The Christmas concerts are behind us. The two “A Carol of Joy” shows were crazy successful no matter how you measure it. So let’s measure it, shall we? You can look at the nuts-and-bolts pieces: More than 740 people attended (and that despite the other shows out there on Friday night – Willie Nelson, multiple […]

From my all-time favorite comic strip… Calvin: “You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.” Hobbes: “What mood is that?” Calvin: “Last-minute panic.” If you were there then you already know. The concerts were epic. Seriously epic. Makes me proud to be a part of it […]

Does anyone remember our season-starting open house back in September? How about the initial runs through the Christmas repertoire and our reactions to them? As usual, those reactions have morphed, evolved, bent and stretched and that first impression has been lost in the blur of rehearsals and the increase of our knowledge of the pieces. […]

Concert week is arriving (with the sound of screeching brakes) so I thought I’d step away from music this week for a couple of things to be shared with people I like…the Blogmeister loves to experiment in the kitchen and these two attempts turned out tasty, give them a try. There’s plenty of information out there about […]

I was never a big art buff and find ballet duuuuullll so I was shocked at my reaction when I made a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago back when I was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes. I don’t recall how but I ended up with a free pass and figured I could take a […]

If you haven’t cruised the Chorus Connection Membership Directory it’s a great way to learn more about the folks you sing with, maybe discover someone with a mutual interest or finally place a name with the face of that person you’ve enjoyed so many conversations with (while ensuring that they don’t know that you don’t know their […]

If you’ve read much of my stuff you know that my serious moments are few and far between. This is one of them. I know it’s long but I really felt like I needed to type it as the 2016 campaign (finally) winds down. Mrs. Blogmeister would be the first to tell you that most […]

With apologies to our own dear Rita, why is the psychiatrist or psychologist’s answer to pretty much anything, “And how does that make you feel?” If it made the patient feel good there’s an excellent chance he or she wouldn’t be talking to the shrink, right? (An aside, where did the whole “shrink” thing come […]

I’ll apologize in advance for this and warn you not to read on if you’re allergic to groaning. The Blogmeister’s mom and long list of friends are big time into forwarding emails around the planet (she’s old school…still has an AOL account) and when something is particularly horrific she assaults her only son with it. […]

There’s a Hawaiian music channel on Time Warner Cable’s menu (channel 800 if you didn’t know) and there’s always a lot of Iz. I was puttering in the kitchen yesterday when his version of “Over the Rainbow” came on. Yeah, he got the words wrong and tinkered with the melody a bit but’s it’s still […]