I received an email from Glimmer Train Press telling me that my short story "Egg Tuesday" had won Honorable Mention in their August
2014 New Writer Award contest. The version I sent them is currently at the right, in the column of my stories. They said it had made it into the top 5% of over a thousand entries.
How do I feel about "Honorable Mention"? Not bad. It's not publication, or an award, but it's not bad. Better than what I've managed before!
Thursday, October 30, 2014
A (somewhat lengthy) concert with Boston Cecilia -- what exactly was the Czech-American connection?
We went to the Boston Cecelia concert on Sunday, October 19, at All Saints Parish Church, in Brookline. The concert was titled, "The Czech-American Connection". Nicholas White is Music Director and conductor. They performed Dvorak's Mass in D Major, Otce nas (the Lord's Prayer) by Janacek, Solo Songs by Mahler, Chichester Psalms, by Bernstein, and a Nicholas White arrangement of Going Home, by Dvorak.
All Saints was nearly filled. Cecelia has a pristine sound -- they sing with a real clarity that came through to us many rows back, despite the difficult acoustics of the church (it has a very high vault). I liked the Dvorak mass. We did feel that the concert was a bit long, and the pieces a bit slow in their pacing. For me, going much beyond an hour and twenty minutes for choral music gets kind of hard, especially in those church pews. And we didn't fully understand the Czech-American connection theme. Yes, Mahler was born in what is now the Czech Republic, and he conducted the New York Philharmonic years later, and yes, Leonard Bernstein conducted the same Philharmonic for many years. Didn't seem like that much of a connection, however. At least not musically.
All Saints was nearly filled. Cecelia has a pristine sound -- they sing with a real clarity that came through to us many rows back, despite the difficult acoustics of the church (it has a very high vault). I liked the Dvorak mass. We did feel that the concert was a bit long, and the pieces a bit slow in their pacing. For me, going much beyond an hour and twenty minutes for choral music gets kind of hard, especially in those church pews. And we didn't fully understand the Czech-American connection theme. Yes, Mahler was born in what is now the Czech Republic, and he conducted the New York Philharmonic years later, and yes, Leonard Bernstein conducted the same Philharmonic for many years. Didn't seem like that much of a connection, however. At least not musically.
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