Toronto is the opposite. Today will be 33 C with thunderstorms threatening.
Rehearsals have been long...great opera workshop rehearsal on Monday night. Yesterday I crash banged through my first French baroque recit. Rameau. Not great. Shook it off in time for Charpentier soloist auditions. Dinner with some folks and then sang through my first Evangelist at the TBSI "Bach Bash" (less of a bash and more of an excellent first read for many- Jesus these people are smart) ... I feel accomplished but I know that there are many things I'd like to fix. I'm so thankful for Bill, Marius and Michael for all those hours of coaching...and all those great stories and images. Finally with people who have the same mind set about everything and whose passion for early music is heard and seen every where. I am learning so much about singing and style just by being around it. And everyone at Tafelmusik are such rock stars to me that it is all very surreal. To be able to sing the John Passion with Ivars at the helm is just... indescribable. He is absolutely brilliant.
I went back the hotel exhausted, took a brief pausa and shared a beverage with my Israeli hotel friend. We listened to live jazz and he was on the quest for female companionship. I just sat in a comatose state and listened to the "Dirty Boogie" playing in the background. By mistake we sat at the same jazz club I visited back in January when I went out with the Toronto karaoke guys. Funny how things turn around.
We left the jazz club around 12:30, chatted with some women outside a falafel place; they were in advertising and married but still out on a Tuesday night. Apparently "suits" party during the week but only downtown. Industry people on the west side of the city with the rest of the hipsters and posers. I didn't care. I just wanted to sleep. Of course, after walking around with Tel Aviv [his name escapes me at the moment but that is where he is from...a photographer for night clubs there] until he insisted a taxi deliver us back to the hotel. And, as any bumble abouts would at such a late hour, devour a chicken shawarma sandwich like it was the last day the sandwich existed on Earth.
Instead of listening to music on the way in I am behind on Garrison's News from Lake Wobegon. Fearful I will miss America too much a bit...Midwestern dreaming. One of my new friends here is an oboist at IU; she shared stories at dinner yesterday of her Midwest experience and her performance life in Chicago. Ah, Chicago. A beautiful city, too. Raw. Beautiful.
There was a line-up of people outside of MuchMusic last night waiting for wristbands to get into the music awards ceremony in a couple of weeks. Brunette advertising lady advised Rihanna is in the city. I'll be looking for black eyes.
I sure do love the walk into UofT. Especially when the weather
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