The Welcoming Neighbor

Before heading back to my apartment on Sunday after returning from Boston, I trekked up ten blocks to a close friend's house for a quick dinner so I could catch her and her adorable one-and-a-half year-old daughter before it was the little girl's bedtime. Leaving her apartment and beginning the walk back to my place with my suitcase, I noticed that it had started to rain again. Not quite a downpour, yet certainly more than drizzle. A healthy spring shower.

I debated catching a cab for the ten block journey, but decided against it. It's not too long of a walk, and I thought that I could make it without getting too drenched. I was mistaken. About half-way home, the shower picked up and became a heavier rainfall, big drops soaking my suitcase and blurring the lenses of my glasses. My leisurely walk turned into a wet slog, and I began to grumble. Too close for a taxi, I began to resent the wet chill that was seeping into my bones, and the seemingly endless number of grey days of the past few weeks. Not looking forward to coming home to an empty apartment, I groaned inwardly and quickened my pace.

Once in my building's lobby, I stood, dripping water onto the terrazzo floor, waiting for the elevator. As soon as the door started to open, I nearly bowled over the kind, older gentleman who is my neighbor that lives across the hall from me. I looked at him apologetically, and said, "I'm so sorry, Mr. K!"

"That's ok, young sir!" he said.

"Have a good evening, Mr. K," I said.

He looked at me and replied, "You, as well. Keep making beautiful music. I wish you well!"

I smiled as the elevator door closed, and the elevator lifted me home.

Twittering Bach

In an effort to find yet another way to procrastinate and putter away all my time, I have joined Twitter. While I am still trying to figure it out, I am beginning to find a use for it, and it is starting to serve as a place for me to start fleshing out ideas for this blog. I am hoping that it will help me post on here a bit more regularly. You can follow my tweets here.

While preparing for this St. John Passion that performs here in Boston tonight, I experienced a lot of the usual stress and frustration that learning Bach entails. I always come to a fresh Bach score cockily expecting it to be easy to learn, and I am always surprised and confounded by how tricky his music is with its unexpected and oddly kinky harmonic twists and turns. His music, drenched in faith and humility, requires those same attributes from those of us who perform it. That is probably why I find Bach more rewarding to perform than any other composer. In a way, it is the ultimate heilige Kunst, musically speaking.

This being my very first performance as the Evangelist and having lost some preparation time because of the unexpected concerts I had a couple of weeks ago, I felt a greater amount of anxiety wood-shedding it at the piano than I previously have experienced. In an effort to distract myself from the stress, I found myself turning Facebook to procrastinate – often putting whiny statements about the Bach up as my status. Before I knew it, people were posting comments on my status updates offering support, humor, wit, and perspective. Quite unexpectedly, a website that I generally view as time-sucking exercise had suddenly turned into a community that I could turn to for artistic support.

Part of the my nervousness about this St. John, aside from it being my first one and having to learn it under a bit of a time crunch, was because I was preparing it on my own, trying to be both continuo and Evangelist all at once. Arriving in Boston and meeting with the continuo players and the conductor brought huge relief, as it felt so much easier to finally be playing with others, especially with colleagues as good as these. As it turns out, my continuo colleagues are St. John novices, as well, so it has been a real treat to discover the piece for the first time together and figure out the intricacies of how we are going to tell the story. What has been especially wonderful about these rehearsals is how deeply each and every person involved is invested in the piece. The choir has been preparing for this for months, and the orchestra is really committed to every detail of telling the story and the music, as well. It's been a really special few days, and I'm really looking forward to our performance tonight.

All the best to my colleagues here in Boston for a great performance, and many thanks for an incredible couple of days of music-making and story-telling.

