defense

The past two days were spent in Tucson, Arizona with pianist and fraternity brother Michael Dauphinais rehearsing Janacek's "Diary of One who Disappeared." This work is a work-out for sure; forty minutes of largely romantic/pentatonic music with as many as seven flats in the key signature and metre changes, seemingly every other bar. Did I mention it is also in the Czech language with certain dialectic nuances? Difficult. Difficult.

I will say that Michael's zeal for this work is infectious but the music itself, once embodied, as equally so. There is a certain amount of triumph that is felt when running four songs in succession. His [Michael] patience is unending, as there were some spots in the piece that seemed almost impossible to perform correctly. The concert is one month so that gives us (me) plenty of time to fix things.

There was also a smoked pork shoulder, Czech beer, cabbage salad and television involved. What a way to spend a couple days! One thousand kudos to MD.

St. Patricks Day. I am spending the rest of my evening working off the plentiful amount of meat and then diving in to my next project: Andrea Bocelli songs. Yikes! It should be a fun wedding on Friday. Tomorrow morning I finally get to meet 'Daryl.' Time to say goodbye? It would be too soon!

Sondheim's 80th birthday is in a week. The man and his legendary compositions never cease to amaze me. Careful the things you say...children will listen...