I’ve had an amazing time playing Don Giovanni this month – and the schedule has been busy enough that the opera is all I’ve had time for. Two or three operas a week plus teaching feels fantastic in my schedule! I’ve even had time to give some attention to Musicians for Michiana and the fundraising we are trying to do for that.
But the opera performances are becoming more sparse as we approach the end of the run, and I have some real orchestra work starting up again, and it feels great to be preparing new material!
This Sunday the SBSO has a chamber concert, and I’m excited to be back with my colleagues at the beautiful DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. We’re doing a program of female composers, to honor Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and that’s the most relevant I’ve ever seen this orchestra get, and I’m delighted for that reason alone! The highlight will be a world premiere: a work by a local composer which expresses the emotions of her own personal journey through cancer. Should be uplifting? I hope? She’s a living composer, so that’s a good sign…
Next week the Northwest Indiana Symphony is performing Holst’s The Planets, and we’re partnering with the Adler Planetarium to present some visuals along with the music. I have a lot of rests in some movements so I hope to be wowed myself, at least in the rehearsals when I dare to look around.
And the following weekend we have a pops concert here in South Bend – featuring the music of QUEEN. Because, you know, we are the champions.
Maybe it’s just because I’ve been playing the same five pages of music over and over for the past three weeks, but I’m absolutely looking forward to this variety pack- fifteen services in ten days, five different programs (including a quintet gig and another opera or two). What a treat to be a musician in the fall!