LA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA!

Well, I got home to Turin from Brussels/Lille, turned around and
repacked my bags and then was off to LA for my concerts with LA
Chamber Orchestra. I was feeling a little puny, but thought I'd get
over it. Instead, I came down with a rip-roaring cold/sinus
infection. I arrived in shambles at my sister's place in Long Beach.
We rethought our rehearsal schedule, I went to my sister's GP, who
drugged me up on a ton of antibiotics, as he said it looked
bacterial. You don't want to know the colors coming out of my nose...
argh. He seemed desperate to put me on steriods, but I resisted.
So, I sort of marked my way through the rehearsals, trying to be as
careful as possible. The orchestra was very supportive, and the
conductor very nice, but in addition to my being sick, we simply
didn't have enough time to rehearse all the music! I had wanted to
cut the one thing that rendered the concert so hard - a Mozart concert
aria with piano that was too low for me, but that we'd put on so that
the conductor Jeffery Kahane could play with me on the keyboard. So
we kept that one and ended up cutting my favorite Mozart concert aria,
"Vorrei spiegarvi o Dio" with the excuse that I was sick. Crap. But
all ended well, despite my worries - I made it through both concerts
well. We made an announcement beforehand and I managed to sing well
despite all the crud in my nose and running down my throat. But it
was super-frustrating, as I felt like I had to be continually careful
and couldn't just let loose. Oh well. I think I will take the
Copland Emily Dickenson songs off my repertoire list. They're too
damn low. And the next time I do a chamber music recital, it will
actually be chamber music and not orchestral music done with a
somewhat smaller orchestra. There's way too much great chamber music
out there that is never done to waste an opportunity to do some of it
doing music I could do with a regular orchestra instead. You live
and you learn.
At least I got to see my sister a bit, and hang out with her. I miss
her!