Chores

Simply staring at the pile of mail that needs to be sifted through on top of my piano, the stack of 1099 forms that remind me daily that tax season is nigh, the layer of dust that is covering my shelves in the bedroom that begs to be swiffered away, the cart full of clothes that need to be taken to the Salvation Army, and the multitude of other mundane chores that awaited my return home inspires an incredible feeling of fatigue. Feeling much too grand to deal with these things the week after my whirlwind tour of the United States a couple of weeks ago, I have let them stare back at me and nag at my consciousness. Of course, avoiding them has contributed to my sense of imbalance as of late, and I find that aside from practicing a lot simply out of necessity, I've not been able to get a lot of my to-do list accomplished. It's put me in a bit of a little funk the past few days.

The last tour of hopping from concert to concert was a really exciting moment in my career. In a way, after it was over, I really felt like I had taken a huge step towards a new level both artistically and professionally. For the first few days after Carnegie, I felt proud and happy of all that I had accomplished and really wanted to rest, relax, and bask in that feeling of success. But relaxation has given way to restlessness, and the simple things that all people need to take care of are not-so-subtly pulling me back into my routine again. The world keeps going moving on, and I have to keep up with it and find my back into the flow of it all.

Unexpected Steps Forward

Spring seems to have made its first appearance here in the past couple of days, and the warmer weather has encouraged me to emerge from my hibernating state after my multi-stop jaunt across the country a couple of weeks ago.

My tour of the country culminated with a concert in Carnegie Hall with the Chicago Symphony of the program that we performed in Chicago the weekend before. After the concert ended, I immediately went into vacation-mode for approximately 24 hours. At the end of the next day, I realized abruptly that I actually was not able to remain on vacation mode and that I needed to park myself at my piano and pound notes into my throat for the next two concerts I have coming up.

The catch has been that I picked up a little sinus infection after the Friday concert in Chicago, and while that hasn't affected my singing at all, it did stop up my left ear, and my hearing has been distorted since then. Under normal circumstances, I probably would make use of the time off to simply rest and recover, but I've had to chain myself to the practice room these past ten days, since I want to have these next two programs learned in time.

The oddest thing has been that even though I would think that my lessons would be fruitless and frustrating because of my being a bit sick, my blocked hearing has forced me to get out of my own way in my sessions with my teacher. I marvel at how the effort I normally put into mastering my technique can get in the way of achieving my goal. Having to let go because I can't trust my own ears right now, in these last few lessons, I've actually made some of the greatest strides forward that I've made in a while. Something that seemed initially to be an obstacle has instead become a stepping stone.

Heroes

This past weekend, I sang at a fundraising gala for the Napa Valley Youth Symphony. As I walked out on stage to sing the final number of the evening, I looked back at the children and teenagers of the youth orchestra that crowded the stage, their instruments poised to play the first notes of Make Our Garden Grow from Leonard Bernstein's Candide. One young man, who could not have been older than 8, was too little to sit, and therefore was standing next to his stand-partner. His bow, marked with a little piece of yellow tape to show its center much like my first violin bow had been, was set and ready to play the first chord. Looking back at those kids, I was reminded of my own youth orchestra days - days that I have been thinking about a lot this week since I left Napa.

My very first summer at Interlochen, just after finishing the 8^th grade, our orchestra played, among other things, excerpts from Stravinsky's Firebird. It was my first taste of Stravinsky's music, and I found myself transfixed. When I returned home to Ann Arbor after camp was over, I rummaged through my father's collection of recordings to see if he owned a recording of the complete piece. What I found was a recording with a flashy, red, yellow, and blue cover of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Pierre Boulez conducting. A few years later, my youth orchestra in Detroit was tackling Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, and as I struggled to understand the piece, I looked for a recording to put my confusing second violin part into some sort of context as I studied it. I wrestled so diligently with that piece that I moved up 10 chairs from the back of the second violin section all the way up to the front when it came time for challenges that semester. The recording I turned to was also conducted by Maestro Boulez and the CSO. Just a couple of years ago, long after I had given up the violin and was singing professionally, I turned yet again to an album recorded buy the same forces as I was trying to make sense of Bartók's Cantata Profana when I performed it a couple of years ago with the St. Louis Symphony. Throughout every phase of my musical life, I have always looked to the recordings of Maestro Boulez and the CSO when it came to understanding music composed last century.

