My ears are still ringing today, after going to an Arch Enemy concert last night. The ringing is nothing new, it’s the same very high B flat that lasts for a couple of days every time I expose my unprotected ears to loud Scandinavian heavy metal. It also probably means that something inside my [...] » Read more

On Friday evening, I saw Seattle Opera’s production of Eugene Onegin. It was very good in spite of the more inane operatic plots imaginable: boy meets girl, girl falls in love with boy, boy rejects girl, boy shoots other boy (not over the original girl, I might add), time passes, boy falls in [...] » Read more

November is the dreariest month. The first time I go home from work, in total darkness, after daylight saving time kicks in, is when I realise the coldest, darkest, and most bloody depressing months of the year have arrived. The rain that has been splattering Northern California over the last week doesn’t help much [...] » Read more

The musical is nearly finished - I’ll be glad when it is, since it’s been a wearing experience; I’ve think I’ve been coming across as antisocial to the actors (who are, for the most part, very uninhibited - Jenny the pianist made a relevant comment: “they’re all so fucking touchy-feely”) and things are a [...] » Read more

Dammit - it’s official. A New Brain just won’t die - it’s been picked up as a replacement by another theatre group and I’ve been asked to play. I’d punt except they’re actually offering to pay this time.. [...] » Read more

Opening weekend is over. Friday’s performance was a shambles on my part; I got cocky and decided that I didn’t need to count rests, big mistake. Saturday and today went very well though, with today being attended by something like a grand total of 10 people; Friday’s and Saturday’s attendance were nearly full - [...] » Read more

A New Brain is killing me. We had a practice on Monday: where the replacement reed player sight read the music (poorly); the synth player quit, and the drum player never showed up. We had our first run through with the cast on Tuesday: the reed player [...] » Read more

Even more cello playing today. Went to another chamber music workshop put on by the CMNC - second one I’ve been to since the previous one, back in October. Today’s cello music was much more satisfying than the Mozart played last time though. When the director called a few weeks ago I was [...] » Read more

Thursday was the first practice for the musical at Choral Rehearsal Hall in Berkeley - the shipment of the music had been delayed til then. What a shambles it was too. Over the course of the evening it was revealed that the reed player couldn’t commit to all the performances and was looking for [...] » Read more

No entries for the last while - I guess my excuse was practicing piano and cello fairly intensely. This weekend I went to a chamber music workshop at Cal State Hayward, put on by the Chamber Musicians of Northern California. I had heard about it a few months ago while doing some idle web [...] » Read more