So this is Christmas, and what have we done?

Another year over, and a new one just begun.

Let's talk gratitude, y'all. It has been a very full year for us, and there are many things to be grateful for. Perhaps you have no interest in reading on (let's be honest, year-end letters tend to be snoozes), but you are one of those for which we are grateful. We are lucky to have so many friends and family that care for us, and I doubt we tell you often enough.

So, thanks. You rock.

And that's why we've sent you this rock art-inspired holiday greeting.

Now to that part wherein we share with you some what's been up with us this year. We'll try to keep it brief.

Last winter, Nate came back from stage managing a show in Beijing, China to begin work on the Broadway show, God of Carnage. In fact, his first production meeting for that show was held on the day of President Obama's Inauguration, and spirits were soaring high in New York, across the country, and around the world, as W had finally left the Oval Office for good and we were looking forward to much-needed improvements in national policy.

Sigh. Remember that?

As Nate began rehearsals for that show, his health took an unpleasant turn, and after a couple of months of testing, he was diagnosed with benign cysts that just needed some quick meds and a closer eye in the future, so that was a relief.

Mikey began to seek out new opportunities for performance, and found a great one in the Dessoff Choirs. His first concert in March was recorded for commercial release. The CD, Glories on Glories, is available for download now on DigStation, and is coming soon to iTunes, Amazon.com, Emusic, and a whole host of other music sites around the interwebs.

Immediately after God of Carnage opened, Nate slid on over to another Broadway show, The Norman Conquests, a zany trilogy of comedies played in repertory.

Come the Tony Awards, there was plenty of good news. God of Carnage took home 3 Tonys: Best New Play, Best Direction (Matthew Warchus), and Best Lead Actress (Marcia Gay Harden), and The Norman Conquests won the Tony for Best Revival of a Play. A very exciting night.

In June, Nate ASMed the debut of three new works by Jennifer Muller/ The Works (the same modern dance company that performed in China) at The Joyce Theatre, a beautiful dance space in Chelsea.

At the same time, Mikey was living every singer's dream: singing at Lincoln Center. The Dessoff Choirs were invited to perform both the Britten War Requiem and Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the NY Philharmonic as a part of maestro Lorin Maazel's farewell concert series. Both concerts were broadcast on the radio as a part of the "Live from Lincoln Center" program on NPR. The Mahler concert was also released on MP3 as a part of the Philharmonic's The Complete Mahler Symphonies collection, making this Mikey's second commercial recording in the space of a few months.

October brought hundreds of thousands of marchers to Washington, DC, to rally in favour of Equal Rights for the LGBT community. As part of Broadway Impact (a Civil Rights advocacy group started by Gavin Creel, an actor Nate worked with a few years ago), Nate and Mikey proudly marched alongside Cynthia Nixon, Judy Gold, Stephen Schwartz, and many of our Broadway colleagues, including a couple of friends from God of Carnage.

Sadly, the New York State Senate failed to pass a bill in December that would have provided for Marriage Equality in New York, but an executive order from the governor dictates that our Canadian marriage be recognised in any state agency. It's progress, but we're still fighting for full equality here, and we hope you are, too, in your home states.

As the year comes to a close, Nate continues to substitute stage manage at God of Carnage and for the monthly Project Shaw reading series, and Mikey continues to sing with the Dessoff Choirs and Christ Church Rye. We hope this find you well, and that you'll reciprocate with every exciting thing you've been up to this year.

Don't forget: War is Over, if you want it.

Much Love,

Mikey & Nate

Me on the radio

As you may know, I'm mid-way through performances with my choir and the NY Philharmonic (another post about that will come another time). I just got this note from the powers that be about broadcasts of the two concerts! I didn't see any St. Louis radio stations on the list, but once I can find the audio streams online, I'll post the links:

Next Thursday, June 18, at 9pm, the War Requiem will air on WQXR. The following Thursday, Mahler 8 will be broadcast live on WQXR, starting at 7pm. The broadcasts are part of "The New York Philharmonic This Week," originating from Chicago station WFMT, and audio streams are available for two weeks following the broadcast. The Mahler performance is expected to be available for download on iTunes at some later date.

http://nyphil.org/attend/broadcasts/index.cfm?page=broadcastDetail&broadcastKey=227

http://nyphil.org/attend/broadcasts/index.cfm?page=broadcastDetail&broadcastKey=228

Obamaland, Part 2

Ah, D.C.... You are such a delight.

