Valentine's Day Dinner

So I decided to take an afternoon yesterday and make dinner for my sweetie for valentine's day. Here's a pic of dinner... the tofu heart recipe was from Vegetarian Times, and the pistachio yogurt peas recipe I found on the internet... It all turned out very yummy... ending with a low-fat chocolate cake complete with amaretto-apricot glaze I got from Mollie Katzen's Low Fat Moosewood cookbook (one of my most very favorite cookbooks!). The coolest part of all was that I already had almost all the ingredients... I had to run out for fresh peppers, eggplant and basil (which I felt a little guilty about buying the heart of winter...), but I had the tofu, peas, pistachios, yogurt, etc etc...

We have already bought our CSA share for veggies from a local farm throughout the upcoming growing season, and I think I'll be buying a fruit share from a local orchard as well... I can't wait until the fresh veggies start coming in!! I'm also going to try starting some veggies from seed in my basement this year... should be fun.

happy eating!
CM

music for people

This past Saturday I went to a Music for People workshop hosted by David Darling... it's a very wonderful organization that has people getting in touch with their 'inner child' and improvising on musical instruments... getting professionals side by side with people who have never touched musical instruments before... it's very moving to hear what comes out of people when they have their guards down!  I had been to several workshops a few years ago and found them to be extremely inspiring, but I hadn't been in a while... this past week I realized that I had the day free, and that the workshop was more or less in my backyard... so went on a spur of the moment.  It was very interesting to see where I was a few years later in my music creation self... lately I've been practicing so much classical music and I've been feeling a little stymied when it comes to improvising new music... Saturday was very cool though... some of the exercises of MFP feel a little corny for this very private person... but as the day progressed I relaxed into them more and more, and by the end of the evening, I actually performed a singing improv in front of the entire group... one that touched deep inside of me... The evening's "concert" was absolutely incredible... group after group of mystical and magical improvising groups... including several jaw-dropping amazing pianists.  It's not a light thing at all for me to say I did a singing improv... I think that may have been the first time in my life I ever did something of the sort.  David D. teaches that you should "sing what you play and play what you sing"... and the next day at Jody and my brunch gig at Beans, I found my improvs going in all kinds of amazing new directions, when I stopped THINKING... I even found myself singing along with River Dawn at one point... wowzas.   (as an aside, my ego event at the MFP day was a group session where we all spoke gibberish to each other... it just so happens that I've been speaking "Catherinese" my whole life, and gibberish comes extremely naturally to me... and one of the guys in the room proclaimed that I was a virtuoso at it... hee hee)

In any case, things are really looking up these days... I'm busy trying to coordinate a bunch of concerts later this year, and Jody and I are making plans to go back for more recording of our improvs... this time instead of Jody being in an isolation booth in the studio we are going to try a 'live' recording in an auditorium and maybe even make the sessions open to fans to come in and out so we can have an audience while we're playing.  I'm checking out a few options over the next few weeks, so I'll let you know!

Longwood Concert

Yesterday was my Longwood Gardens concert... it went really well... first time in a while that I was completely organized the night before for stuff I wanted to take to the merch table.  That morning I actually had time to make a huge breakfast--- eggs, grits, veggie sausage, toast... I almost made the biscuits too, but I figured maybe that was too ambitious.

So, I got to the Gardens at my appointed time... but I guess since I knew where I was going I jumped the gun a little and went straight to the music room without waiting for my concert attendant to meet up with me.  I ended up entering the building through a dark kitchen behind the ballroom, and feeling my way to the door, hoping it would lead me into the ballroom or music room... which it did!  I met up successfully with my attendant, but there was no tech assigned to my concert... and the piano was facing the wrong direction and the platform I had requested for my foot was waaay too high (the piano tuner had asked if a little kid would be performing!).  ... so we had to wait for a tech to show up and move the piano etc etc.... which I'm glad he was able to come because he also hooked up a microphone to broadcast my performances throughout the conservatory... cool!

My playing went really well, especially in the first program... I remembered to keep repeating my Alexander directions pretty much throughout the entire performance, which definitely kept me relaxed and feeling in complete control... my chopin nocturne went really well, despite the piano starting to roll in the middle of it... I think I may have slowed down a little at that point, but I was able to keep going without much more of a hitch... the first song was funny... I had planned to play The Dreams of Sarah... and had that in the program and even announced it before I started playing... then I put my hands on the keys and started playing and about 10-15 seconds in realized I was playing The Undershore instead!  whoops!  I went ahead and finished that song and then announced afterwards that fans in the audience may have noticed something awry...

The second performance also went quite well, although I think my announcements didn't flow quite as nicely and I had a memory slip in the Chopin near the end... I lost my Alexander directions for a split second and the thought went through my brain "I'm almost done!"  ... that was it... well I had several awkward measures... but thankfully it kept going and I was able to finish the piece beautifully, just the way I had imagined I would (practicing power of pre-concert positive thinking!)  This was the first time I had performed classical music from memory in something like 12 years or so... I'm really glad I am working on this, and am starting to prepare some Debussy to add to the next concert!  Someone asked me afterwards if I had any recordings of my Chopin playing... so that definitely may be a possibility for the future.

Probably the best compliment of all for the day was from my concert attendant... she said that normally in these concerts there is a lot of movement in the audience... people drifting in and out of the concert, listening for a little while and then continuing their strolls through the conservatory... but in both of my concerts, pretty much everyone sat through the entire concert, many with eyes closed.  What a neat feeling that all that hard work I've been pouring in the past few months brought some enjoyment in the afternoon!