Never thought I'd see the day

New Kids on the Block... remember them? Well, they're back together and on tour! I absolutely adored them when they were popular, and abandoned them when they fell from glory. I didn't stop liking their music, per se, but I moved on to other things and never really looked back. So, they have a myspace page, and it has all their old music on it, so I listened to some of the tracks that I remembered as having been my favorites... it's amazing how you can not hear a song for 16 years or more and still remember every word and inflection. It's rather nostalgic, isn't it? But I have a lot of good memories associated with the NKOTB music, namely my surprise 13th birthday party and bonding with my cousin, Shelly, who was a few years older than me and fanatical about them, which made them really cool to little cousin Ellie.

I had a very similar experience recently when I bought a Gatlin Brothers album that we used to listen to all the time when our family drove to/from Sanibel Island, FL for our summer vacations, and listening to it reminds me what it felt like to be a little kid on vacation. It's funny - some of those songs refer to very adult activities, but they don't come right out and say "sex" and "drinking" so even though I had every word memorized, I never had any idea what I was singing about... and never knew the difference until I heard the songs again this summer.

I used to have a cassette tape with a compilation of songs my parents had put together from their LPs. I listened to it all the time and always sang along to it. I remember singing along in the backseat one day and overhearing my parents snickering in the front seat... apparently, the record had skipped and left out a whole section, and I had never noticed. I just sang along like that's how it was supposed to be. Now, when I hear that song, it doesn't sound right to me without the skip I was used to hearing!

...which is just another reminder to my students to take care not to learn their music wrong, because it'll never sound right when they do it the right way!

A tech blast from the past

I'm back in Denver now doing some "spring cleaning," and I found my old software for "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego". The box contained twelve 3.5" floppy diskettes and six 5.25" diskettes - I haven't seen 5.25" diskettes in at least 15 years! The box also contained a 1991 World Almanac and a brochure advertising Prodigy Internet Service.... anyone remember them? They were my ISP at the time. That was a pretty cool service in its day.

Back in time

This morning, Dad and I rode to my hometown for breakfast at the donut shop a few doors down from the house where I grew up. I saw a few people I knew in the old class pictures on the wall. After breakfast, we walked down the block and looked at the house. The owners, we noticed, were working in the backyard - middle of the day on a Tuesday, would you believe! So, we said "Hello, we used to live here 17 years ago," and the guy gave us a tour of the house. It has changed tremendously in 17 years - walls have been moved, for example - but many things are also quite the same, like the original 83-year-old hardwood floors and the doors with skeleton keyholes. The guy had only lived there 6 months, and all the work had been done prior to his purchase of the home, so as we went along, we told him where the walls used to be and how things had changed. It was really strange walking through my old house again after all this time - the rooms were all smaller than I had remembered them - but what a neat experience.

Then we went down to Wyman Woods and found a geocache. :-) It had a travel bug in it. My first travel bug! I'll take it back to Colorado with me and deposit it there somewhere.

Nostalgia and a small world

So, based on my last posting, you can imagine I am feeling nostaligic about my children's choir days. So, I decided to look them up on the web. I had heard that a handful of years ago the children's choir split from the symphony and became an independent organization, the Columbus Childrens Choir. It has grown from the one choir it was in my days to NINE choirs. They are still under the direction of Dr. Sandra Mathias, who conducted my first audition and was the only director the CSOCC ever had.

Even cooler, the CCC website has an alumni section where they list what the alums are up to. I have, of course, just submitted my info. In the meanwhile, however, I found the names of dozens of people I remember. Of course, in my memory, they are all still 8 to 13 years old, so reading about their accomplishments is mind-boggling. One of my fellow charter members, David Ayers, played Fiyero in Wicked on Broadway!

But it gets weirder... in Googling David to find out what he's up to, I found that he is co-founder of Broadway in Boulder....he freakin' lives in Colorado now! I think I will try to call him tomorrow and see if he remembers me. He used to sit right behind me, and I've never been a wallflower, right?

A personal loss

According to the Columbus Dispatch, the Columbus Symphony may be closing its doors:
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/05/08/picnic.html

The article begins:

- - - - - -

"After 57 years of music making, including a triumphant concert in New York's Carnegie Hall, the Columbus Symphony says it will shut down June 1.

Out of money and having failed to reach a new labor agreement with the musicians, the orchestra's board of trustees said today that it is canceling the summer Picnic With the Pops and Popcorn Pops series and most likely its 2008-09 season, scheduled to begin in October.

Columbus would become one of the nation's largest cities without a full-time professional orchestra."

- - - - - - -

Now, why does a Denver soprano care what happens to the Columbus Symphony? Flashback 20 years to a 10-year-old piano student in Grandview Heights, a suburb of Columbus. Her piano teacher hears that the Columbus Symphony Orchestra is creating a children's chorus and suggests that the young girl audition for it. The girl does (along with 500 other children) and becomes one of the 75 charter members of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra Children's Chorus. During the three years she sang with this first-rate ensemble, as she performed with the symphony orchestra and a handful of renowned conductors, she gained an appreciation for classical music, learned how to sing "correctly," and learned how to sightsing.

Minus the experiences she acquired in the CSOCC, odds are 50 to 1 she would not have majored in music and would therefore not be a music teacher and performing musician today. Anyone who knows me would consider music an integral part of my spirit - it's part of who I am - I am not ME without it. It should now be easy to see why the potential demise of the CSO is a great personal loss for me.

And it was only a couple of weeks ago, I was recalling these 20-year-old memories with the CSOCC here in my blog in response to similar new experiences. Remember?

I really hope the managers and musicians are able to reach a suitable agreement.

Five fabulous years!