Today, sitting in my chair on stage at Symphony Center here in Chicago during our afternoon rehearsal, I looked up from my Pulcinella score at Maestro Boulez beating time with his hands and marveled that I was here actually making music with these people who, whether they know it or not, have taught me so much about music. For those parts of the rehearsal that I wasn't singing, I found it very hard not to stare star-struck and gape in awe that I am actually here this week.

Mistakes

In one of the elementary school music rooms that Lydia and I performed outreach programs in last week, there was a poster on the wall that colorfully displayed the following:

"It's ok to make a mistake when you've tried -.
It's a mistake not to try."

Coincidentally or not, just a day earlier, I read the following:

"If God is all powerful, and I believe that God is, then there is no such thing as an irreparable mistake."

-Julia Cameron, Finding Water

I'm still trying to let that all sink in.

Reaching Out

I looked at the clock that was encased in metal grating to protect it from any number of disastrous possibilities and took note of the time. 9:35 am. I groaned inwardly at the uncouthness of the hour and took in my first breath to sing, hoping that whatever came out wouldn't sound too ugly. I looked at the army of 85 five-year-olds sitting cross-legged on the gymnasium floor in front of me and ceased to care about my sound. The only important thing at that point was to try to keep their attention for the next 25 minutes.

Some of them started to sway to the music. Some just stared, entranced and fascinated. Some covered their ears with their hands, whispering too each other, "He's so loud!". Some squirmed. One boy started air-drumming. A couple others raised their hands, trying to signal that they had heard something I had asked them to listen for.

After we finished the song, we took comments and questions. Some quotes from the peanut gallery:

"You made me sad three times – my ears hurt."

"You're pretty good."

"I play the violin!"

"You're not in the Choristers!"

"Take it easy, Ruth!"

"But they're NOT in the Choristers!"

"I think that the Knight got away from the witch!"

"I think that the Knight died."

"I think that the Knight and the Witch lived happily ever after."

"How old are you?"

"My mom just turned 30!"

"Are you famous?"

"Are you rich?"

"I forgot."

"Did you have to sing that song in English?"

"Do you like to sing?"

After our last song, the school principal thanked Lydia and I for coming to perform, the kids and their teachers applauded, and the teachers tried to round up their students and file them out of the gym back to their homerooms in as orderly a fashion as possible. In the midst of all the ruckus, one little girl came up to me and said, "I'm gonna give you a hug, because you were really good." She gave me a big hug, and ran off to catch up with her fellow classmates as they headed off to the next new experience.

Small World

On Valentine's Day, I was pacing around my dressing room, cramming as much German into my mouth as possible, when Bob, the keyboardist for the Orchestra of St. Luke's, burst into my dressing room a flurry of energy and said, "Hey, Nick! It's great to see you! How've you been? Let's go through these recits…" He promptly sat down at the upright piano in my dressing room and started flipping through his score to find my first recitative. Before that, my conductor friend, Scott, had come down to see if I wanted to run anything before the concert with piano, which I did since I was so nervous. And then, right before the chorus was to go on stage, another friend of mine who happened to be in the chorus and was also named Scott came by to give me a big hug and wish me luck. Later, as the first half ended and we took some bows, I heard the cellist sitting behind me say, "Hi Nick! It's nice to see you…" I turned around and it was Myron, a colleague with whom I had given a concert of Purcell songs (along with Bob) 2 years ago. I smiled as he said, "Long time no see!" James Roe, who organized and played on that Purcell concert two years ago, was playing oboe in the Orchestra that night, as well, and during the intermission he stopped by and gave me a big hug.

