2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Friday, June 05, 2009

That Lonesome Road

A school concert is always a mixed bag. It started with an ambitious rendering of two segments of Vivaldi’s Gloria: a work in progress, as they will be working on this over the next few months. Played slow enough for the strings to keep it up, it became, I have to admit, somewhat turgid in the voices of the singers who themselves are mostly instrumental players doing some compulsory ensemble work.

Once they got going, however (and this was just the chamber music concert: jazz and band performers get a chance later in the year), we heard a number of phenomenal VCE students performing solos and duos, with some pretty wonderful accompanying, too. The concert was held in St Michael’s church, so the acoustics, resounding off the wooden roof, were lovely. So was the warm atmosphere of proud parents, grandparents and friends.

We are in the privileged position of living close enough to an excellent government school that is academically strong, while also taking its music and arts programme very seriously. A number of its students go on to the Victorian College of the Arts, and come back to help out, as did the brilliant guitarist accompanying a somewhat introverted solo performance of Leonard Cohen’s Allelujah. The school is pretty well resourced, so there was a harpsichord for the Vivaldi, and the announcement of some excellent results in the recent Flute competitions. A highlight was a wonderful performance of Ros Bandt’s Meditation for recorder, with Ros sitting in the audience.

The highlight for me, though, were the choral performances: two groups of Year 7 and 8 girls; and the mixed vocal group. All were great, but the vocal group (it needs a name!) was the most heart-wrenching for me, as my boy was singing. Six girls and three boys sang James Taylor’s That Lonesome Road a capella. It’s a most beautiful song, perfect for adolescents. As it happened, Joel is the only tenor in the group, and so he sang the first phrase and two lines later on as a solo (as sung by Taylor in this recording below). He sang with composure and strength, as the line of his parents and grandparents held their breath, as the tears pricked his mother’s eyes, and as shivers of mortality and pride criss-crossed her heart.

10 comments:

Leandra Greenmoon said...

a work in progress indeed! thats ok I know us strings were pretty bad :/..though I agree the vocal groups were amazing! especially Joel's solo :)

genevieve said...

Aaah. I remember my sister doing that song once :-) Lovely.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

I think you can see Alex in concert here.

Mortality and pride: yes, that says it all!!

Anonymous said...

"The school is pretty well resourced, so there was a harpsichord for the Vivaldi"

Yeah, but do they teach VALUES?

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

I love that song. Wish I'd been there!

You really are not going to believe this but the word verification is 'nestpopp'.

This old world is a new world said...

Well, Leandra; perhaps I was a bit harsh. I guess it's that I grew up listening to it played like this...

Jeffrey, that link is almost enough to make me sign up to F*book so I can see Alex. Almost.

Values! Ah, the dim dark days of the Howard government...

Nestpopp. Exactly.

Anonymous said...

What a lovely solo "Lonesome Road" must have made!

I heard J.T. when he came to rally the Obama faithful with a free solo concert in Charlotte, NC last fall. He opened with a simple version of "America the Beautiful" that reduced us to puddles.

And my verification word, stortles, begs a definition. Suggestions, anyone? I'm thinking either a British dessert, or a line of irksomely cute plush toys.


-Viator

Leandra Greenmoon said...

Oh by no means were you too harsh! I wasn't saying so and considering how good it COULD sound I see your point perfectly. I myself am annoyed that we played it to begin with when instead of playing it badly at that concert we could have had way more time, made it sound really good and played it at another concert.

stray said...

Values? You mean like A=415?

Anonymous said...

My choir is doing that song for a concert. Lucy Sussex