So I went back, this time with husband in tow, and had a lovely mini-vacation. It was so nice to be back and have time to do whatever we wanted - no awful tour buses or children around (at least, that we were associated with). The condo rental turned out to be quite nice, actually. Pretty simple studio situation in the basement of one of the less-well preserved rowhouses in the U Street cooridor - nothing fancy, but totally nice and worth the price (there was a vague smell like old cheese, but that dissipated once you were in the room a few minutes). The bathroom was by far the best part, all marble and new and spacious with a big jacuzzi tub. Being accustomed to NYC bathrooms which put the closet back into watercloset, it was quite luxurious to be able to BOTH be in the bathroom at the same time without one of us standing in the tub.

It turned out we were walking distance from Dupont Circle, the "gayborhood" of D.C., as evidenced by the many rainbow flags along the route to Whole Foods on our first night (turned out we couldn't get on the wireless there, so we had to do largely without the whole weekend *gasp!*). This meant there were a bevvy of nice restaurants and bars within easy reach, which we managed to take part of despite trying to do this on the cheap. The best food we had by far was at the local Ethiopian restaurant (who knew?). I had had Ethiopian before, but it had been awhile, I'd forgotten how good it is (and cheap). We ordered a vegetarian sampler platter to share and left totally satisfied for I think like $10 or $12. Too bad we had wasted almost $100 at a crappy upscale bistro the night before. Why is it that something as exotic to us as Ethiopian food should be so cheap, but a burger costs like $20?

We did the whole Smithsonian thing mostly (again, cuz it's free, sensing a theme?), stopping by several of the museums we hadn't seen before on our last trip together in 2002. There's a new Museum of the American Indian that they were just starting to construct in '02 that was pretty neat, and had an amazing cafe featuring traditional foods from every type of indigenous culture in North America (and chicken fingers for the less adventurous), which was awesome, I higly recommend if you're ever in town. We did the memorial walk, along the basin from the Jefferson to FDR (awesome) to Lincoln, and we didn't get to go in the White House, but we spent an hour or so in the Vistor's Center. The Capital is still closed to tourists, sadly, but we were able to get right up clost and personal, which was not the case in '02 for obvious reasons. I thoroughly enjoyed the National Archives, not really for the Declaration Indepence & Constitution (which are faded almost to the point of being completely blank), but for their permanent collection full of interactive video and computer exhibits about documents that shaped history - telegrams from WWI, radio addresses from various presidents, all kinds of declassified military stuff. All very nifty, if you like that sort of thing.

The best was the International Spy Museum, though, I have to say. The permanent collection was pretty cool, and we didn't get to spend enough time in there, actually, but they have all kinds of exhibits with James Bond-esque secret weapons and stuff like that. We did the "Spy at Night" thing, which is this murder mystery-type game where you and a bunch of other people use spy techniques to work together to solve this case. It was only slightly cheesy, as those types of things tend to be, but it was totally up our alley. We also played some spy-themed trivia games in the cafe afterwards and I won some free pigs in a blanket (or as they call them, Pigs Undercover). There was a real former spy there fielding questions from people as well. We didn't really know what to ask her, but we eavesdropped on her conversations with some other guests (guess the spy didn't see that coming).

And then there was the actual thing we went down there for, the wedding! Oh yeah, that! It was really beautiful: simple, elegant, tasteful, very Shannon. A couple of my friends whom I hadn't seen since I left St. Louis were there, and we had such a blast catching up, including Jeannie who has to come to New York and stay with us now (right?)!!! Shannon is singing all over the country, Rachel almost has her doctorate in choral conducting, James is managing a bar, Jean's photography is getting shown all over St. Louis, and Carole is still Carole. It was great to reminisce and to hear about all the ways Webster has changed since I graduated (can't help but feel like it became a real university right after I left, I was a little jealous). I do miss my Webster friends. Le sigh...

I sent out an evite for my birthday the other day and it made me realize how few friends I really have here in town. It's so hard to hang onto people in this city - people come and go so fast, and the ones that stay are often hard to keep in touch with because everyone's schedules are different, or they live somewhere far-ish and everyone's too broke to go out somewhere in the city. Somehow it always seemed easier to go meet up with people when you could just hop in the car and drive, and while I love the subway and not owning a car, it does seem like much more of a chore to take a train ride to NJ, or Brooklyn, or Staten Island, or blah... We found ourselves thinking "we should move here" while we were in D.C. more than a few times. I have a feeling it was mostly vacation syndrome - ie: we were enjoying ourselves more there because we left our jobs and worries at home - but it was definitely the type of place I could see us living, if there was a way for Nate to make money there (not that he makes much here). When you start thinking about the difference in cost of living, the presence of culture in a smaller atmosphere, attainable real estate, more down to earth people, it starts to look pretty attractive after living in the harsh city for nearly 6 years. Of course as soon as we left New York, we'd start complaining about how small and slow-paced everything is, and how not everything's accessible by train...basically the grass is just always greener.