When I arrived in St. Paul a few days later, I walked into the rehearsal room and saw a good friend from Marlboro, Maiya, sitting in her new position in the Viola section of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Before rehearsal began, we sat down and chatted, making plans to have a drink after the first concert. Later that evening, when the Chorus arrived to rehearse their numbers, I looked up and saw Eugene, a friend from my University of Michigan days who now teaches at Macalester College, singing with the basses and a colleague, Nicole, from my days at Manhattan School of music singing with the sopranos.

Last week was an incredible journey filled with unexpected excitement and the discovery that I am capable of so much more than I ever thought possible. Because much of the excitement happened on the road, and because the concert at Carnegie happened at such short notice, when almost everyone important in my life was out of town or had other Valentine's Day plans, I couldn't help but feel a bit lonely when someone came by to ask if I had anyone for the backstage list that night and I answered, "No". But as the Carnegie evening and the week in St. Paul progressed, I realized how wonderfully close-knit our musical community can be. While there can be all of the drama and nasty competition that people think is there, there is also an incredible sense of camaraderie and support. People from almost every stage of my life popped up this week, and I came to the realization that through music, I am blessed with more friends than I ever imagined possible and am never really alone.

Change in Plans

After Saturday's impromptu Creation at Carnegie, I went for a drink to celebrate with Scott (with whom I would never have been able to do anything musically useful that night), a friend of Scott's who came to the concert, and my manager and her husband. As we were rehashing the excitement of the evening, I said, "I love the piece so much – now I just want to do it again!"

"Be careful what you wish for, my dear…" my manager said.

Prescient words, indeed.

On Sunday, after brunch with friends and drinks with a friend and mentor from Houston, I went home and packed my carry-on bag for a trip to Montana, where I was planning on rehearsing with my friend Lydia, who is to play my recital in Oberlin next week. She lives out there with her husband, who teaches at the University there. I was excited to get out of the city for a couple of days to visit with them and have a peaceful and beautiful place to revisit the recital program that had consumed my musical January. My plan was to stay out there until Thursday, and then come home to finish cleaning my apartment, host one of my best friends who is visiting the city this weekend, and repack my bags for a two week trip that had me hopping around the country from Oberlin, Ohio my recital to Napa Valley for a fundraising gala to Chicago to sing with the Symphony there.

I had an early flight on Monday, so I woke up at an ungodly hour and headed to Newark, checked in, went through the hassle of airport security, grabbed a bite to eat (it's a pretty dire situation at the Northwest terminal in Newark, I'll have you know), and then noticed that the first leg of my flight was delayed half an hour for a mandatory crew break. I went to the gate agent and asked if I would make my connection in Minneapolis, and he told me most likely not. I would miss my second flight, and the next flight leaving for Montana would leave at 9:30pm. I asked him if there was any other way for me to get to Montana at a decent hour, and he kindly rebooked on a United flight through Denver. This meant I had to change terminals and go through security again, but it meant that I would land in Montana only a couple of hours late, as opposed to losing an entire day in Minneapolis.

When I landed in Denver, I turned my phone on and saw that I had 5 voice mails. This does not bode well, I thought. One of them was from my manager, who asked me to call as soon as I could. The tenor colleague who has cancelled on Saturday was still ill, and had to cancel a run of The Creation (in English, this time) with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra – would I be able to adjust my travel plans and do this? One really should be careful for what one wishes for, I thought. I also felt bad for my ailing colleague who had to cancel two of these now – being sick is a real drain when you are a singer.

Needless to say, of course I was happy to do it and adjust accordingly. So, I talked with Lydia and we adjusted our rehearsal schedule so we could get what needed to get done in two days instead of three, and I came here to St. Paul on Wednesday for a day of rehearsals, which, after last weekend, felt luxurious.

