Health and music

The last few times I've seen the doctor they've been a bit concerned about my blood pressure - last week Dr J gave me a blood-pressure machine to take home for a week. I took readings every morning and night and returned to see her last Friday.

As it turned out, my BP sits just above the recommended normal range, so I am now on medication (an ACE inhibitor, I think it's called). This brings my daily medication to two per day, as I'm already taking a statin for my high cholesterol levels.

On Friday night I met ST at Melba Hall for a concert of works by Tom Henry. The first half was piano works played by Jennifer Enchelmaier; after interval was Ken's Spree for clarinet and piano, based on Scottish themes. This was followed by settings of seven poems by South American poets, including Borges and Neruda, though these were set for piano, clarinet and cello rather than voice. The poems express the idea of life as a river. These seven pieces were exquisite, with some very beautiful interplay between all three instruments.

Then last night P&B and I went to the Town Hall to hear a rare performance of Berlioz' Grande Messe des Morts, commonly known as his Requiem. It was being performed by the Intervarsity Choral Festival accompanied by the Melbourne Youth Orchestra conducted by Brett Kelly; Daniel Todd was the tenor soloist. The performance was a great experience, particularly the entry of the four brass ensembles in the Tuba mirum section, which was breathtaking. The choir sounded great and Todd made a good fist of what is not an easy sing. 

I think the last time I heard this work in performance was at a Prom concert in Melbourne in the early 70's, when the soloist was Ronald Dowd.

Travel memories, etc

I'm just watching the lovely Joanna Lumley presenting her Greek Odyssey program. Tonight she's visiting Corfu.

What I find interesting is that when I first travelled overseas, in 1976, I spent a few days on Corfu on my way from Italy to Athens. However, I find I have almost no recollection of my time there. I do know that I learnt to play backgammon from an American girl in a taverna, while drinking retsina, I think. Watching Joanna Lumley's program provides me with absolutely no sparks of recognition ...

To be honest I don't have many firm memories of my first trip - I know I spent about two months back-packing around Europe visiting, among other places, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece. Over the years I've revisited many of these places but have never returned to Greece. Not sure if I ever will.

In other news I've got a last-minute gig on 3MBS tomorrow. It's the Midday program; it's already programmed (by JvB) so I just have to present it. Then I spend the rest of the afternoon on Reception before coming back at 7pm to present Music for Keyboard.

This evening I booked for the Berlioz Requiem on Saturday (with P&B) and for Bill Bailey in September (with LE). 

Birthday celebrations

Thursday was my birthday and I started early by getting to 3MBS by 5.45. With NA I presented the Daybreak program - the previous week NA had panelled for me but this week I did the lot, panelling and presenting. It went off well and NA seemed pleased with my performance. I will be doing next week as well and NA says he thinks that should be enough; he will sign off on me.

As well next week I am presenting Wednesday night's Music for keyboards program - this one I have programmed as well. The program slot is up for grabs until the end of the year and after Wednesday I might consider putting my hand up for it. We'll see.

In the afternoon on Thursday I went over to South Melbourne for a wonderful concert at ANAM. Organised by Georgia Ioakimidis-MacDougall, horn player, for her mid-year recital it began with a première performance of Bells by Peter de Jager and was a very effective piece for three horns. This was followed by a performance by Lotte Betts-Dean of Paul Stanhope's Songs for the Shadowland, settings of poems by Oodgeroo Noonuccal; she was accompanied by a small chamber ensemble. An interesting work; I'd also like to hear more of Betts-Dean's singing.

The major work, and the main reason I was there, was Strauss' Four Last Songs in the chamber arrangement by James Ledger performed by the glorious Siobhán Stagg. A larger chamber ensemble accompanied Siobhán who gave an amazingly mature performance of these wondrous songs. It made a highlight for my day.

But it didn't end there - later I met up with PR and BS for a truly extraordinary dinner at Hare and Grace. I started with a delicious salmon dish with pomegranate from the specials menu; BS had the Eton Mess (with oysters, yet) and PR had the Atlantic salmon with cracked wheat ash.

For mains I had an intensely flavoured braised lamb that had been cooked for six hours, BS had the restaurant's take on a chiko roll and PR had the braised beef with cured pear. For dessert I had candied parsnips (I kid you not), PR the lemon 'liquid' tart and BS the 'Storm in a teacup', which consisted of parsley icecream, beetroot jelly, coconut ice and fried shallots.

We all declared our meals to be excellent.

In all, a wonderful day.

Then last night we went to the Town Hall to hear the MSO perform Shostakovich and Mahler. The concert began with the Shostakovich violin concerto played by Julian Rachlin - it's an amazing tour-de-force and Rachlin's playing was extraordinary. He rightly received loud cheers and applause, from the orchestra as well as the audience.

After interval we were treated to a performance of Mahler's Symphony no 4, with Emma Matthews singing in the last movement. Benjamin Northey, who stepped in at the last minute to replace Donald Runnicles, did a great job directing what is one of Mahler's most accessible symphonies. Emma Matthews delivered the goods.

Prometheus-bound

Today, as the cleaners were coming, I decided to take myself off to the pictures. First, though, I needed some coffee so I walked around to the Acoustic Cafe where I had a good chat with Ian as well as the coffee. Then I took myself off to Victoria Gardens and a session of Prometheus - in 3D.

It looks amazing, but the plot has some very large holes in it. Still, it passed a couple of hours and I enjoyed most of it. What was most annoying was the fact that the session was advertised to start at 11.20 - fat chance! We had to sit through nearly half an hour of advertisements and previews, as well as some brainless drivel from someone called Andrew Günsberg, who seemed to assume we knew he was.

One of the previews was for Baz Luhrmann's new film of "The Great Gatsby" - not something I have very much interest in, but I did notice that the 3D looked awful. It looked very discontinuous, everything looking as if it were a series of flat images, one behind the other.

Afterwards I had a lovely walk home in the sun.

Wednesday again

Busy today: this morning I went up to Officeworks to pick up some vocal scores I'd left to be printed - pdfs I'd downloaded from the wonderful Petrucci web site.

I stopped at the Bomb Cafe for a coffee on the way home. Had time for a bit of a play through the scores, before it was time for lunch.

This afternoon was a reception shift at the radio station - quite busy, as it happened.

I'll be in bed early tonight as I have to be up early to present tomorrow's Daybreak program - six o'clock start.

Mobility

I have this morning updated to the mobile version of Blogger. I hope this means I will be blogging more frequently.

It's been a while

In March I completed the four-week training course for programmers and presenters run by 3MBS. After creating a demonstration disc I was then buddied-up with JB. This meant over a few weeks I pannelled, and eventually presented, Monday's Concert Hall program. JB signed off on me, which means I then had to do the same thing on a flow program.


So this morning I was at the station before 6am to operate the panel for NA who presents Thursday's Daybreak program, 6-9am. There was a slight problem when NA realised he'd left the discs we needed for the second two hours at home - he had to go into the library to collect CDs to use.

The first hour was fine as we had all the discs we needed. NA did an amazing job putting a program together on the spot; one day perhaps I'll be able to do the same without too much stress.

The shift passed without any other problems; I messed only once, when I forgot to bring up NA's microphone for him to talk ... but it was only momentary.

Next week I should be presenting the whole program on my own. As well, I've been asked to program and present the Music for Keyboards program on Wedneday, June 20 - it's an hour long and I don't think I'll have too much trouble putting a program together.