ad te omnis caro veniet
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Today's subject line comes from the Latin text of a requiem mass: exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet. These words (which are generally translated as "Hear my prayer; to you all flesh shall come") correspond to my favorite twelve measures in the whole of Verdi's Requiem -- thirty-six beats' worth of sublime tenderness made exquisitely incarnate in sound.
In general, I'm not actually much of a Verdi fan -- I don't mind him, but I seldom go out of my way to hear or perform his works. However, I'd wanted to attend the Berkshire Choral Festival for years, and Prague has been on my list of cities to visit ever since some old friends moved there, and I'd never studied the Requiem before. So I applied last summer, was accepted in September, left for Paris on the 7th, and got on another plane to Prague on the 9th.
It's been a good way to spend the first week of my thirty-ninth year. Verdi is a brilliant composer, and it turns out that the second alto part of the Requiem kicks ass. (Among other things, it covers two octaves.) Both the chorusmaster (Frank Nemhauser) and alto section leader (Debby Miles-Johnson) are excellent teachers, and I'm a better musician now than I was a week ago. (This isn't to say that miracles were wrought -- I wasn't soloist material when I arrived here, and I won't be anytime soon -- but there was plenty of wisdom about both the mental and muscular aspects of creating music on offer during the rehearsals and workshops, for anyone with wit and self-awareness enough to partake of it. Many of the other choristers were fascinating people, both in terms of musical involvement and their other priorites. [And some I found majorly irritating and exasperating, but I can't think of any group of two hundred people where that wouldn't happen.])
The choir performed the mass at Terezin yesterday afternoon. (In a nutshell: one of the prisoners at Terezin was Rafael Schaecter, who taught the mass to several hundred other prisoners from a single copy. The concert commemorated that.) At the end, we left the building humming "Ose Shalom," per the conductor's instructions. More than a few people were in tears.
Before the concert, my roommate and I had taken our sandwiches to the city's central square. An old man paused in front of our park bench and announced, "I'm mad at Murry. I've e-mailed and phoned him many times and no reply whatsoever! I know he's busy, but he should at least tell me when the rehearsals are so I can meet the pretty girls!" Turned out he was Edgar Krasa, a survivor of Terezin featured in some of the projections incorporated into our performance. As other choristers in the plaza realized who he was, they gathered around, and soon he was holding court, occasionally pausing to embrace other survivors and friends passing by. He was simultaneously direct and rambley the way I've known other sweet old men to be, and very flirty -- kissing the hands of various women, calling out compliments to new arrivals, and beaming when I kissed him on the cheek after he signed my score.
Other highlights of the trip so far include catching up a bit with Dave and Jana, exploring Petrin Hill after sundown (the local fauna included a flock of drunk Germans and their escorts, two couples necking, a guy in a rustbucket, and a homeless man on a bench), and seeing Aspects of Alice, a "black light theatre" show housed in the same building as Prague's Unitarian Church.
I've got a a photo diary of sorts stashed with my Google account (aka the albums titled "Europe 2009"), for those sufficiently curious, but be warned that I'm no photographer: these are primarily for personal reference and reminiscence (e.g., to jog my memory if a poem demands to be set in or near Stare Mesto, or if I end up trying to remember whether I really saw swans on the Moldau or if my memory's messing with me), and to amuse the BYM (hence the oodles of car snapshots). They are neither artistic nor comprehensive: I didn't take my camera to Terezin, nor did I capture my roomie watching "The Simpsons" in German, or hearing "Mamma Mia" blaring from a Terezin window, or my attempts to converse with a Japanese piano teacher and her friend during breakfast, or the different ways "Dekuji" (thank you) and "Nashledanou" (Goodbye) get pronounced/muttered/burbled, or...
During the past month's runnings-around, I neglected to mention that my cinquains "Andromeda" and "Nanakusa" are now online, in the Spring 2009 issue AMAZE (which also features poems by Joanne, Paula, and others.
Also: completed one new poem last week; three accepted.
Onwards! (but first, some sleep)
In general, I'm not actually much of a Verdi fan -- I don't mind him, but I seldom go out of my way to hear or perform his works. However, I'd wanted to attend the Berkshire Choral Festival for years, and Prague has been on my list of cities to visit ever since some old friends moved there, and I'd never studied the Requiem before. So I applied last summer, was accepted in September, left for Paris on the 7th, and got on another plane to Prague on the 9th.
It's been a good way to spend the first week of my thirty-ninth year. Verdi is a brilliant composer, and it turns out that the second alto part of the Requiem kicks ass. (Among other things, it covers two octaves.) Both the chorusmaster (Frank Nemhauser) and alto section leader (Debby Miles-Johnson) are excellent teachers, and I'm a better musician now than I was a week ago. (This isn't to say that miracles were wrought -- I wasn't soloist material when I arrived here, and I won't be anytime soon -- but there was plenty of wisdom about both the mental and muscular aspects of creating music on offer during the rehearsals and workshops, for anyone with wit and self-awareness enough to partake of it. Many of the other choristers were fascinating people, both in terms of musical involvement and their other priorites. [And some I found majorly irritating and exasperating, but I can't think of any group of two hundred people where that wouldn't happen.])
The choir performed the mass at Terezin yesterday afternoon. (In a nutshell: one of the prisoners at Terezin was Rafael Schaecter, who taught the mass to several hundred other prisoners from a single copy. The concert commemorated that.) At the end, we left the building humming "Ose Shalom," per the conductor's instructions. More than a few people were in tears.
Before the concert, my roommate and I had taken our sandwiches to the city's central square. An old man paused in front of our park bench and announced, "I'm mad at Murry. I've e-mailed and phoned him many times and no reply whatsoever! I know he's busy, but he should at least tell me when the rehearsals are so I can meet the pretty girls!" Turned out he was Edgar Krasa, a survivor of Terezin featured in some of the projections incorporated into our performance. As other choristers in the plaza realized who he was, they gathered around, and soon he was holding court, occasionally pausing to embrace other survivors and friends passing by. He was simultaneously direct and rambley the way I've known other sweet old men to be, and very flirty -- kissing the hands of various women, calling out compliments to new arrivals, and beaming when I kissed him on the cheek after he signed my score.
Other highlights of the trip so far include catching up a bit with Dave and Jana, exploring Petrin Hill after sundown (the local fauna included a flock of drunk Germans and their escorts, two couples necking, a guy in a rustbucket, and a homeless man on a bench), and seeing Aspects of Alice, a "black light theatre" show housed in the same building as Prague's Unitarian Church.
I've got a a photo diary of sorts stashed with my Google account (aka the albums titled "Europe 2009"), for those sufficiently curious, but be warned that I'm no photographer: these are primarily for personal reference and reminiscence (e.g., to jog my memory if a poem demands to be set in or near Stare Mesto, or if I end up trying to remember whether I really saw swans on the Moldau or if my memory's messing with me), and to amuse the BYM (hence the oodles of car snapshots). They are neither artistic nor comprehensive: I didn't take my camera to Terezin, nor did I capture my roomie watching "The Simpsons" in German, or hearing "Mamma Mia" blaring from a Terezin window, or my attempts to converse with a Japanese piano teacher and her friend during breakfast, or the different ways "Dekuji" (thank you) and "Nashledanou" (Goodbye) get pronounced/muttered/burbled, or...
During the past month's runnings-around, I neglected to mention that my cinquains "Andromeda" and "Nanakusa" are now online, in the Spring 2009 issue AMAZE (which also features poems by Joanne, Paula, and others.
Also: completed one new poem last week; three accepted.
Onwards! (but first, some sleep)
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