My couple of days here have been fantastic – my colleagues are brilliant singers and a conductor whose music-making I have admired from their recordings that I have collected over the years, and they sound wonderful. The orchestra is incredible, as is the choir – and I am getting to experience this incredible music for yet one more week. It's a real treat, and I am enjoying every minute of it. My dream come true is being prolonged, and I am relishing every second that it lasts.

The only catch – I'm on the road for 3 weeks now, and I've only got a suitcase with 3 days worth of clothes…

The Work

Yankeediva posted this video earlier in the week.

It made me think of this little tidbit:

"The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life"

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Watch it - it's long, but carve out the 20 minutes for yourself. It's worth it.

Einspringen or Jumping In

Each morning, I have a routine that I follow pretty religiously. After I wake up, I reach for my journal, write my morning pages and then turn on my computer and check my email. Every day, there are four emails that I can count on to be waiting for me in my inbox in the morning: the headlines from the New York Times and the Washington Post, a daily account summary from my bank with my balance, and my horoscope. Yesterday, not having slept well the night before, I wrote in my morning pages how good it was that I didn't have to sing anything important since I was so tired. I turned on my computer and looked at my horoscope, which read:

"Don't be too controlling right now. The events of the day could proceed at a rapid pace, and you might not be able to exert much influence over them…Even if you want to accomplish a dozen tasks, try to adopt a more flexible attitude about the day."

I sort of thought to myself that it was kind of a boring horoscope and proceeded to get ready for the day. All I had planned was a short rehearsal down at Carnegie Hall with a conductor friend, Scott, for an upcoming St. John Passion that we are doing next month with his choir in Boston, burgers and beer with my voice teacher, and then a play-date with my good friend Jen and her baby, Sophie. Hopping in the shower, I found myself wishing that I could just crawl back into bed and take a nap instead of going to meet Scott, who was in town this week to participate in the Carnegie Hall Choral Workshop and sing in the chorus of Haydn's The Creation with Helmuth Rilling and the Orchestra of St. Luke's yesterday at Carnegie. As I was stepping out the door to go to Carnegie, my manager called.

"Nicholas, sweetie darling – well, first of all, how are you?" She said.

"I'm doing ok, how are you?"

"I'm fine – now more importantly, where are you?"

"I'm in my apartment, why? What's going on?"

"Well, the tenor who is to sing tonight's performance of The Creation is apparently not feeling well and is at the doctor now – I've been asked if you have performed the piece and might be willing to step in, in the event that he needs to cancel?"

My day had suddenly begun to move at a "rapid pace".

On the phone with my manager, I was paralyzed for about a minute, unsure of how to proceed. I wanted to help out – the piece is one of the greatest pieces of music written, and to be able to do it in Carnegie Hall with such a great conductor and colleagues would be a dream come true. The catch was I had only performed the piece in English – and they were doing it in German. Did I think that I could stand on the stage of Carnegie Hall and perform this bear of a piece (for the first time auf Deutsch) with such outstanding colleagues and with no rehearsal? As calmly as I could, I asked my manager to tell the people at Carnegie that I would think about it, but that I needed to look at a score to see if it would be possible.

I headed down to Carnegie and met Scott at the stage door and asked to peek at his score for yesterday's performance – instead of looking at the St. John that we were supposed to be rehearsing, we ended up trying to assess if it would be possible for me to sing The Creation, if I had to. After a lot of encouragement from Scott and going through the score with him, I thought to myself, I could, if it came to it. From there – the day turned into a bit of a blur. Unfortunately, the tenor did end up cancelling because he didn't feel well. I ended up singing the entire piece for Maestro Rilling in his dressing room with Scott at the piano, and he then gave his approval for me to go on. Before I knew it, I was running home to grab a bite to eat, study my score, cram as much German into my mouth as possible, and put on my tuxedo.

