Looking Forward from Spring Break

Upcoming March 21 Choir Concert

You are cordially invited to join us for Musica Sacra - Lent 2015 presented by the St. John’s Chamber Choir.  We will sing music of J. S. Bach, L. v Beethoven, F. Mendelssohn, J. Brahms, and S. S. Wesley, including excerpts from Beethoven’s Mass in C Major, Op. 86.  The concert is Saturday, March 21, 2015 at 7:30 pm. at St. John’s Catholic Church, 207 York Street, Bangor.  Admission is free, and donations will support food assistance needs in the community.

First Week of Spring Break

Spring Break started February 28 after a week of midterm exams.  For the first part of Spring Break, I was privileged to meet and attend the March 4 concert given by Jacques Boucher, and his wife, Anne Robert, from Montreal, Canada.  I am on the board of the St. John’s Organ Society, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and appreciation of E. & G. G. Hook’s Opus 288 (1860) at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Bangor, Maine. Each winter we sponsor a concert featuring an internationally-known organist.  The 2015 concert featured Boucher and Robert.  Boucher played the historic E. and G. G. Hook organ and Robert played her 1738 Carlo Antonio Testore violin. They performed music of Corelli, Gounod, Rheinberger, and Bèdard in an inspiring concert.  I was privileged to turn pages and pull stops for Boucher while he played the concert.  You can see some press coverage from WABI TV with a small sample of their music:

http://wabi.tv/2015/03/04/music-of-centuries-gone-by-fills-st-johns-in-bangor/

Anne Robert and Jacques Boucher

I attended a March 3 concert by the Vancouver Chamber Choir, a 20-member world-renowned professional choral group.  They were brought to Bangor by the Collins Center for the Arts and they performed at St. John’s Episcopal Church.  They performed music from many time periods and the following composers: Britten, Brahms, Whitacre, Berkey, Allegri, Vaughan Williams, Washburn, and Chapman.

I spent the weekend of March 7-9 in Columbus, Ohio, visiting my grandchildren.  My flights to Ohio on Friday, March 6, were cancelled, so I flew on Saturday morning, March 7.  My granddaughter, Lesley, and I attended a special Lenten choral concert on March 8 at St. Joseph Catholic Cathedral in Columbus.  The St. Joseph Cathedral Choir invited the Christ Episcopal Cathedral Choir from Cincinnati to join them for a concert of music by Slater, Farrant, Purcell, Morley, Byrd, Guerrero, Wesley, Thompson, Helvey, Chilcott, Lloyd, Mendelssohn, and Pärt.  The highlight of the evening was Thomas Tallis’ 40-voice polyphonic motet, Spem in alium.  The combined choirs surrounded the audience and the music was heavenly.

With Lesley in St. Joseph Cathedral.  You can see part of the beautiful Fritts organ, Opus 25 (2006) in the background.

Second Week of Spring Break

The second week of Spring Break, I visited New York with my daughter, Carletta.  We stayed with our dear friends, Helen and Julia Levine.  We attended two operas at the Metropolitan Opera.  Both operas were inspiring and very well done.

1.     Rossini’s La Donna del Lago with Joyce DiDonato as the Lady of the Lake and Juan Diego Flòres as King James was conducted by Michele Mariotti.  Daniela Barcellona sang the role of Malcolm and John Osborne sang Rodrigo.

2.     Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffman conducted by James Levine.  Matthew Polenzani played Hoffman, and Audrey Luna, Susanna Phillips, and Elena Maximova played the three heroines.  Laurent Naouri sang the four villains.

With Carletta inside the Metropolitan Opera

I attended a New York Philharmonic performance conducted by Thomas Adès featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, Berioz’ Les Francs-juges Overture and Andès Totentanz.

We attended the spring recital of the American Ballet Theater Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School.  Our good friend Julia Levine is a student at the JKO school and she performed in this recital.

We enjoyed great food at several restaurants and Carletta’s husband, Aaron, joined us for the weekend.

While in New York, I practiced most mornings on the Johannes Klais Orgelbau organ (1977), at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church.  Thomas Schmidt, the Music Director, generously allows me to play the organ at St. Peter’s if it is available when I visit New York.

 Klais organ at St. Peter's Lutheran Church

I was happy to return home to my husband, John, who supports me in so many ways as I explore my love of music.  Now back to classes for the second half of the semester!

Beginning Spring Semester!

