Scotia Festival of Music - Cellist Matt Haimovitz in Recital

This past Friday I had a little sip from the nectar of the gods when my mom picked me up after work, we went out for dinner and then settled into our seats for a cello recital.

Halifax is currently in its second week of hosting the Scotia Festival of Music. With my mom being a new cello student, she bought herself a senior's pass to the festival and has been attending open dress rehearsals and master classes (where audiences can observe advanced students taking class from master teachers.)

For a treat, she snagged the tickets to Friday night's packed performance at The Music Room, a newer venue I'd never been to before and absolutely adored.


There we sat enraptured by a solo performance by Matt Haimovitz. Mom had watched him give a master class earlier in the week, and pointed out the young musician he'd been teaching, who joined Friday night's audience along with quite a number of young musicians.



Photo by Bette Marshall



For some folks, kicking back after a long week at work means heading for the pub for a couple of draft beer. For others, meeting for coffee and conversation does the trick, or gathering for drinks at a soothing dark bar.

For me - other than grabbing a bite and going to see a movie, which is the other perfect thing to do - going for dinner and then to see a concert or dance performance is the closest thing to heaven I can find.

Halifax music critic Stephen Pedersen wrote in The Chronicle Herald:

"Cellist Matt Haimovitz goes his own way.

That is true of all the Scotia Festival of Music master artists, in a way. But Friday night, in his solo recital in The Music Room, Haimovitz carved his path so expertly and with such unhesitating self-confidence and momentum that he could be said to have graded it, widened it, paved it and invited the sold-out audience to roll along down its broad avenue with him.

His Bach was a masterful, unique, almost unimaginably right performance in which, rather than maintain a steady pulse, he went with the flow, following the dynamic curve of each passage, revealing the architectural design of each of its six movements, echoing the improvisational style he had so cleverly set up with the Gabrieli earlier in the program."

Here's a little peek at what we enjoyed:

May Art Show - The Prodigal Son's Return

Last month I was prompted to put this art show up on my Sidebar Art Gallery because of the third piece, The Prodigal Son in Modern Life: The Return by James Tissot. I have that one in my Scorpius picture file, which I gather like a storyboard. I grab lots of images from the web that put me in the middle of my story, and I have a picture file for all of my stories.

I also have several physical collages of my stories because my writers' group does collage workshops every now and then. I love doing them.

I was drawn to the art inspired by the Prodigal Son's story because of the dynamic between the father and son. Particularly for Scorpius, who isn't a Prodigal sort in any way, but who longs for his father because he was abandoned and never claimed.

In my Weekend Writer's Retreat serial fiction, this longing for a father figure finds refuge in his falconer master, Richolf.














Detail from The Prodigal Son by Duane Michals
























Prodigal son sketch by Charlie Mackesy



















The Prodigal Son in Modern Life: The Return by James Tissot

















The Return of the Prodigal Son by Guercino
























The Return of The Prodigal Son by Pompeo Batoni
























The Return of the Prodigal Son by J-L Stapleaux





















The Return of the Prodigal Son by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
























The Prodigal's Return by Edward John Poynter
























The Prodigal Son by Edward Stott

Never Give Up

You may know I've had a wonderful run of great luck in winning blog contests. I have had untold packages arrive at my house in the four years I've been blogging, all from fellow bloggers who have offered prizes on their blogs.

A little while ago, I received How I Got Published from Claudia at On a Limb With Claudia.


It's a really inspirational collection of stories from published writers on what it took for them personally to finally hold their books in their hands.

I'd like to share this passage with you, written by one of the editors of the book, Ray White:

"Never surrender, never give up, never quit. Those aren't just words to get published by; they're words to live by.

Less than one percent of writers get published in book-length fiction or nonfiction. Now I am absolutely, positively making these statistics up (though I did extrapolate them from all those agent Web sites where they claim to reject 99 percent of all submissions.)

As Yoda said, 'Do, or do not. There is no try.'

Let rejection roll off your back and even go so far as to see each rejection as another step toward success."

The Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet

Last Wednesday, one of those glorious, serendipitous moments happened to bring me to a production that has excited my spirit ever since.

As I sat tapping away at my keyboard, my husband scrolled through the menu on TV when he bumped into Great Performances. Knowing I wouldn't want to miss ballet if it was on, he checked out the upcoming broadcast.

I was disappointed for a fleeting second when it turned out to be a play. But only for a second.

Hamlet! My favorite of the Bard's plays. Yes, I have a movie poster from Zeffirelli's Hamlet in my living room.






















This Hamlet is played by David Tennant, who helped me hear new things in Shakespeare's lines, in a play I love dearly and have seen in many incarnations.