Once it was established that I was going to perform yesterday, my focus took over and kept me relatively calm until I walked out onstage, bowed with my colleagues, and sat down. As the orchestra started to play the first, sustained c natural that begins the piece, my mind started to wander just a bit. I thought, exactly how long has it been since I have sung this piece? I quickly did the math and realized that it had been seven years. By the sixth measure of the introduction, the insanity of what I had volunteered to do dawned on me. Looking at the audience, I thought, what am I doing? How am I going to do this? It was then that I realized that it was too late for that train of thought, and that I simply had to buckle down, focus, and give this everything that I had. The chorus sang their first entrance, the orchestra played a very loud C major chord behind me, I stood up, a chill went down my back, and I began to sing as if my life depended on it. Once the first note was out of my mouth, I noticed something else – I was actually having fun.

Under so much pressure, I would have thought the concert would have passed by in a complete blur, but it was quite the opposite. My focus was so intense that each moment of the performance is burned into my memory vividly. It was an incredible experience to make music so spontaneously with such phenomenal musical colleagues in a performance. The most incredible moment for me was standing during my favorite part of the piece – Haydn's musical depiction of the very first sunrise. As the orchestra slowly and majestically let their musical sun rise behind me, I felt my skin tingle as I looked out into the Hall, my eyes watering just a little. As I wove my phrases of recitative in between their orchestral interludes, I marveled that I was singing some of the most beautiful music ever written with some of my musical heroes in one of the most exquisite halls in the world. I was acutely aware that I was experiencing a dream come true.

The Drawing Board

Last Friday, Myra and I traipsed out on stage, and our program (minus the few little moments of unanticipated excitement that are the "magic" of live performance) flowed easily and naturally – our music-making pliable, in the moment, and fun. Having a couple of performances under our belts at that point, our knowledge and command of the program was such that we were able to bend and shape things according to each nuance of storytelling that wanted to express in the moment, making us feel like we were doing our best to serve the muses of music and drama. After the concert, we headed back over to the Upper West Side to celebrate with drinks and food, and then I took the rest of the weekend to relax and enjoy what felt like a successful month of recitals.

Tuesday arrived, and I looked at the calendar and noticed all of my upcoming projects that had been sitting on the backburner these past two months as I focused to try to get through the chaotic hell of the holidays, the turning of the new leaf that was my 30^th birthday, and the intense period of preparation for these recitals. I headed off to a voice lesson Tuesday evening, and started to work on some Stravinsky and some Britten. The phrases felt uncoordinated and unrefined, the words felt clumsy in my mouth, and I found that I was often unsure of where I wanted things to go. There was a fair amount of stopping and starting as we woodshed, and the progress we made was slow and arduous. It felt like I was a toddler taking my very first steps all over again. I looked back on all the hard work I had done for the past two and a half months on the recital program, and realized that I took it for granted. I saw that I was expecting the same artistic command to just be there with this newer music that I was only starting to tackle. Walking to dinner afterward, I tried to let go of my impatience and frustration and sought the grace to be a beginner again with each step through the snowy streets of Manhattan.

The Final Sigh

"Time past can never come again."

- Olinda in the Shades Unseen, Anonymous

"Let not youth fly away without contenting, Age will come time enough for your repenting."

- How blest are Shepherds, from King Arthur, John Dryden

Winter Words ends with the anguished cries of "E'er nescience shall be reaffirmed, How long?" – how long until we return to that blissful, pure ignorant oblivion of innocence? How long until we die?

How to answer that question?

Musically speaking, the obvious choice of an answer was to return to a musical nescience of some sort. I wondered for awhile about programming some folksongs – music in one of it's most pure, unadulterated forms. Instead, though, I chose to look at Purcell – the inspiration and musical nescience for a lot of Britten's vocal writing. In the three songs of Purcell that I chose, I found not only a musical response to the experience of Winter Words, but also an answer to Hardy's tortured and impatient question, how long? It turns out, all too soon.

We traverse our paths through life, stumbling, taking seemingly wrong turns, and feeling lost along the way. Yet, as Olinda discovers in her shades unseen, time past can never come again, and we, as the shepherd from King Arthur implores us, must not let our precious time on this beautiful planet pass without enjoying every moment of it.

