I can't help it, the song comes to me every year at this time (it goes to the tune "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead").

Every season has this glorious five minutes - the concerts are done, the final payroll is in the mail, the music is back in the library, the phone is strangely silent and the files are put away.

It's a great feeling.

For five minutes.

Then the cycle starts all over again - ordering music for next season, building concert rosters, creating rehearsal schedules, working on budgets and the million and one things that go into a (hopefully) smooth season.

But this is my five minutes, so I think I'll slip over to Millenium Park, lay down on the grass and enjoy a concert.

And relish the fact that it's not mine.

We met last night to discuss Golijov's opera Ainadamar. It was a great discussion and we set our next meeting and chose repertoire.

Tuesday May 1st at 7:00pm. We'll be discussing George Antheil's Symphony No. 5 "Joyous" and a couple choral works by Eric Whitacre: Sleep and Water Night.

The Antheil is available on eMusic. The Whitacre is available on itunes.

More later, but mark your calendars now.

Mouse over to Outlook and mark down Wednesday April 4th from 7:00 - 8:00pm. It's the next meeting of our listening group and this time - at a more chat-friendly time - we'll be talking about  Golijov's opera Ainadamar.

If the first thing you thought was "OMG, I don't want to listen to  hours and hours of music." I hear you, but this one is an hour 20 minutes. Start to finish.

If the second thing you thought was "Golijov, must be modern. I pass." Give it a listen, you'll hear amazing singing, haunting orchestral colors, and a flamengo dance of bullets.

A recording by the Atlanta Symphony is available on itunes and includes 2 nifty new things. 1st, a booklet is downloaded as well. You can open it in Word. 2nd, there is a listening guide narrated by Osvaldo Golijov. That in itself is worth the download.

Here's the listening list for March 2nd.

There is lots of Gesualdo to listen to. I picked these because they are performed on a VERY interesting documentary by Werner Herzog called Gesualdo: Death in Five Voices. You can rent this from Netflix. It's one hour long and bizarre like...we can talk about it on the 2nd.

Carlo Gesualdo - Five part madrigals
Book 4 #3 Io tacero..."
I found 2 versions on itunes, one is performed by Claudio Cavina & La Venexiana, the other by Ensemble Arte-Musica.

Book 6 #17 "Moro lasso..."
On itunes, this is represented by Canadian Brass and The King's Noyse. I recommend listening to both.

Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday: III. Plange quasi virgo

Ingram Marshall - Fog Tropes
If you're looking on itunes, search under "Ingram Marshall (b. 1942) Fog Tropes (LP version). It's on a CD called American Elegies.

Also available is Fog Tropes II for the Kronos Quartet. If you can, listen to both and  we'll talk about them.

Remember, no experience necessary, no need to buy scores or have a music degree, just a desire to listen and talk. We'll meet in the chat room on Friday March 2 at 10:00am (CST).

A brief post after a long delay.

First, for a humorous prelude to our concert tonight, I recommend, thanks to YouTube, watching Peter Ustinov perform (alone) a Bach cantata movement.

Next, I've been remiss in posting the date, time and repertoire for our next online listening group. I propose Friday March 2nd at 10:00 (CST). Repertoire is Fog Tropes by Ingram Marshall and a few madrigals by Gesualdo.

Remember, you don't need to study scores or have a music degree, just listen and chat about it.

I will post the titles of the madrigals on Monday or Tuesday next week. In the meantime, I highly recommend getting the documentary about Gesualdo by Werner Herzog. It's called Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices. One hour long. Available from Netflix. And as bizarre and surreal as they come. My favorite line came from the fleeing woman who turns out to look like a voluptuous movie star and claims to be Gesualdo's murdered wife. Then says that she lives in a box at La Scala and can be reached by helicopter.

You've got to see it.

The listening list will come mostly from the documentary (I have to watch it again to write down the madrigals performed.)