December 8, 2008

Catching up


As I mentioned in my last blog entry, life has been pretty busy in the previous couple of weeks, and I hardly had time to sit and write, let alone do much else. The last event of the term was last night, another dance / variety show presented by a student organization. Classes end Monday. So now that life has calming down a little I have time again and I thought I would go back and revisit some of the things that have happened while I was too busy.

It is now a quiet Sunday afternoon, and I am sitting here watching the first snow of the season falling, the forecast if for just a light dusting up to as much as an inch. It is definitely a sign of the season to come, but as we already had a few inches on the ground at this time last year, I am not feeling too bad about it.

So let me see if I can remember a few of the significant events of the last couple weeks.

Several months ago I had posted a video on Youtube of the boy and his guitar classmates performing a piece called Tutu Tango at their spring guitar recital. It is a fun piece that they really like to play and they were dead on for the performance. I posted it mostly for a family and a few friends to see, and I think it had a total of maybe 35 hits after 5 months. A couple weeks ago, I got a Youtube email that some one had saying that I had a comment on the video, and an email in my Youtube inbox. The email and the comment were from the composer of the Tutu Tango, one Derek Hasted (fortunately I had credited him in the video when I posted it), commenting on how much he enjoyed the performance. In addition he also posted a link to the video on the website of the Hampshire Guitar Orchestra in Hampshire England for which he is the musical director. So the video of the boys went ‘viral’ and in the course of a couple of days is suddenly had over 250 hits. Not spectacular, but not bad for a classical guitar video featuring four 13 year old boys. I let their guitar teacher and the parents of the other players know what had taken place, and they were all thrilled to have been noticed by the composer.

I posted the video in my old Yahoo360 blog, but here is it again for all my new readers… (A little joke there.)



I think that I mentioned that the boy was in the school musical, Into the Woods, in which he played the Baker. I did manage to find time to see the show between all the events that I had to tend to at work. I was a ‘proud dad’ by the end of the performance. The role of the Baker is big role and a tough one to play and he did an admirable job. He had complained in the past about only getting small roles in the plays, so this was his big chance to shine, and he really stepped up to the challenge. Not only did he have to sing a couple of solos, but there is also a love song duet with the bakers wife in which they must sing to one another at the same time that they are holding hands, ending in a final embrace. I must say that both performers pulled that off well, which can be difficult for some adults, let alone 13 year olds. The two of them managed to reach a level of reality that seem to show real emotion and affection. Bravo to them both. The boy definitely knows how to find the ‘moment’ as it is called, where character and motivation come together to give a performance its reality.

Next play up is a Midsummer’s Night Dream he has his eye on several roles in that. There is Puck of course, as well as Oberon, and Bottom, he could probably have his pick of roles, I think his Puck is tops on the list followed by Bottom. We will see how it shakes out; auditions are this week.

As I mentioned, that previous couple of weeks were very busy at work with several performances each weekend, most of them are student variety / dance shows, and frankly they all start to look and sound the same. The one event that did stand out was the music department’s gospel choir concert. It is notable not only for the great music, but also for the shear size and power of the group. It has grown dramatically in the last couple years from about 90 students to over 200. Part of the rehearsal earlier in the day was spent just getting people on and off stage quickly. The theatre capacity is just over 600, and the gospel concert always sells out, with little back stage space available the singers have to enter through the aisles very quickly as to not create a safety hazard. Fortunately that all went well, and the concert was a big success.
A Packed Stage
So that is the highlights from the previous couple of weeks. We are back to normal life such as it is, and I will resume posting and pissing and moaning as before. I think I will try to do shorter entries, with single topics and see if that works better.

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