At any rate, here's some pics from our trip...enjoy!

Shannon's Wedding in D.C.

Obamaland, Part 1

I recently embarked on a trip to D.C. with my church choir, to sing at the National Cathedral.  It went pretty well, overall, despite coming right on the heels of a particularly gruelling Holy Week sing-o-rama.  We were a little bit smaller of a group this time around; I guess after 2 weeks in England, a weekend in Washington, D.C. didn't sound quite as thrilling!  

We were short 3 kids in particular because of some crazy parents (go fig).  There was one 8-year-old who had been singing with us off and on throughout the year...well, perhaps singing isn't the right word.  He had been standing with the choir, usually backwards mid-anthemn, and swinging his arms, not singing, not even holding his music, and generally just being a distraction...the kind of stuff you might expect from one who is clearly too young to be there.  So our choirmast finally asked his parents to keep him home until he's old enough to behave.  Well, you'd think he'd beaten the boy and strung him up from the steeple with the ridiculous response from the kid's parents.  They sent this *crazy* email to the entire choir, apparently in an attempt to garner support, but they only ended up exposing their insanity to the whole congregation.  They said all kinds of stupid things, among them my favorite thing of all time - accusing us all of being "unchristian" as a means of getting their way.  I just LOVE it when people pull that one out of their hats and think they are righteous in doing so.  I would love to be that high and mighty, it must feel quite nice up on your lonely cross in Crazytown.  At any rate, the end result being that the parents are now refusing to let their other two kids, both of whom are pretty strong choristers, from participating unless all three of them can.  Because, you know, all kids are exactly the same and should be treated as such no matter the age difference.  *sigh*  It is times like these I realize how great my parents really were.  If I pulled that kind of crap, they would have blamed me, not the adults.  My sincerest apologies to all of you out there who are teachers or otherwise work with small kids and their parents.  I would say you should be sainted, but that's probably unchristian of me...

At any rate, it was 4.5 hours on a bus again to D.C. with a group of small children - not too bad, as we kept them entertained with Wall-E (which I hadn't seen, and very much enjoyed) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which I slept through).  We stayed at the National 4-H Youth Conference Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland - a little scary, as our last experience with such a place was the Baden Powell House in London, complete with its 2-inch thick mattresses and airplane-sized bathrooms.  This place was rather nice, though, quite like an ordinary hotel.  We went straight to the cathedral and did our Evensong, and had a tour of the crypts to visit the mausoleums of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, among others.  

After dinner at an enormous (seriously, there were like a dozen dining rooms in that place) Mexican restaurant, it was back to the 4-H center in beautiful Chevy Chase, which is completely suburban and nowhere near anything remotely interesting or a Metro station to get to something that is.  Luckily the evening was saved by a hastily purchased bottle of bourbon from the liquor store near the cathedral (booze and Jesus - it's a winning combo), and we had a little hotel party with some of the adults ala our time spent at Sarum College in lovely Salisbury.  Although, whereas The Close in England had old world charm and medieval architecture to enjoy, Chevy Chase has...well, at least we had that bottle of bourbon.

The next day we did the whole National Mall thing.  The kids were scheduled for a visit to the Air and Space Museum, which I've seen and honestly was seeking a quieter afternoon away from our kids and 8,000 others, so I ventured off on my own.  I ended up spending most of the afternoon at the National Gallery with some European Masters (funny that most of the art at the U.S. National Gallery is from Europe) and wandered through the sculpture gardens and around the area a bit.  Then we were off to the National Zoo, which was oddly enough, back in Chevy Chase, MD.  That was fun, as I hadn't been to a zoo in awhile (Nate doesn't like them), and I managed to find myself in the company of adults away from the kids once again, except that we had like 3 hours to kill there, which is just too much zoo for one day.  It didn't take long before the two other gay gents in my group started watching for animals of another sort basking in the sun of the first warm day of spring, which was probably more entertaining than the ones behind bars.  

