The Heart of The Music

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It’s been a tremendous pleasure singing right in the 'midst of the Junge Kammerphilharmonie Freiburg I’ve sung with instrumentalists and orchestras before, but they were separated from the chorus, and usually seem to be uninterested in the singers. Here, we are cheek by jowl with a chance to nearly touch each other’s music as it emerges.

The concert master, from my point of view in the middle of the stage, takes on a new role. He doesn’t just lead the strings, he encompasses them. His body and violin lean back toward his section, eyes and bow sweeping back and directing the form for a sea of moving wands.

I’m close enough to watch the blond wind player switch from her clarinet to her piccolo. The first notes tremble out bird-like. Then I eye the French horns as they take their shimmering brass bells in hand. The first mellow notes of their part, resonate in my own body as the notes rise up from my diaphragm into my own instrument.

Wunderbar.

The Concert Master In Rehearsal

Any Bugs in the Bell?

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After 14 hours on a plane from Frankfurt, Wolfgang figures perhaps, there COULD be bugs in his horn bell. I played French Horn up through the end of middle school. Which made my position on the stage in Memorial Church, just behind the brass section from the Junge Kammerphilharmonie Freiburg even more enjoyable.

In my case, the drummers sat off to the right of us. Being the third french horn, lowest in the pecking order, I was the target of their happy-go-lucky juvenile male behavior. The only instruments with more time on their hands than horns are drums Though the french horns had a lot of rests to count, the drums had even more, and so they needed something to do to occupy their time, while waiting their time to play.

We practiced in the school cafeteria before school. These resourceful fellas would gather up old pieces of stale food and, when I leaned on my horn, counting, or was otherwise distracted by my best friend, the second french horn, they would toss old french fries and stale pieces of hamburger buns into my horn bell. Then when it was my turn to blow, out would come a fusillade of ancient bits of lunch.

At the age of twelve and thirteen, it didn't seem funny to me at all, but it sure does now.

Concert Details and

my other art-journal entries about this performance can be found at

* On Stage

* Playing Beethoven

Playing Beethoven

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The Junge Kammerphilharmonie Freiburg playing Beethoven in Stanford Memorial Church

On Stage

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We're rehearsing every night for our performances Friday and Saturday, Stanford University, Memorial Chapel.

Verdi: Requiem, Friday August 6'th 8 p.m.

Beethoven: Ninth Symphony, Saturday August 7'th 8 p.m.

This symphony orchestra arrived today an hour before rehearsal started, from Freiburg Germany. We sure couldn't complain about having to work hard when they were willing to sit right down and start working like that.

I love getting to be up on this stage. As an added bonus we actually get to sing there. There's gorgeous stained glass windows all around, and a mosaic tile floor that can't be beat.

Don't you want that floor in your house? I do.

New World, Grand View

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Pleased to be a New World'er

Jam on ! Tired of PITTING my wits against the harvest (printable label)

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Feel free to use this label on your own homemade jam

The persona of "Damson Plumm Private Eye" was born, Athena-like(?),

from the artistic brain of my friend Judy Shellabarger Gosnell

Though I think that Judy envisioned Damson as a fella

Historical novels always give the impression that jam making is a heap of fun. The proud Victorian house fraus always look so happy in their billowy aprons, corset-imprisioned waists and tidy labor-heavy kitchens. It was a lot more fun photographing plums, designing and creating the above label than pitting plums. Two batches down, two to go. And I don't ever want to look another plum in the face again. Luckily it was a small harvest.

Some kinds of jam aren't worth the making. The store bought kind tastes just as good or better. And don't even get me started on my experiences planting and harvesting Concord grapes. Then all that drip, drip, drip through the cheesecloth for untold hours, to produce what the grocery store produces just as well (and quite cheaply).

The types of homemade jam we appreciate for it's homemade taste are

1) Raspberry Plum, it's new identity as "Damson Plumm, Private Eye". I've made this with Satusumas, Santa Rosas and now Damson plums.

2) Loganberry, from local berry picking expeditions to the San Mateo County Coast. Didnt' get over there this year, I'm sorry to say

3) Peach or Ginger Peach. Regular grocery store peaches work fine.

I have used this Sunset recipe for raspberry-plum jam every summer since I first picked my own plums. Luckily somebody else has put it up on the web. I've also made plum jam without the raspberries and it just doesn't taste like much of anything. When I run low on the raspberries (frozen from Costco) I toss in a bit of blackberry and/or strawberry to fill out the measuring cup.

Also when I pick the plums a little early and tart, as I did this year to avoid a mess of wasp-friendly mucky fruit dropping on the ground, then I cut the lemon juice back by half. The jam still sets up. Slightly green like that, I could probably skip the lemon juice all together, but it's so much work I don't want to take a chance.

Jam on!

And yet I've always preferred wildflowers

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Edgewood Park Wildflowers, San Mateo County, San Francisco Bay Area, California, U.S.A.

I double-checked Jane Austen's original Sense and Sensibility. Marianne didn't actually say this, as she did in one of my favorite movie versions. But I'm sure she was thinking it.