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Thursday, March 31, 2005

Day one in Montana

Last night's rehearsal went as well as could be expected considering how long I had been up and how tired I was. Can't say that I sang my best, but it was accurate and in tune. Took a walking tour of Helena, passing up the hike up the mountain for fear of wracking up my voice by talking too loud and being too cold.

Helena is a beautiful city, and we have wonderful, interesting hosts here. They are such fun to chat with and are great about not expecting us to be "on" all the time. They have opened their wonderful home to us to come and go as we please, which is really nice.

There is a concert tonight that neither Erich or I will be involved in, so we get to have a free day to relax, practice and hang out in general. Our hosts, Becky and Paul are fixing us a big dinner tonight. The are vegetarians, and they are really going out of their way to make us comfortable.

On a sad note, Terri Schaivo died today. Let's hope that this whole sordid mess will encourage people to legally and emphatically make their wishes known as to the kind of extreme care they desire. I pray that no other family has to go through the horrific public nightmare that this family did. Terri, may you rest in peace, and thank God that your terrible ordeal has finally ended.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

New entries are a comin in

Greetings all,

Stay tuned to these pages as I will be doing a great deal of travelling and performing in the next month, and I will be documenting my experiences in these pages instead of by my traditional travel diary emails. As for now, I have just arrived in Helena, Montana to do two performances of the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers with Musikanten Montana.

My bassoonist friend Erich Heckscher and I are staying in this wonderful house, built by the couple who lives here (Becky and Paul). They are delightful people, and we have been made to feel right at home.

I have never been to this part of the country before (except for Seattle) and it's really exciting to be in someplace so totally different from where I have ever been before. There is so much open space out here, and for a state capital, this city hosts only 28,000 residents.

We are off soon to rehearsal and I will be back later to tell you all about the ensemble and so on.

Till then.....