

6 fresh, whole figs, trimmed and halved (I used Calmyrna, but Mission would be great, too)
2 Tbsp. honey
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary

1. Grill the figs over medium-high heat for 6 to 8 minutes, turning once midway through.
2. Divide between two plates. Drizzle one Tbsp. of honey over each plate of figs, then top each with a Tbsp. of the chopped rosemary.
3. Serve. Eat. Sigh.

there was a fig tree in our next door neighbor’s yard that was HUGE – it must have been at least 50 years old – in fact, i think it was planted by the neighbor’s father.  anyway, it produced the most wonderful figs – and we would go crazy eating them.  i still think the best way to eat figs is straight off the tree, juicy and full of the summer sun.

i would love to grow one here in the hudson valley but don’t think it would survive the winters – sigh.

Upstairs, Downstairs at Carnegie Hall
BY LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES
August 1, 2007

It’s art versus art at Carnegie Hall. In May, the venue’s leadership announced that the leases of tenants in the adjoining Studio Towers would not be renewed. Now it has moved aggressively to empty the more than 50 units situated above the concert halls, beginning eviction proceedings in July. But the tenants, many of whom have lived and worked there for decades, are putting up a legal fight and will air their concerns to local politicians at a meeting in the studios this evening.

The battle is not the classic New York story of landlord against tenants. Instead, it pits longtime residents, many of them elderly and still working in the arts, against a concert hall they love. Carnegie Hall intends to house its growing education programs in the towers after extensive renovation to begin in 2009.

“We understand they need the space, but something is missing,” photographer Josef Astor said.

Mr. Astor has occupied a multi-level studio on the eighth floor since 1985. His 22-year tenancy notwithstanding, he is one of the newer people in the building. He is also middle-aged, which makes him among the youngest.

Upstairs and across the way in the south tower is 95-year-old Editta Sherman, whose door advertises her work in “celebrity camera portraits.” She has lived and worked there since 1949, back when it was easy to rent space in the building. “Many studios were available,” she said. “It was surprising. People just didn’t move in. And they used to advertise — a full page!”

Nicknamed the Duchess of Carnegie Hall long ago by her neighbor, photographer Bill Cunningham, Ms. Sherman raised her five children in the duplex space whose 30-foot ceilings are capped with an enormous skylight. Oversize black-and-white portraits of the many Carnegie Hall musicians she has shot are propped against the mirrored walls with her photos of a few others, including Henry Fonda and Andy Warhol.

“She needs a studio. She’s still working,” Ms. Sherman’s daughter, Carole Sherman, said as her mother gamely posed for a Sun photographer. “After 58 years, she’s part of Carnegie Hall. That’s her identity.”

RTWT

And today…this sad news:

Artists Sue Carnegie in Eviction Fight
BY DAVID POMERANTZ – Special to the Sun
August 3, 2007

Artists facing eviction from their Carnegie Hall studio space are taking their fight to court, asking a judge to block the music venue from forcing them to move out.

The tenants filed a lawsuit yesterday against the Carnegie Hall Corporation and the city of New York in State Supreme Court in Manhattan in which they ask the court to declare that their leases should be renewed.

The conflict began May 21, when the corporation announced that the leases of the tenants, who live in the Studio Towers above Carnegie Hall, would not be renewed, allowing the venue to renovate the space to use for education programs.

Carnegie Hall began eviction proceedings last month, prompting tenants to meet with local politicians, as The New York Sun reported on Wednesday.

The tenants’ lawsuit appears to hinge on a rent-control law that says a landlord cannot evict a tenant in a rent-controlled apartment unless the landlord is seeking to demolish the tenant’s building. The artists contend in their suit that Carnegie Hall’s renovation plans constitute a gut rehabilitation rather than a full-scale demolition. Only an “actual razing of the structure” would qualify as a demolition, the suit says.

Spokesmen for Carnegie Hall did not return a call for comment. The city’s law department has not yet received the legal papers, a spokeswoman, Laura Postiglione, said.

a blogger from the great city of the south writes in anticipation of a return visit to that New Orleans institution  – Galatoires – and evokes memories of many meals.

RTWT  ode to galatoire’s

ah, yes, traditions… read this from the restaurant’s own page.

Galatoire’s traditions have been preserved with little change through the decades. There has, however, been a slight modification of the restaurant’s once impenetrable policy of no reservations*. Known for years by its characteristic line snaking down Bourbon Street, patrons would wait for hours just to get a table— especially on Fridays.

One Friday, President Ronald Reagan placed a call to then retired U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston who happened to be waiting in line for a table. After the President’s call had ended, Senator Johnston graciously returned to his position in line. Today, Galatoire’s does accept reservations for second floor dining. The first floor policy remains first come, first served at Galatoire’s. Senator or not.

And to tempt you..three classic recipes:

Shrimp Remoulade | Grilled Lemon Fish | Bread Pudding

 * reservations are now taken for the second floor of the restaurant only.