Having fulfilled our 3 hour safari, we we off to Baltimore, where we would sing the Sunday services the next day at a lovely old church downtown.  Not much to see in Baltimore - a somewhat depressing trip to an Indian restaurant where I got trapped sitting at the "old people" end of the table had me calling for an early night.  We did have an amazing hotel room there, though, in a suite on the 34th floor.  The only weird thing was there was only one bed instead of a double, so the guy I was rooming with offered to sleep on the couch, which was fine with me as he snored like a rusty chainsaw, and I felt that made up for the resulting lack of sleep the previous evening.  Sunday morning went great - better than at the Cathedral, actually, the acoustic was very live and warm, whereas the sound tended to get lost in the enormous space of the cathedral.  Afterwards, we were back on the bus for the journey home - unfortunately for us, so were like 2 million other people and we did a lot of sitting in traffic.  It being the Sunday after Easter, most likely a lot of families were on vacation that week, and everyone was on the NJ Turnpike, joy.  We ended up having to go a different route which meant the NYCers couldn't get dropped off in the city and had to go all the way to Rye, then take the train back to the City.  Kind of a bummer, but I'd take the Metro-North over a bus any day.  Not necessarily quite the exciting trip that England was, but it was an experience, I will say that!  It was so much fun that our choirmaster promised that we're not going to do any more overnight trips for at least 2 years (none of us objected).  

It was so much fun, in fact, that I'm going back to D.C. next week.  A friend of ours is getting married, so Nate and I are going down a few days early for a little getaway after 4 months of him being in perma-rehearsal.  We unfortunately waited a little long to book a hotel, and as luck would have it, it happens to be the same weekend as Georgetown's commencement, so hotels were booked and pricey.  I spent a full day searching for something we could afford that was remotely near a Metro station, and ultimately came up with 1 option at the end of one of the train lines that was still more than we wanted to spend (where was it?  You guessed it - Chevy Chase, MD).  I was about to book it when Nate had the idea to check for bed and breakfasts.  I was skeptical that we'd find anything, but the first thing that popped up actually turned out to be a cute little condo rental right in the heart of D.C. for the same price we would have paid to stay in a crappy 1-star hotel.  It's walking distance from a Whole Foods, supposedly in the heart of a hip area, and did I mention that it looks really cute in the pictures?  Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't turn out to be a crackhouse or a vacant lot or something...  If you don't hear from me again, you'll have your answer, stay tuned!

Trip to D.C. with the Christ's Church Choir

Back on Track!

Whoa.

It's been a busy couple of months.  It always seems like February, March & April are the busiest time for me, which seems sort of odd.  But then again, I think it's always been like that since I was a kid - Spring was always full of shows and projects and the last minute push by teachers to cram a year's worth of knowledge into a few short months.  So I guess it only makes sense that the tradition continue into adulthood.  It sure is exhausting sometimes, though!  Gives me a reason to appreciate summer, I guess: no lessons, no church, no need to set an alarm on the weekends (ah, what I wouldn't give to have one day where I'm up later than 6am for awhile!).

The most recent news is that I've gotten back on the bike!  Finally all healed and warm enough to give it another go.  My office recently moved up the road to the other side of the George Washington Bridge, so I no longer have to trek up and down that treacherous hill to Edgewater.  It's actually kind of perfect that our new office opened right about the same time the cold finally broke, as the bus options that go there are a big sack of ass, and it's actually faster to bike there (ridiculous, ain't it?  Although, if you can see the traffic on the bridge in the pic to the left, you might understand why).  I'm easing my way into the new commute, but so far it's been a nice ride.  It's mostly uphill on the way to work (a series of long, manageable hills instead of one big Oh-my-fucking-god hill) and a nice downhill coast home.  This is the opposite of what my commute used to be, and MUCH easier to cope with that way.  Often times I was too tired at the end of the day to climb that damn hill and would end up just taking the ferry, which was the more expensive leg of the trip to begin with.  Oh well.  It's a new year, a new commute, and I have no ferry to wuss out on, so I'm hoping I will be able to stick with it more this time around!  That and I really need to lose a good 20-30 pounds which this and the lack of food options anywhere close to our new office should hopefully take care of.  Check out the pic of the Manhattan from the GW bridge at the bottom - amazing that there is actually greenery on the coast of Manahattan, isn't it? 

I did lots o' singing this winter.  My church choir sang at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, Long Island in February, then at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (the massive Episcopal cathedral in Upper Manhattan) in March, and we are about to embark on a trip next weekend to sing at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. In addition, I sang the part of Obadiah in the oratorio Elijah with my church and the Rye Presbyterian church in March, had my first concert with the semi-professional chorus I'm singing with in March, just finished up Holy Week sing-o-rama yesterday at my church and another church in Bronxville, and I'm currently rehearsing the choruses for both the Britten War Requiem & Mahler's 8th for a series of concerts I'm involved in at Lincoln Center in June.  Whew!  I'm king of exhausted just listing all of that, frankly.  I got through it all unscathed and even managed to sound pretty good most of the time (I think).  Now just another month and and half and I'll be done with lessons and church for the summer.  Not that I don't love what I'm doing, but I'm ready for a break!  

