This Morning 12/13/14

Well, this morning is last night.  I had the pleasure of, once again, photographing the winter concert for one of the local community college bands.  And he's holding my (this year's) favorite Christmas music.  I look at this shot and think about the fact that just about everywhere, at least in the Western world, there are people coming together for celebrations of one holiday or another.  A very fragile blanket of peace.

In bocca al lupo. m (no v)

The Conductor

The conductor was standing directly under the lights. I couldn't resist the shadow shot and silhouette of her legs.

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

New Friends

A chance shot and new friends.  Above is my favorite shot from the winter band concert at Monterey Peninsula College.  Tonight when I went to shoot their spring concert I was greeted like an old friend from several of the band members.  r is a retired physics teacher and plays the baritone sax for the band.  Thank you v for getting me this camera!

In bocca al lupo.  m (no v)

Winter Concert

I can't play a note, but I find these instruments works of art. I can't resist if one is resting long enough for me to take a picture of it!

In bocca al lupo.  m & v

Photoshoot

Something I've been doing to earn a little extra income is photographing some musical events near home.  Last weekend the Hidden Valley Music Center hosted an event featuring the Monterey Flute Choir.  Over the past year I have photographed several of their concerts and my photos can be seen on their Facebook page.

The group has many fine musicians, some of whom are involved with other musical groups.

Through their generosity in inviting me to photograph their concerts I have been gaining a great appreciation for flute music along with improving my photographic perspectives.  

The Hidden Valley Music Center was a beautiful place to work.  The lighting was wonderful.

A favorite shot from a previous shoot.

In bocca al lupo.  m & v

Tradition!

The image above is this year's poster for El Teatro Campesino's production of La Virgen del Tepayac in San Juan Bautista, California.  We, v and I, just came home from today's performance. They do two on Sundays and the next show begins at 8 p.m.  

The Christmas pageants put on by ETC are the kick off for our Christmas season.  La Virgen is the story of the  four appearances of the Virgin Mary to the Aztec messenger, Juan Diego, in the year 1531.  She is most widely known as the Virgin of Guadalupe.  

These performances are stirring, they move you with the color, the music, and the dance.  It is really hard to stay seated when your feet just want to join in with the brightly costumed cast who are twirling and stomping in feathered headdresses, shelled breastplates and anklets.  Their ages range from very young children to men and women old enough to have been retired for a time. 

The performance is mesmerizing from the first sounding of the conch shell blown to call the four winds to the unfurling of the image of the Virgin by Juan Diego. Although the dialogue is entirely in Spanish the actors and the action keep non-Spanish speakers on line with what is happening throughout the play.  There are no actual sets only props and costumes with the backgdrop of the 215 year old church. That is enough.  v and I leave each performance choked with tears brought on by such beauty and passion.

El Teatro Campesino has been putting on the Christmas plays of La Virgen del Tepayac and La Pastorela in San Juan Bautista since 1971, mainly under the direction of Luis Valdez (of Zoot Suit fame).  For the past few years he has stepped aside and his son Kinan Valdez has been directing.  Every season brings a slightly tweaked version of the story which keeps the plays alive for those of us who come back year after year.

We came late to the discovery of ETC and their Christmas shows.  Five years ago v was teaching at a high school down the Salinas Valley.  There was no drama department, or class, at this school so v pulled together a small group of students for an after school drama program.  He chose for their first production a play written by Luis Valdez, Los Vendidos.  It was when he was tracking down permission to perform the play that he discovered ETC and was able to speak with Luis Valdez who in turn invited the kids, and the two teachers, v and a colleague, to come see that year's production of La Virgen. We haven't missed a season since. And in praise of v: although he no longer teaches at that school drama is now an established part of the curriculum. 

Christmas, most welcome, has come upon us.

In bocca al lupo.  m & v 

Warm Thoughts Blown in by a Storm

We're having some down time today.  The morning was stormy with the wind howling and the rain thrumming against the window sounding for all the world like gravel being tossed against the glass.  Hanging above our porch we have a set of wind chimes with the big tubes that sound more like church bells than the tinkling of the wind chimes heard more often.  At night I tether them so we don't keep the neighbor closest to us awake all night, but during the day I let them loose and they are glorious.

Tonight is a full moon and the clouds are scattered.  The wind is calmed, no clamoring from the chimes for the moment. Our friends are flying to Germany in the morning so we are hoping the storm holds off until they are safely away.  We have no television so we spend the evening playing chess and listening to our radio programs on the public radio station KUSP out of Santa Cruz. 