The Spring semester started January 12.  In addition to taking classes in harmony, ear training, and choral conducting, I am taking lessons in pipe organ, piano, and voice, and participating in the Collegiate Chorale ensemble.  I am taking one less classroom course this semester, and will spend more time practicing organ, piano, and singing. 

I am also involved in music ministry at church.  I sing in three choral groups in St. Paul the Apostle Catholic parish:  St. John’s Adult and Chamber choirs and the St. Teresa’s schola. 

I sometimes play the organ for Masses, especially when the Music Director, Kevin Birch, is out of town.  I played for three Masses at St. John’s and St. Teresa’s churches January 17 and 18 and for the All Saint’s School Mass on January 21.  This is the first time I have played the organ with the St. John’s Adult choir.  What a privilege that was!  I prepared for this for about six weeks to make sure I knew the music well.

The weekend after Christmas, I sang “Maria Wiegenlied” by Max Reger at two of the Masses.  This translates as “Mary’s Lullaby” and is one of the pieces that I learned in my voice lessons in the fall semester.  I sang it in the original German, and then in an English translation.  I also played the organ prelude for both of those Masses.

I played “Joseph est bien Marié” from Noels by Claude Balbastre in a Program of Winter Music and Readings  sponsored by the Bangor Chapter of the American Guild of Organists on January 11 at the Brewer Second Congregational Church.  We played the Hook & Hastings Opus 2196 (1906) organ that was rebuilt and tonally revised by Berkshire in 1997.  Claude Balbastre (1724-1799) was born in Dijon, France.  He studied organ and composition in Dijon and Paris.  Balbastre was organist at St. Roch and at Notre-Dame.  He was employed at the French court, where he played organ for the chapel and taught harpsichord to Marie Antoinette.  After the French Revolution he lived the rest of his life in poverty.  He composed chiefly keyboard works.  Balbastre’s “Joseph est bien Marié” is based on a French Christmas carol.  The English translation is “Joseph has married well.”  This is a theme and four variations.

At the console of the Hook & Hastings/Berkshire organ at the Second Congregational Church, Brewer, Maine preparing for the AGO Winter Readings and Carols

Over the break between semesters, I spent some time learning how to use the Sibelius music notation software that my sweet husband gave me for Christmas.  Besides using some of the Sibelius tutorials, I spent several hours with a good friend, Lorna Russell, who showed me how she uses Sibelius efficiently, and answered all my questions.  She recommended that I purchase a midi keyboard to improve the ease of note entry.  Lorna is a church musician so she uses Sibelius for the same types of tasks that I will be using it for.  PhotoScore, which works with Sibelius, is a very powerful tool.  I can scan a music score into PhotoScore, which enters the notes into Sibelius.  I can then transpose the music, add extra verses, or make any other modifications that would be useful.

At my desk with my computer and new midi keyboard

First Year Anniversary of Becoming a Full Time Music Student!

I retired from Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems a year ago.  Since then I have completed two semesters as a full time music student at the University of Maine working toward a Bachelor of Arts degree and my goal to be a church musician.  I enjoy my music studies immensely and I can see (and hear!) some progress in my skills.  I have learned much about music.  I have learned much about community.  I feel very blessed to have so much support from my husband, John, and my family, friends, teachers, fellow-students, and colleagues.

I finished my last final exam for this semester on December 16.  Then December 17, I flew to New York to attend a ballet in which a good friend was performing.  My daughter, Carletta, met me in New York for this brief visit.  Here is a link to a storybook describing American Ballet Theater’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker:

http://www.abt.org/nutcracker/index.html

You click on the top right corner of the book on the screen to turn the pages.

With Carletta at the Nutcracker ballet

The ballet was beautiful and showcased the skills of the students of the American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of Ballet.

http://www.abt.org/education/jko_school.asp

I flew home on Friday, December 19, because the St. John’s Christmas Concert was December 21 with the dress rehearsal on December 20.  What a beautiful concert of the St. John’s Youth and Adult choirs!  I sang with the choir and played one organ piece during the concert.  This organ piece is a theme and four variations on a French Christmas Carol composed by Claude Balbastre (1724-1799).  I recorded myself playing “Joseph est bien Marié” a few days later at St. John’s in a quiet church:

https://soundcloud.com/catherine-bruno/2014-12-26-balbastre-joseph-est-bien-marie

At the console of Hook Opus 288 at St. John’s

Thankful for Thanksgiving Break

It is good to have a few days off for Thanksgiving break.  Besides eating Thanksgiving food and relaxing, it is an opportunity for me to catch up on my homework, my practicing, and my sleep. 