Someone told me last night that I think too much, and they are right. After a recent performance of the Evening Hymn, the presenter asked me if I felt like it was a bit of an autobiographical performance. I wasn't sure what to say then, but now I can see that it is, in a way. What is so special and personal to me about this program is that I do think a lot on my life and loves, my stumbles and my mistakes, my joys and my pains – at times, too much so. I look at people who seem to know how to be happy, without cares, and with seeming innocence with a touch of envy in my heart that wonders, "what is their secret?" As I've discovered lately, it's enjoying the moment at hand and gratitude.

The Evening Hymn comes as the final sigh of the program. It's a look at all that is great and beautiful, all the blessings in our lives - those things that are the overwhelming evidence that we are constantly surrounded by some sort of higher power - and gives profound thanks. No matter the circumstance, there are always silver linings to the every cloud, and all that we really need, we already have – if not in surplus. No matter how imperfect we are, we are deserving of that bounty, and that is a truly humbling and deeply happy thought.

The Bite of Experience

When I set about programming these recitals, the only thing that I was sure of was that I wanted to explore Winter Words again. The question then became where to go from there? The answer came in the final song of Britten's cycle, Thomas Hardy asks, " 'Ere nescience shall be reaffirmed – how long?" That idea of the cycle of life really struck me – we begin our lives in a state of innocent, naïve, vulnerable, and blissful ignorance only to have that clean slate marred by the grit, pain, and emotional chaos of experience. Life continues on, each experience carrying us forward to the next step on our circuitous paths, much like a never ending spiral. When it seemingly ends, the cycle begins completely anew – or so we assume, as none of us living really know what lies beyond that final step that is death.

In each of the songs in the cycle, in one way or another, that dichotomy of innocence versus experience is explored, with increasing intensity as the cycle progresses. There is a keen awareness in each of the songs of the transitory nature of uncorrupted innocence, oftentimes with the narrator focusing on the children or a child that is blissfully unaware of the growing pains that are to come. Somehow, I hear a sense of envy – sometimes slight, other times overt – in these observations that feel like one is looking back at times. It is a kind of coveting of happiness and bliss lost through mistakes and discoveries made, that becomes most present in the last, anguished cries of "How long? How long?" in the final song.

Views

The view from my apartment window in Chicago last week. It was so cold that the lake was steaming.

On our way to the recital, merely blocks away from the hall, we were stopped at a traffic light, when Myra looked to the right and pointed out that I had apparently opened up a new restaurant on the South Side of Chicago.

Chicago

Yesterday evening, Myra and I walked out onto the stage of Mandel Hall at the University of Chicago, and performed our first performance of this program that we have been working so hard on since Thanksgiving. It was the first time we had a public to formally witness the flow of the program, and it was quite the fun adventure. From the moment we blasted off with our first Handel aria until the Hallelujahs of Purcell's Evening Hymn, we explored the experiences of life – it's ups and downs, some of the joys and some of the pain. It was a real challenge to put all of this raw emotion out in front of an audience and have the courage to be vulnerable, but I think we both succeeded. The audience seemed to really enjoy themselves, many smiles in the hall after we were done. The recital flew by, and before we knew it, we were having fun singing a couple of encores and then on our way to celebrate at a restaurant nearby. Many, many thanks to the wonderful people at the University of Chicago Presents, who were the most gracious hosts, and who were so generous to grant us this all-too-rare and treasured opportunity to perform a recital on their prestigious series.

