Mo' Music

Last week I went up to Boston for rehearsal of a new piece (for me) that we are singing with the Boston Symphony in November. The piece is Atlántida by Manuel de Falla. I was feeling pretty good about this because it is a Spanish composer. They speak Spanish in Spain, right? Well I got my music in the mail and it looked like no other Spanish that I have seen. Turns out it's in Catalan. Nice. Enough like Spanish that it doesn't sound totally foreign, but unlike Spanish enough that it gives me a major headache.

We had a two hour rehearsal last week to go through the pronunciation of the language and it was pretty grueling. Today I have surfaced from a super overloaded week and checked the rehearsal calendar. These sixty pages of Catalan have to be memorized by November 1st, which freaked me out in the extreme.

Also, last week I went up to Revere and went to a movie theater to see the Metropolitan Opera´s Live in HD broadcast of Das Rheingold. It. Was. Amazing. I can´t wait to see the next production. James Levine is back conducting after surgery and there is rejoicing among all musicians. Here is a review:
http://markronan.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/das-rheingold-metropolitan-opera-live-relay-october-2010/


Adéu per ara!