Fall Fennel - Sing it Gilbert and Sullivan (Palo Alto Baylands Field Trip)

Put on some good walking shoes.

Head to the Palo Alto Baylands.

Click on that Pirates of Penzance recording and sing along....

Foeniculi - Foenicula - Foenicula ha ha ha ha!

Fennel

It's just Fennel

No, I don't know if it's safe to eat. I wouldn't take a chance - especially as some of the nearby flowers are from the carrot family and look suspiciously like poison hemlock. Yah, that's the stuff Socrates drank and three hours later - no Socrates.

So just sing along. 

OK?

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Resources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto_Baylands_Nature_Preserve

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foeniculum

A fan of Gilbert and Sullivan Pirates of Penzance - I thought the song was called 'Tarantula' now am wondering..... Is it called 'When the foreman bears his steel'?

When the foreman bears his steel - Tarantula!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Penzance

http://stageagent.com/shows/operetta/385/pirates-of-penzance/songs

Scenes from Stanford Memorial Church

One of many lovely aspects of singing in Stanford Symphonic Chorus, is enjoying the stained glass windows in Memorial Church in the evening light.

Messiah Sing Out and Play

For the last 25 years, hundreds of singers have gathered in Stanford Memorial Church, to sing and play Handel's Messiah. Instrument players just show up and search for their music. Choral voices gather and belt out both their own voice parts, and any others they've always wanted to sing from basso profound to the highest soprano.  Everybody sings the solos.

Check the schedule at Stanford each year. The Sing It Play It Yourself Messiah is always on the evening of the last day of fall finals.

From My Journal: While the Basses Rehearse - Steve Sano - Stanford Symphonic Chorus

I sketch Steve Sano in my music while the basses rehearse alone
The movement of my pencil, helps me focus on their sound

Stanford Symphonic Chorus Director Steve Sano encourages the sopranos (I sing first soprano) to listen to the basses. We are often singing the same note, except it's an octave apart. It's one of those things we don't always think consciously about, but we like the feel of it - the way the deep voice part vibrates in our brain, as we relax our throats, raise our soft palettes and let the high notes resonate in the roof of our vocal apparatus.

Performance of Poulanc's jazz-infused Gloria, coming up the last weekend in February. Funny how I always appreciate the music more and more as I really learn to sing it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_M._Sano

http://web.stanford.edu/group/SymCh/

Once Upon a Time In California (Time Travel)

Rosalinda, la voz melodiosa, ella canta las viejas canciones. Y sólo puedo oírola.
Debo volver a los días perdidos, los viejos tempos en California. 

Rosalinda, she of the melodious voice, sings the old songs. And only I can hear her.
I must go back to lost days, the old days in California.
 
Un día, cuando aprenda a escuchar con sólo mi corazón, su melodía una vez más me llevarás a mi amor.
One day, when I learn to listen with only my heart, her tune will once more carry me home to my love.

                        
Time travellers need helpful tour books. UCSC professor, famed journalist, and  California State Librarian,  Kevin Starr, has a true sense of California. He's more than a superb historian, he's a born story teller. Starr weaves together a tale that includes not only the appeal of the state - it's agricultural promise, natural beauties, ethnic diversity, and economic potential - but also it's historical exploitation.

 If you read only one history of the state, make it Starr's California: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) 

                 ~ ~ ~

 Other volumes on my California Favorites Book Shelf

  

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View from the Choral Terrace: Kettle Drums on the Move (Bing Concert Hall, Stanford)

A View from the Choral Terrace
Where all we have to heft is our music

The new year sparked an increase in campus musical activity, playing and singing in the new Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University. As a community member of the Stanford Symphonic Chorus, I was quite pleased to be included.

The instrumentalists who play timpani have their work cut out for them shifting the great big kettle drums into place.

A Musical Evening at Christmas Cottage

I was off rehearsing with  the rest of Stanford Symphonic Chorus this evening, for the new year opening weekend performance at Stanford's spectacular new Bing Concert Hall (they call it "The Bing"). So I had no idea what had been happening elsewhere. 

Turns out that 'whilst I was inhaling the fumes of fresh resins and the crystal tones of the instrumentalists, a fine time was also being had by all  back in Christmas Cottage.

Fa la la la.

(co-published with A California Christmas Cottage)