As I write I have my nose in three Sungold tomato plants.  When I finish this post I’ll put them out for a day of hardening off.  They are emblematic of the journey I take every quarter with The OK Chorale.  If you’re new here, the Chorale is a community choir I started in 1992.   Read the Rest…

In a grumpy mood on Sunday morning, I realized that I seldom project my gray side at church.  I am a one-woman side show whom everyone knows because I play the piano, direct the choir and occasionally sing.  I am always smiling, always say hello to everyone, and always listen to what people tell me  Read the Rest…

Easter Sunday.  I got up early, read the New York Times, and spent some extra time warming up my voice because I was singing Mozart’s “Alleluia” in a few hours.  I let the neighbor’s cat out.  I had been cat-sitting for the week and Sunday was my last day on duty.  Sulei had been furious  Read the Rest…

At last Sunday’s Terrified Adults and Spotlight Whores Sunday Afternoon Musicale I asked how many of the seven participants considered themselves Terrified Adults.  Six hands went up. And so we began. Stephanie and I sang “The Flower Duet” from Lakme with me playing the bare bones of the accompaniment.  We had been working on this  Read the Rest…

Anyone remember my Boar’s Head? The short version is that two years ago The OK Chorale sang “The Boar’s Head Carol” and the kindergarten class of Gail, alto, made a Boar’s Head of paper maché and fabric to use in a processional.  We processed our Boar’s Head laden with cookies instead of “bedecked with bay  Read the Rest…

It’s been a dispiriting November, but the sun managed to bogart the sky for a few days last week.  Long enough for me to remember another November, five years ago, when the sun shone in a cloudless sky for the entire month.  I remember it because I spent much of that month driving the I-5  Read the Rest…

My previous blog, For the Love of Music Teachers was a paean to the neighborhood piano teacher.   Today’s rhapsody is on that most exotic specimen, the voice teacher.  Since I am a member of both pedigrees, I can say with great generosity of heart that we voice teachers are a wobbly, eccentric bunch.  We think  Read the Rest…

I was three pages into Harold Bloom’s celebrated masterpiece, Shakespeare, the Invention of the Human, and Twelfth Night sounded like the dullest play ever written. So I did myself a favor: I put Harold Bloom on the shelf for my annual yard sale.  Then I plowed through the text of Twelfth Night once so I  Read the Rest…

I got into several lengthy conversations as a result of my post The Mud Hole of Religion(https://www.elenalouiserichmond.com/2012/03/the-mud-hole-of-religion/). While not actually throwing mud, we were pitching terms and labels (non-evangelical, anti-intellectual, liberal) apparently assuming that we knew what we meant and everyone understood the words in the same way. After it all fizzled away, I gave  Read the Rest…

Last weekend I wrote about my students performing in a love-fest of a Terrified Adults and Spotlight Whores Sunday Afternoon Musicale.  (https://www.elenalouiserichmond.com/2012/02/terrified-adults-and-spotlight-whores/) I spent the week picking up pieces.  One of my students came to her lesson saying that she wished her best friend had been there because she would tell her The Truth about  Read the Rest…