I'm really finding myself loving choral singing more and more.  As a vocal student, the emphasis is always on opera, which I enjoyed, but never really saw myself doing.  It's much, much harder to make a living at choral singing, of course, which is why I guess why most classical vocalists become opera singers, but I'm really happy just getting to sing in lots of different venues, with the occasional solos (although they can really never be frequent enough for my liking), and having my day job to keep me grounded and pay the bills.  As much as I hate my day job some (most) days, it gives me the security and freedom, oddly enough, to do what I really enjoy doing without having to worry about paying the bills.  I think I've found a good balance!

Nate is doing well for himself, too, so much so that I haven't had more than a few hours here and there to see him since, well....really January.  Which is great, I'm glad that he's finding a lot of work, and both of them Broadway shows, especially in this economy, but it would be nice to remember what he looks like occasionally.  He was the Production Assistant on the play God of Carnage through mid-March, and then as soon as that one opened (literally the next day) he started The Norman Conquests.  Carnage was hilarious - it's all about these 2 couples (played by Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini & Marcia Gay Harden) who get together to discuss a schoolyard fight between their two boys and devolves into basically a 90-minute tantrum between the 4 of them.  It was a hoot, and got rave reviews, not to mention that Nate really had a blast working on it.

Norman Conquests I haven't seen yet (seeing it this week), but it's actually 3 plays that run in repertory (meaning, a different one plays each night), and then there are 3-show days where the whole trilogy shows.  Apparently, each show stands on its own, or if you see them all together they interlink - like an exit from one show is an entrance in another.  Sounds like an interesting concept, so I'm getting ready to see all three this week.  The show opens Thursday and then he will essentially be done, except for training as a sub for the stage management team, and then I get him back, for a little while I hope.  

It's tough being the husband of a theater person.  On the one hand, you really want him to be working as much as possible, because it's good for his career and for our pocketbooks, but on the other hand, the hours are long and hard on a relationship.  Luckily ours is strong enough that we always manage to make it through.  That, and I'm enough of a hermit that a little time alone doesn't bother me too much, as long as I know it's not a permanent arrangement.  

The kitties don't always cope as well with an empty house, and get very upset when we're not home much. Titi for example, is meowling desperately in the other room trying to get me to come pay attention to her.  So I guess I best get to it, if I know what's good for me (ie: If I don't want the 3rd pile of vomit on my bed in the course of a month).  Ah the joys of pet ownership...

Happy Holidays!

Ho, Ho, Whoa!

The Griswolds have met their match...  Yeesh!

Today, my friend Sarah introduced me to the neighborhood of Dyker Heights in Brooklyn (it's waaaaaay the fuck out there, past Bay Ridge), which is known for it's um..."fantastic" X-mas light displays.  The neighborhood was first developed in the 1890s as a WASP-y suburban enclave, full of beautiful and tastefully appointed Queen Anne estates like this one, and once dubbed "the handsomest suburb in Greater New York."  And then, sometime around the 40's, the Italians moved in and changed all that.  *cough cough*  Not to sound too racist against Italian-Americans here - I do so love my Italian-American friends - but I often find their taste rather...questionable.  There seems to be a "bigger is better" mentality, and a constant competitive streak that pervades their culture (at least here in the Northeast), resulting in a need to constantly outdo one's neighbor in tacky displays of wealth.  It becomes immediately evident in the modern homes that have replaced the 19th century originals in Dyker Heights: horrible stone and concrete monstrocities, each bigger and more ridiculous than the last, and with yards full of fountains, statues, and gigantic stone lawn ornaments.  

So, it's no surprise, then, that the X-mas displays are a tad...over the top.  I think within a half-mile radius, there is probably enough electricity being wasted on X-mas displays to power the entire borough of Queens.  It's pretty amazing, and by amazing, I mean terrible, and by terrible, I mean AMAZINGLY terrible!  It was really extremely odd in a wonderful way to wander from house to house looking at these ridiculous displays and marvelling at the fact that we are, in fact, still in New York City.  It definitely felt like we'd stepped into "Christmas Vacation" on crack.  We just laughed and laughed, and froze our butts off.  It was delightful.  I hope to make it an annual holiday tradition to make a pilgrimmage to see the lights, and next year, I'll bring my nice camera (currently with Nate in China) and a wide angle lens to get some better shots.  Here's a nice sampling below.  Enjoy!

Tacky Xmas Lights in Dyker Heights