People have asked me about my “vacation,” and I feel like saying, “I need a vacation from my vacation!” or “I need to come back to work to relax!” In a nutshell, during my 30 nights away from Hawaii: At the Boston Early Music Festival, I attended two Monteverdi operas, the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610,… Read More Digging out from under
I am here in Boston at the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) and so far in three days I have seen two Monteverdi operas, heard two concerts and been to the Church of the Advent for their Sunday service. But that is a piece of cake compared to what the performers, especially in the opera,… Read More BEMF: Boston Marathon
As organists, we always have to be prepared with a Plan B, in case Plan A doesn’t pan out. I have written about arriving at the church and having to make last-minute substitutions of stops for when a note is dead or stuck, or having to use a different manual. Or, in the case of… Read More Plan B, revisited
If you click here, you’ll hear some of the hypnotic music we heard yesterday at the concert by Hesperion XXI, conducted by Jordi Savall. I was absolutely mesmerized by this early music from Istanbul — music from the Ottoman, Sephardic, Greek and Armenian traditions. I cannot even describe the instruments that were used in this… Read More Hypnotized by Hesperion XXI
In a couple of days, we’ll be heading for Boston where we will be attending the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF), which for us is the Boston Marathon! This is the premier festival for early music junkies (like ourselves), which The Times of London calls “the world’s leading festival of early music.” The New York Times… Read More The Boston Marathon
We have been so fortunate to be at the Boston Early Music Festival — it is presented in odd-numbered years and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to hear the best of the best in early music. I dare say that at this particular festival every single concert is over the top… Read More Sharing BEMF with the world
Today at the Boston Early Music Festival I signed up to go to an organ mini-festival at Wellesley College. We have not gotten back to Newton Centre until after 11 pm for three nights in a row now so getting up at 6 am was a little like death warmed over. The bus left from… Read More Six concerts in one day!