Bamboo Morgan

photos taken at the ccp little theater last wednesday, during rehearsals for this year's international bamboo organ festival. acs, the philippine chamber choir and the philippine philharmonic orchestra are performing rossini's messa di gloria under the baton of miles ("smile") morgan.

among other things, of course. bamboo organ (or as rina likes to call it, bamboo morgan--very apt this year, given the name of our guest conductor) would just be totally surreal if we only had to do one piece. ha! i wish. i'm part of a smaller group of 20 that will be performing schubert's stabat mater and charles ives' psalm 90. then there are smaller groups of 7 and 10 that will be doing pieces by monteverdi and scarlatti--or scare-latti, as aggie likes to say.

bamboo organ is rather traumatic in its stressfulness. this year, thankfully, it doesn't seem to be so toxic. and the pieces are easy. or maybe we are just getting better at learning them. the first time we read through ives, i wanted to streak around naked while laughing maniacally. that or throw the piece to the floor and stomp on it like rumpelstiltskin dancing around his fire.

but--and this is how i feel about music more than any other thing--the more you learn it and grow confident in it, the more feeling you start developing for it and the better you want to be at it. so now, for example, i can actually express opinions about the ives piece, and see beautiful things in it, and not be afraid of it.

it's probably a good thing that i immortalized this thought. because if i'm really going to do what i think i've decided to do, then i'll need thoughts like that to sustain me.

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had my first "serious" voice lesson with leslie today. serious as in 1) i paid him for it, and 2) it was done in the context of a goal. and here's how it went:

i poked a toe out of my comfort zone and realized that what i felt was ok in that zone is just not enough for the huge wild yonder outside it. so much work to be done, and so much to learn. so starting today, i will steel myself to leave behind this lackadaisical, habitual "default mode" and make more of a go-getter, let's-make-this-count effort.

now, if you'll excuse me, i have a slumber party to prepare for. tee hee.