Yesterday our friends came by and helped get our Christmas garland hung around the house's exterior. It was a job well done.  Not one pinecone or ribbon came loose. The moonlight  glints off the glitter on the pinecones, but they are mostly a daytime display.

This weekend we'll bring down some more decorations from the attic.  We'll hang wreaths in the windows and our huge glass Christmas orbs from the porch ceiling. Christmas music will start sounding through our days and we'll feel warmer even as the weather cools off outside.  And we'll try to keep some eggnog on hand for when a friend, or two, drop by to say hello.

In bocca al lupo. m & v

Outings

Today goes well.  We are four days away from a break from the chemo and v is doing pretty well, really.  He's become very thin, and sometimes he sleeps more than he's awake.  But lately he's begun to have more energy.  We dare to be, cautiously, optimistic.  

Outings are a big deal now.  Once a week we visit a friend of ours at his home in Cachagua, a remote, hilly region above Carmel Valley.  The winding road that leads to his home is bordered by moss draped live oaks and sycamores in their full autumn glory.  Sometimes the turn in the road reveals vast vistas of fog shrouded hills, or brilliant blue sky.  

Tuesdays we enjoy the Farmers' Market on Alvarado Street in Monterey and sometimes a drive along the bay and ocean.  This past Tuesday v wanted to go to Carmel for a coffee and a drive along their scenic coast road.

Sometimes there is nothing better than to sit in my chair with a cat in my lap and my knitting while listening to some of our favorite shows on the radio.  We love public radio and our local station plays beautiful classical music four nights a week. Tonight a favorite: Musica della Sera.

Symphony season has opened, as I mentioned a couple of posts back.  We look forward to each month's concert.  In December we go to San Juan Bautista to see the pageant put on by Teatro Campesino at the old mission.  They alternate with La Virgen de Tepayac  and La Pastorela. Both pageants are glorious and colorful and magical.  Sometimes we attend the Christmas concert at the Carmel Mission as well.  Monterey puts on Christmas in the Adobes.  Many of the old adobes of Monterey get decorated for Christmas and volunteers entertain with dancing, music, and sometimes actors who represent Robert Louis Stevenson and General Tecumsah Sherman, both men having spent some time in Monterey during their lifetimes.  

So, this is how we light up the darker time of the year. Clocks back this weekend! 

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. We had our handful of Trick or Treaters.  I always wish there were more.

In bocca al lupo.  m & v

Giants Baseball and the Monterey Symphony

So we still carry on.  Chemo starts Tuesday, and we hope for remission.  We pray for remission. 

In the meantime we keep up with Giants baseball and hope they hang in there too.  Tonight we listened with increased joy as they won game five of the National League Playoffs.  We also attended the local symphony.  

The Monterey Symphony started off their 67th season this evening.  The concert hall is six minutes from home.  It was a little tiring for v, but the music is wonderful.  Several of our friends are regular attendees at the concerts and v is acquainted with some of the musicians.  

Since starting to attend these concerts I've come to appreciate individual composers so much more.  My ears have been opened to the haunting beauty of Von Williams Pastural which had much more to do with the battlefields of WWI than the bucolic beauty of England.  I have become a devoted Monte Verde fan.  Whenever the Vespers are performed we are there.  The last time we heard them was at the Carmel Mission during the Bach Festival.  We have just become such ardent classical music fans.  

Tonight's program included works by Haydn, John Field, and Mozart.  All were beautiful.  The pianists, John O'Connor and Heidi Hau were delightful to watch.  I'm not a musician so I don't really know which words should be used to describe the delicate touch of their fingers on the keys, especially Heidi Hau's.  Her hands floated above the keys. The final piece was Mozart's Concerto No. 10 in E-flat Major for Two Pianos.  While I listened I thought about how Mozart had a very talented sister who played piano and I wondered if he'd written the piece to perform with her. At the end of the concert I was informed that that actually was the case.  

I love watching the musicians play music that has been played for the past two hundred years, and more.  Music written before radio and iPods.  Music that synthesized the sounds of the everyday, two hundred years, and more, ago.  Consider just how magnificent it would have been to hear music when it wasn't blaring out of a passing auto, or booming out of multiple speakers, or deafening ourselves through ear pieces.  Think of a world where music was an event and not random background buzz.

In bocca al lupo.  m & v