St. Louis, McGegan and NORMA NEWTON

ST. LOUIS AND MCGEGAN
In Saint Louis, I sang Handel's St. Cecilia with Nick McGegan and tenor Thomas Cooley. In St. Louis Orchestra blew my expectations out of the water. And their chorus was fantastic! I'm very impressed. I'd love to go back, as the people are nice, the town (at least where I was staying) is stately and pretty, and the orchestra makes some fine music!!

NORMA NEWTON
Beautiful music-making was a consolation, as my beloved voice teacher Norma Newton passed away the day of a my last concert there. I really didn't expect it at all. She had been ill, but had kept the enormity of it from everyone, and didn't tell many people when she went into hospital the last time. She had sworn me to secrecy in the summer when she'd told me of her leukemia, apologizing profusely that she couldn't come to my shows in Santa Fe! I miss her reassuring voice so much. Only when I was preparing this page did I realize I don't even have ONE picture of us together. :-(


We're going to hold a memorial for Norma in Houston at Rice University on January 30th, if all goes well. She taught at Rice for years, was involved with the HGO studio, and her son lives in the Houston area, so she has many connections to that community. Suzanne Mentzer, another student of hers, now teaches at Rice, and fellow student Anamaria Martinez lives in Houston - so it should be nice to get lots of friends together and remember a really classy lady. I loved her dearly. Luckily, Tullio was able to meet her on my last trip to New York last Spring.