The Heart Breaks

Someone was talking to me about breaking up the other day, and discussing how it is a loss that must be grieved when a relationship ends. They went on to discuss the five stages of grief that we experience, sometimes all at once: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. Working on Liederkreis Op. 24 lately, I have been able to see exactly how the heartbroken protagonist of the cycle experiences each stage painfully and traumatically. In the context of our recital program, it is as if the love who had captured his heart in the Fauré songs has spurned him, leaving him to grapple with that rejection and loss. In the first song, he hopes against hope for a glimpse of his love, endlessly frustrated that she won't see him. In the second, he excitedly awaits the meeting with his love that he has been longing for, although it apparently does not go well, as in the third song, he is destroyed by everything he sees around him, as it reminds him of what he has lost. He begs for death in the fourth song to end his pain, and resolves to leave his home, where he first met his love, in the fifth. In six, as he flags down the sailor to take him away, his anger consumes him and he blames his love for his burning pain. In the seventh, as he sails away, he tries to take in the beauty of his surroundings, but still the bitterness and hurt inside his heart remains. In the eighth and ninth songs, he finally accepts what has happened, and attempts to put it all behind him, hopeful for a kind of reconciliation one day.

A friend pointed out to me the other day that pain and hurt are inevitably part of what comes with the experience of falling in love, and that we must know that going in. Somehow, that knowledge never prepares us for the blinding anguish that we suffer when our heart is broken, and something that we innocently hoped would continue to bring us joy and happiness forever suddenly disappears, leaving us bereft.

Love’s Youth

Here is one of the gems that have popped out at me while rehearsing the Fauré set these past couple of weeks :

"Le jour qui luit est le meilleur;" – Lydia, Leconte de Lisle

The day that dawns is the best one.

If only we could think that way all the time, right? How happy we would always be…

We all have many experiences that lead us away from our innocence – it seemed to make sense to begin an exploration of experience in the recital program with the experience of love, that experience that has proven to be a seemingly endless source for the inspiration of all kinds of artistic forms of expression. The beginnings of love are so amazing and mind-blowing. The person who has become the apple of our eye is like a drug that we can't seem to get enough of – it is impossible for that initial desire to be sated. Everything about the other person is enjoyable, and our heart seems determined to open itself to experiencing them regardless of circumstance or reciprocal desire. Such unabashed enthusiasm always feels fresh and new each time I have experienced it, and, in a way, it is different each time. Each time I have fallen in love, it is as if the innocence in my heart cannot help but release itself from the chains of my experienced inhibitions.

I first heard Le plus doux chemin on a recital of French music that I performed at Wolf Trap with Steve Blier. Steve had chosen the song to start off the program and had given it to my dear friend Aaron Judisch. I've been intrigued by the song ever since. It seemed to lead perfectly into Chanson d'amour both in terms of key and text – both songs refer to a "rebellious one", in this case, seemingly an attractive quality. In Le plus doux chemin, the sweetest path is the one that leads to love's doorstep, despite love's rebelliousness. Chanson d'amour is an outpouring of a lover's heart – a list of all the qualities that he cherishes and enjoys in his rebellious lover. Lydia was the very first French song that I ever studied – Fauré quickly became one of my favorite composers after discovering that song. Both Nell and Lydia are passionate dedications of love – the unrestrained pledges of the heart that we innocently and daringly put forth in order to experience one of the greatest joys life's journey has to offer.

Turn

As 2008 turns into 2009, I take a pause from my party preparations to reflect on the moment.

This past year has been one of many moments both trying and rewarding, exciting and tough. As I have gone about my New Year's Eve preparations today, trying to get some work done before the festivities begin, I have traipsed around Manhattan with a lightness in my step and a smile on my face. I look forward to the 2009 with a sense of hope and optimism. On top of all the seemingly positive changes happening in the world-at-large, the knowledge that many changes are to come as I leave my twenties on Saturday and begin a new decade of my life fills me with excitement.

Here's to a wonderful, happy, healthy, fulfilling and fruitful 2009 for all of us.

Happy Holidays

All the best for an joyous and peaceful holiday! Or, as a friend in Houston always says, "Merry Ho Ho!" (yes, that's you, Bonnie Sue!).