Archive: January 2007
« December 2006 | Main | February 2007 »
Jan 29 07: get cultural!
Why do I have no life at the moment? Because I’m hip-deep in rehearsals, again. One of the performances is with Jason Robert Brown at Jazz@Lincoln Center, which has been sold out for months; but the other one is on Monday the 5th at Alice Tully and it’s free. If you have a little time and a yen for some baroque music, we’d love to have you join us.
JEROME L. GREENE CONCERT
An annual evening of Baroque musicJuilliard Chamber Orchestra
Juilliard Choral Union
Judith Clurman, Conductor and DirectorBIBER Battalia (Sonata di marche)
BACH Orchestral Suite in C Major, BWV 1066
BACH Cantata ‘Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding,’ BWV 176*
Erin Morley, Soprano
David Williams, Baritone
additional singer TBAPURCELL Chaconne for Strings in G Minor, Z. 730
BACH Cantata ‘Christ lag in Todes Banden,’ BWV 4**
Ariana Wyatt, Soprano
Solange Merdinian, Mezzo-soprano
Michael Kelly, Tenor
Marc Webster, Bass*Cantata for Trinity
**Cantata for the First Day of EasterAlice Tully Hall
Monday, February 5, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Free tickets required.
Available beginning 1/22 at the Juilliard Box Office.
When they say ‘free tickets required,’ it means that those who show up with a ticket get first shot at seats before they open the house, but I’ve never heard of anybody being turned away at the door. I hope to see you there.
Jan 26 07: further words to the wise
Hello, my name is Mister Stupidhead. I decided to get a haircut on the coldest day NYC has seen in two years. Fortunately, I have a hat, but still: this could have been thought through more carefully. Consider yourself warned—it’s brisk out there, and your ears will notice.
word to the wise
Just a quick warning, from one who knows. I was given Roz Chast’s compendium Theories of Everything for Christmas, and it’s fabulous. It’s big and heavy and has—well, if not all her work from 1978-1006, then at least all the good stuff. If you are, like me, the sort of person who enjoys her work—this was a dead-on gift idea, and the giver gets major points for this one—then be careful. You will find yourself lying on your bed snickering at her cartoons until far past your bedtime.
Jan 21 07: 4,205
The 2007 One Hour Swim is now done. I did okay—not up to the pace I’d hoped to hold for myself, but respectably enough, especially in light of my spotty training record for the event.
In one hour this morning, I swam 4,205 yards, which is 168-and-a-little-bit laps, which is also 2.4 miles. My average pace for 100 yards was 1:25.47. Yay, me!
I should thank my dear friend Hugh McGowan for his assistance this morning. He was in the lane next to mine. Although we stayed together for the first 400 yards or so, he is generally the faster swimmer, and so eventually pulled ahead. When he first lapped me at about the 31-minute mark, I thought to myself, Bitch, I love you, but you do not get to do that again. When he started pulling close to lapping me a second time at about 48 minutes, I picked up the pace. And Hugh picked up the pace. So I put on a little more speed. And he put on a little more speed. By the last 200 yards, we were flat-out sprinting down the pool.
But he never did pass me a second time.
My even greater thanks, however, go to all of you who sponsored me, because as much as Hugh was inspiring, you spurred me on even more. My gratitude to each and every one of you.
(If you still want to sponsor me, I’d be happy to accept a donation. Comment here, or send me an email, and I’ll tell you how.)
Jan 20 07: collecting and winning
So tonight I achieved a weird milestone I didn’t even realize I was tracking: I have now sung onstage at each of the major performance spaces in Lincoln Center1. I certainly never thought it would happen. But last week a seriously cool gig fell out of the sky and into the laps of a small group from the Juilliard Choral Union, and tonight it came to pass: I sang onstage at the Metropolitan Opera House, backing up Kristin Chenoweth.
I’m gonna say that again: I sang at the Met. At Kristin Chenoweth’s big recital. Packed house, tickets that cost the moon and stars. She was amazing—as a number of people whose opinions I respect said this evening, “She is the real deal.” Operetta, Broadway, even a Styx tune: she sang the hell outta all of it. And she’s funny, and she’s beautiful, and she seems very nice and very real.
Her encores were “Glitter and Be Gay” from Candide, which in her hands was both hilarious and pyrotechnic; and “What Makes Me Love Him?” from The Apple Tree, the show she’s doing right now at Studio 54. I had no interest in seeing The Apple Tree. I’m broke as all hell right now. But that song was so… so sweet, so romantic, so touching, so perfect that I think I’m going to try to land a cheap ticket somehow, just to hear her sing it again.
And best of all? If she was aware that I was one of those black-hearted folks who sent her to the bottom of the ocean back in July, she showed no grudge. Thanks, KC.
Singing at the Met was a fabulous thing. The huge hall, the cavernous backstage, the biiig curtains—all awesome. The experience was a lot like singing at Carnegie that way: I’d be in my blasé ‘ho hum, it’s another gig with the chorus’ headspace, and then I’d snap to and realize where I was and why. The JCU can be a lot of work, and it sometimes takes up a huge chunk of my personal time. But damned if it hasn’t presented me with a lot of amazing experiences in return. Thanks, Juilliard!
1 That would be, from south to north: the New York State Theater, the Metropolitan Opera House, and Avery Fisher Hall. For those of you not in New York. I’ve also performed in a few of its minor spaces—Rose Hall (Jazz at Lincoln Center), and Alice Tully Hall and the Juilliard Theater, which are part of the Juilliard School.
Jan 19 07: taking the plunge
Well, I’m gonna do it. On Sunday morning I’ll be taking part in the One Hour Swim. It was looking kinda touch-and-go for a while, but I’m in.
For the uninitiated, the OHS is an nationwide annual meet in which swimmers are given 60 minutes to swim as far as they can. Team NY Aquatics—that ragtag bunch of chlorine-scented queers with whom I’ve been hanging out for an astonishing twelve years now—uses the OHS as a launch platform for something more.
Each year, swimmers from TNYA treat the OHS as an opportunity to raise funds for a local AIDS advocacy organization. This year, we are raising money for two worthy recipients: the AIDS Service Center of NYC and the Momentum Project.
Last year, we raised just over $25,000 for our beneficiaries. Would you be willing to sponsor me as I go the distance?
There are lots of ways to sponsor an OHS swimmer. You could sponsor me by the length (25 yards at a go), or by the yard, or with a single lump-sum amount. My goal this year is to swim at a pace between 1:25 and 1:20 per hundred yards. A 1:25 pace would mean a total distance of 4,235 yards, or just over 169 lengths. A 1:20 pace would mean 4,500 yards, or 180 lengths. Even a penny a yard would help us help a lot of New Yorkers.
If you have any questions about the event, I’d be delighted to answer them. Just drop me a line. (Unless your question is ‘Why don’t you hyphenate the compound adjective in the name of the event?’ We’re not in a position to do that. The name is dictated by folks at the national level. However, you should know that the Avenging Virgo approves of your attention to detail.)
And whether or not you are able to make a pledge this year, I thank you sincerely just for reading all the way to the end of this note.