Ecstasy of ecstacies - both the Ghost of the slain king and Claudius are played by Patrick Stewart.














There is a highly imaginative use of different cameras as metaphor throughout the production, including security cameras that don't register the ghost of Hamlet's father.














I was always impressed by Glen Close's version of Hamlet's mother, Gertrude - but this interpretation by Penny Downie is my favorite by far.














I quite like the real concern for the state of the soul in this production. There is a compassionate motivation to the Ghost's distressing appearances, as he seeks to spare his wife from paying for a sin she's not aware she's committing. Often the Ghost comes across as merely being consumed by sibling rivalry from beyond the grave. But not Patrick Stewart's version.














This Queen of Denmark is genuinely moving on from the death of her first husband, finding solace in her former brother-in-law, a far stronger woman than we normally see. Instead of playing Gertrude as a pawn between heads of state, Penny Downie gives us someone evolving past widowhood into an optimistic bride. Hamlet's revelations splinter Gertrude's world more intimately than I've seen done elsewhere, because this is played as a true family drama and less as a clash of royal titans.
















The happy news - if you missed the broadcast, the film will be available on DVD on Tuesday, May 4th.

Until then, here is the trailer:



And here is my favorite scene from every version of Hamlet, the one I wait impatiently for - the scene in Hamlet's mother's room. It's posted here in two segments:

April Art Show - A Lady's Fan

Here is a look at the art I've featured this month in my Sidebar Art Gallery:



















The Fan by James Tissot

























Geisha With Orchids by Takayuki Harada
























Spanish Woman With Fan, a 1920's bookplate
























Victorian fashion plate, 1877, from An Englishwoman's domestic magazine
























Lady With the Fan by Charles Soulacroix
























The Japanese Fan by William Strang
























Donna con ventaglio (Woman with fan) by Gustav Klimt
























Lady With a Fan (or Portrait of Ann Charlotte Gaillard) by Mary Cassatt
























At the Ball by Berthe Morisot

Blogosphere Event - National Poetry Month

And what do our opera glasses light upon today?

I do believe it's another wonderful Blogosphere event I've come across at several blogs I frequent.

Apparently, April is National Poetry Month all across North America. A few brave souls have taken up the challenge of writing poetry every day for the month of April, a National Poetry Writing Month marathon.

For more details, check out the links below:

National Poetry Month in Canada

National Poetry Month in the US

Read Write Poem, where the poetry marathon originates

For myself, I shall keep this event front and center in my mind for next April. Until then, I shall continue my bliss with my weekly poetry peeps at Monday Poetry Train Revisited.

For those of you not usually prone to poetics, why not switch hats this month and give a poem a spin?

Sharpe's Challenge and Sharpe's Peril

For a 5 on Friday I did a few weeks ago, I mentioned that the opening theme music to the Sharpe series is way up there on my list of favorites. In fact, everything about the Sharpe series is way up there on my list of favorites.

Sharpe is based on the series of books which follow Napoleonic-era British soldier Richard Sharpe, written by the awesome Bernard Cornwell.


Tom Clegg directed all sixteen of the 2-hour film adaptations of Cornwell's books, starring the sigh-worthy Sean Bean and Daragh O'Malley.

I've been so grateful, these past two weekends, for PBS Masterpiece's broadcasts of the latest two Sharpe's.










Sharpe's Challenge, 2006

This one I'd seen before, but I can never get enough of Sharpe.


















It features Toby Stephens in a rather dastardly role, whom I've also enjoyed in many other productions, including his role as the rotten Prince John in season 3 of BBC's Robin Hood.


















It also introduces the very handsome Karan Panthaky as a rajah not quite of age, and who is at the mercy of his regent, his late father's foremost concubine and her lover, played by Toby Stephens.

Here's the trailer:



Sharpe's Peril, 2008























I was delighted to find Raza Jaffrey in this one, who played Zaf in seasons 4-6 of Spooks/MI-5.























I was also happy to see David Robb appearing as Major Tredinnick. He looks like this when you can get a close-up:


















I saw him in another PBS Masterpiece broadcast back in grade 11 (that's 1981, if you're wondering) in The Flame Trees of Thika and have always admired him since then - especially his gorgeous voice, which is why he obviously does a lot of voice work.


















And you can't beat the joy of seeing a recurring character like Simmerson show up, played with elitist relish by Michael Cochrane. He has appeared in 5 of the 16 Sharpe films.


















There's lots of challenge in these two stories for our intrepid hero. And amazing stuntwork by dreamy Sean.














And did I mention peril? Did I mention I can never resist a hero in chains?

NOTE: There is a 30-second leader at the beginning of this trailer.



Both of these films are available on DVD, and Sharpe's Peril will be rebroadcast on Saturday on PBS.