Saturday, November 13, 2004
Another year passes by; Nick becomes a quarter of a century old.
As I look back and remember my last birthday I remember: that is the week when the realization that I couldn't afford to live in Hattiesburg past the end of 2003 hit me. I began making plans, announce my quitting to the church, tell my roommate that I would be moving out by the end of December, pack up my stuff, and move in with the parents.
It was a depressing time; the thought of living in Butler, AL and at home with my parents was not a happy one to me. I love my family, I don't want to live with them again. The next few months were far more dreary than the weather.
In a way, though, it was a time of hope. I'd been struggling, off and on (more off than on), with thoughts of leaving the church, and possibly the ministry altogether, and this was an answer to those questions. Can't afford to make it on the money they give you and can't find a second job? No way you can continue living where you are and doing what you're doing.
Christmas time saw me leaving Hattiesburg and going to my doom, it seemed almost. Butler, AL. I hated that town, I still do. I never liked it. My parents tried to make the best of it for over three years (nearly four) but never adjusted to the strangeness of it all. That is where I was moving. I'd spent three months there a couple of summers back and hated every day of those three months. I was prepared to hate every day of the indefinite period I was to spend there, now.
The next month was spent sorting through things and getting settled in. Also made a trek to Nashville, TN with Mike Springstead, meeting up with my sister and Mike Roderick out of Georgia there to see the Britten War Requiem with Don Frasure singing. Amazing concert, made the gloom of the past few months since graduation go away for a while, indeed.
About a week later I had plans to drive to Augusta and see Die Fledermaus with my sister and grandmother. I decided, instead of visiting for a few days, I would move there. Nearly a year later, I still live here.
I got a job, at the coffeeshop my sister works at. I found a church I love (well, I already knew about the church, First Presbyterian of Augusta, as I had visited it a few times before) and things were getting better.
A year since I realized I had to leave my church and Hattiesburg behind, I am a manager at a coffeeshop, singing in two great choirs (FPC and the Augusta Choral Society) and have some great friends. My family has moved here, as well, and dad is at a church here. A church with a much better vision than the one in Alabama. A city that is much more forward thinking (for a southern town, at least). And my little sisters are living near me! (That's the best part.)
It's been a good year, indeed.
What will the next year bring? I don't know. I want to do graduate school at USC still, though I still have not fully decided if I want to do musicology or choral conducting. Just when I think I'm leaning to one side, I look longingly at the other. Perhaps there is some way the two desires will fit together in the end, I know not.
I need to find another job, with better hours and better pay and benefits. We'll see what happens there.
I want a dog. I have Goldie here right now, until my parents find a house to buy, but she will move back with them at such a time as that. I want a Welsh Corgi (I think Cardigan, the Pembroke looks kind of odd with no tail...).
I would love to find a girl. It gets lonely at times, and I've never had one before.
Well, that is for the next year to bring, we shall see.
Right now I'm smelling red beans cooking, listening to the Rutter Magnificat (got CDs in the mail today from Amazon: Rutter Gloria and Magnificat, Vivaldi Gloria and Bach Magnificat, and Dvorak (don't feel like looking up that carat thingy) Stabat Mater (The Rutter Magnificat and Dvorak are works the ACS is going to be doing over the next few months and the Vivaldi is one we did this past performance (already had the Faure Requiem). Mmm good music, good food. Going to see the Augusta Symphony tonight. Life is good, life is good indeed.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Got the recording of the first ACS concert this year, good recording except for the lack of fade-in/outs on the tracks, instead it just abruptly starts and stops, with a couple of seconds of dead silence in between each track... Probably didn't pay to have it mixed any after recording, that's how most CD recorders record when you track it live. I'd rather have it faded in and out either at the board or later on a dub off the master, but this is small stuff really.
The choral sound is excellent, well balanced, and recorded well. The room records pretty well. There is one spot in the 5th movement of the Fauré that has the tenors singing a C and the sopranos take over, going into the next phrase on "lux" ("light") held out over a little more than a measure before going on into "aeterna..." and the rest of the choir joining in on the phrase under them on the same text. It's absolutely beautiful writing and I was actually rather disappointed with the way it was done on the Rutter recording I have. Ours was just as I hear it in my mind's ear. I went back and listened to just those three measures about five times after I heard it.
This was after I was thinking how horribly disappointed I was with our cut-offs on T and S... It's horrible. Consonants all over the place! Sometimes it sounds like a quarter of the choir gives their T cut-offs about half a beat before anyone else, and the Ss just meld into a mass of hiss. I know, this is one of the worst things for a choir to get... I would harp on it for hours if I was a director...
Fifth movement was also the one where the choir finally seemed to get the emphasis on the other consonants we needed for that room, and to keep the rhythm alive.
I'm sort of wondering about the Augusta Symphony... I need to see them in concert just on their on. Between this concert and the bicentennial celebration at my church this past Sunday... I don't know, the strings tend to be rather flat in some places it seems... I understand with the thing Sunday, it was a new piece that was still being edited in places, probably didn't have much rehearsal on it at all... I need to give the CD another listen and make sure I heard the flatness that I think I heard.
Ach, I'm a music snob.
Haven't finished listening to it, yet, this little review is from what I heard on the way home from rehearsal tonight. :) The three measure spot in the fifth movement of the Fauré makes the whole thing worth it to me, though!
Klasinc&Loncar Duo (Just trying to help it get picked up by Google spiders, I maintain it for them)