Month: June 2014

I’m going to the second one, only because it begins near me, and they’re doing something unusual. I really wish I could go to both. The first one is part of the Make Music New York festival and the second is part of that festival and the River to River festival.

I’m really sorry to miss this first one because it’s an open sing of contemporary choral composers, something I want to explore. “The reading session will be led by Fahad Siadat, director of See-A-Dot Music Publishing and C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, a professional new music chorus, and reinforced by a string quartet that will accompany the reading session. Gathered singers will rehearse and perform six pieces over the course of an hour.”

The second one is titled And Death Shall Have No Dominion, a participatory singing event for a synchronized headphone choir, conceived and composed by Pete M. Wyer, with accompaniment by the Asphalt Orchestra.

The four different voice parts are going to meet at different parts of the city and start singing and walking. “Little by little, as routes converge, the song is revealed in its fullness until eventually, everyone assembles together for a grand choral finale at the gazebo in Rockefeller Park.”

I just looked at the score, it’s definitely written so that anyone who can sing can do it. The sopranos are starting one block away from where I live! Except you have to have a smartphone, which I don’t have because I am poor. But I’m going to walk along and film them and listen. Oh, I see that people without iphones can download the audio files. Except my iPod is broken (and I can’t fix it because, blah, blah, blah). I might have an old one that still works though. I’m listening to the bass part now, it’s beautiful!! Actually, this piece is simple enough, I don’t need to hear it to be able to sing it. Well, I’m going in any case. What a great idea, I love that all the different parts will be walking along singing, and then come together.

Sad sign. I hope Lila was found. Also sad is the fact that she is declawed according to the sign. Declawing is actually amputation, they remove the last bone of each toe! It’s an incredibly barbaric and cruel practice. Keep their nails trimmed instead! Also, I’ve always had good luck with the Felix Scratching Post. I’ve never had a cat who didn’t love it and use it. Seriously, how is this cat going to defend itself now? What if you lose your cat during a the zombie apocalypse?? Never declaw!

New York City is full of blooming roses all over the place. Turns out, it’s hard to get a picture of roses that shows the beauty of the roses and isn’t a snore. I think I failed. I started with this. in the East Village …

Then I took the one below over by me in the West Village. By the way, that’s the “emergency department” we’re getting in place of St. Vincent’s Hospital, which was torn down. (Thanks a heap Bloomberg and everyone else who was responsible.) Even though heart disease is the number one killer in the United States, guess which problems this “medical center” is not prepared to treat? Yeah. Heart attack, stroke and major trauma victims would be stabilized and transferred, which is better than nothing, but guess what would be even better? The hospital that was torn down.

It’s called the Lenox Hill Healthplex and it opens at the end of this month.

So, I started by photographing the roses, but then I pulled back to get the clouds. I mean, look at them!

I believe these are the same horses that were so gentle with the greyhound the other day. Which reminds me, now I want a greyhound. And two horses. Okay, and a box of kittens, too.

I only took a couple of pictures at our benefit this week. If you went by these pictures you’d think our choir is mostly men. Look closely and you’ll spot actress Polly Holliday, most well known for playing Flo on the TV show Alice. She’s always been wonderfully supportive of The Choral Society, and I just read on her bio that she once taught music in an elementary school in Florida.

Two of my favorite outfits of the night, and conveniently both people sat near each other. I loved her red dress and the purple jacket/yellow shirt/blue sneakers combo worn by the guy on the couch.

We are all listening to the fabulous Chalfonte Quartet (founded by Jorge Avila) play Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat.

Okay, he must be sitting on something that he has running up his pants leg, but still. The angle of how he’s sitting, how does he maintain that? He must have incredible stomach muscles, I’ve decided. I just zoomed in, he’s reading The New York Times, the arts section.