After this weekend, there are two more weeks of classes, and then juries and final exams.  I will have three juries this semester because I am taking applied lessons in organ, piano, and voice.  A jury is a performance of selected music from the current semester for the faculty of that instrument.  This semester for organ I learned music by Balbastre, Vierne, Walther, and Buxtehude.  In piano, I studied music by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Moszkowski with a special focus on building the strength and dexterity of my left hand.  In voice lessons, I learned music of Faurè, Reger, and Handel.  To perform the vocal music for the jury, I memorized the Faurè “Pie Jesu” and the Reger “Mariä Wiegenlied.”

For my harmony class, we were assigned to write musical variations on a theme by either Mozart or Beethoven.  I chose Mozart’s theme, “Das Kinderspiel,” and I wrote two variations a few weeks ago, and one more yesterday.  All of these were written when it was snowing heavily here in Maine.  The professor, Dr. Beth Wieman, gave us an opportunity to send her drafts of the first variation so she could give us feedback.  This helped me a lot, and I made several improvements to my first draft.

For my Basic Conducting class, I am learning how to keep regular time with my right hand while cueing with both my left and right hands.  The final exam for that course will be conducting an excerpt of a Palestrina (1525-1594) motet.  The other class members will sing the music, and each of us will take a turn conducting our classmates.

My Performances

The Oratorio Society performed Handel’s “Dixit Dominus” and “Zadak the Priest” coronation anthem on November 16 and we will sing Christmas music, along with the other University of Maine choirs, at the Yuletide Concert, December 7, 2 pm, at the Collins Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus.

The St. John's Chamber Choir, Kevin Birch, Director and Organist, will perform chants, motets, and organ works for Advent with music of H. Andriessen, J. Beicht, N. Bruhns, W. Byrd, and H. Strategier on Saturday evening, December 6, at 7:30 pm at St. John's Catholic Church, 207 York St., Bangor.  Admission is free, and donations are appreciated and will benefit food aid in the community.

The St. John's Adult and Youth Choirs will perform our Christmas Concert on Sunday, December 21 at 4 pm at St. John's Catholic Church.  The Adult Choir will sing for Christmas Midnight Mass, with the music prelude beginning about 11 pm on Christmas Eve.

Next Semester

I registered for the spring semester 2015.  I decided to take one less course and focus more on practicing and working with my applied lesson teachers.  To date, I have had 30-minute piano and voice lessons each week.  Next semester I will increase that to hour-long lessons.  My organ lessons have already been an hour and that will continue.

Classes for the spring semester begin on January 12.  I will be taking 13 credits:

Advanced Harmony II

Advanced Sight Singing/Ear Training II

Choral Conducting and Literature

Applied Music Lessons - Organ

Applied Music Lessons - Piano

Applied Music Lessons - Voice

Collegiate Chorale

I plan to graduate in May of 2016 and I plan to perform a senior recital as my senior project.  This organ recital will be sometime during the spring semester of 2016.

Attending Performances

One of the advantages of being a student is the student discounts on music performances, especially at the University of Maine.  All the faculty and student performances are free with my student ID and also some guest artist performances are free.  There are many student group performances this late in the semester.  I attend as many as I can fit into my schedule.  There are also faculty performances spread throughout each semester and I usually attend those.  All of these are opportunities to be exposed to and enjoy a wide variety of music. 

One example is that in September John and I attended a concert by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at the Collins Center.  We enjoyed their music that is reminiscent of the jazz swing music of the 1940s and 1950s.  We had previously heard this band play at the House of Blues in New Orleans several years ago.

As another example, just last week, we had the opportunity to hear duo pianists, Connie Scanlon and Lia de Bruyn, play a varied concert of music by Mozart, Brahms, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff composed for two pianos.  Their playing was confident, energetic, animated, precise, inspiring, and often playful.  Much of the music took a lot of physical energy to play, especially the Rachmaninoff.  They were facing each other, and they communicated frequently through sight.  The lid was removed from the piano on the right, so that the sound from that right piano bounced off of the lid of the piano on the left.

I attend the “Live in HD” broadcasts from the New York Metropolitan Opera whenever I can.  The tickets are $8 with the student discount at the Collins Center for the Arts.  So far this fall, I saw Verdi’s Macbeth and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.  These are magnificent productions and the “Live in HD” has the added attraction that you get to see the scene changes backstage and interviews with the major opera singers.