Happy Anniversary, Eric, my love! I love you more than words can possibly convey. Thank you for five fabulous years!
(And many more! cha-cha-cha!)

Brava, Klara!

Just last month, I wrote about the tremendous positive impact that of one of my voice teachers, Klara Barlow, had on my development as a singer. (See What I need) She was my teacher at IU and is easily the best teacher I ever had.

For years, I have wondered what became of her - she was elderly when I studied with her 9 years ago. I received a message through MySpace today from a friend of hers (a stranger to me, though) telling me that Ms. Barlow passed away last month at the age of 79.

The announcement in OPERA NEWS: http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/news/pressrelease.aspx?id=1496

I offer my condolences to her close friends and family. To anyone fortunate enough to have known her well and long, this is a great loss.

My 10-year High School Reunion

Excerpts from my diary:

When I was a junior in high school I visited the high school I would have attended had I not moved to Colorado when I was 13 years old. We were a very small class – about 90 students. I was excited to see these people that I had grown up with from Kindergarten through 7th grade, whom I hadn’t seen in years. But I was hurt and disappointed when they weren’t excited to see me. Some of them even ignored me. I could hardly believe it. I never went back. I think I subconsciously expected my classmates from SHHS to react the same way, but I was pleasantly surprised.

When we graduated, I think all of us IB kids were very career minded, and over the years some of us have discovered that there are things more important to us than being “successful” by the academic standard. This is not something I would have expected ten years ago. And those who have continued to be ambitious in their careers have done so because that’s what they enjoyed, not because they had something to prove like we did in high school. At least, this is true of those who were there tonight and others I know who did not attend.

Yana made an interesting observation: those who attended the reunion were the ones who really enjoyed high school and the ones who are happy with their lives now and comfortable with the decisions they’ve made. (Yana and I were pleased to fit both categories.) I added that it was the ones who really enjoyed high school that were drunk and the ones happy with their lives who remained sober. (And there was a clear distinction between those of us who were sober and those who were not!) But I think Yana was absolutely right. And that’s not to say that those who did not come did not enjoy school or were not happy with their lives, but those who either disliked school or were unhappy with their lives would be considerably less likely to want to spend an evening with people they hadn’t seen in ten years.

I was surprised to hear people say that I looked like I had grown up. Particularly my IB friends mentioned this. They said that more than anyone else, I looked different. That really surprised me! I didn’t do anything to make myself look better or older today than any other day. Maybe it's the shorter hair and the extra 15 pounds.

I wish that more IB people had come to the reunion. We were all a big family in high school. We went through a lot together in that program and we had a lot of respect for one another. I think that’s why the IB folks that did come were my favorite to visit with. We had a lot in common in terms of the character traits that put us together in that program, and those are things that last, so we still have a lot in common. I didn’t see it back then because I hadn’t met enough people to know the difference. There were plenty of others at the reunion that I knew, but never spoke to because I just didn’t have anything to say.

So, I’m glad I went to the reunion. It's put my high school memories in perspective and given me a new appreciation for this chapter of life. But I’m still glad these only come up every 10 years.

Her 79-year high school reunion

Today Eric and I attended his grandmother's high school reunion.

Fort Collins High School opened in 1899, so it has over a hundred years worth of graduates, unlike my high school which has only been open 32 years. So, they have this thing called the Fifty Year Club, and you get to join it when you have graduated from FCHS fifty or more years ago. They have a brunch every August. Pretty nifty idea, actually.

At the age of 99, Granny was the oldest graduate in attendance and the only graduate from the class of 1927. There was also a list in the program of "other FCHS graduates in attendance" to acknowledge graduates who were attending with their graduate relatives. Eric finished off that list, class of 1987. So, he and his grandmother were the bookends of the event, so to speak - oldest and youngest, other than the new scholarship recipient who attended to deliver a thank you speech. Eric's mom was also there. She just retired from FCHS this year, so she was listed as former staff. She graduated high school in Grand Junction.

Our US Senator Wayne Allard was also there as an "other FCHS graduate in attendance." He was attending with his mother, a graduate of the class of '38.

I had to laugh as we were walking through the parking lot. I've never seen so many "Pioneers" license plates in one lot before!

This was an interesting prologue to my 10-year reunion which is coming up next weekend.

Colorado's worst natural disaster*

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Big Thompson Flood, the worst natural disaster in Colorado history. (Some of my regular readers will remember it firsthand.)

For those who don't know, the Big Thompson Flood (named for the canyon in which it took place) was a flash flood that hit without any warning sending water through the canyon at a mind-boggling 31, 200 cubic feet per second. At least 144 are known to have died that night, and 88 people were injured. Seven victims have never been located. The devastation of those two hours led to large scale research and development for better warning systems and building standards in flood-prone areas across the country.

That day, my husband (then 7 years old) and his family had spent the day in Estes Park. They were driving back home to Fort Collins when it started raining. Eric complained that he was hungry, so the family stopped at a restaurant to grab a quick bite to eat. Before they left the restaurant, word came in that the highway on which they were to travel home had been completely washed away by the flood - a flood they didn't even know about until that moment. They sought higher ground and traveled home the next day by a different route. The grumblings of my husband's hungry belly had saved his family's life.

The 25th anniversary of the flood came only two weeks after my first date with Eric. Yet, during those two weeks we drove through the canyon together and he told me all about it and showed me various landmarks. So, the information was fresh in my mind when it was on the news five years ago, and I remember writing about it in my diary. I mentioned this to Eric as we watched a commemoration on the news tonight. He said it, too: Can that really have been five whole years ago?

Some who read this blog have their own memories of the night of the flood. Please share them in the comments section! Between the anniversary of the flood and my trip to the Central City Opera on Tuesday, it's been a very educational week for me in terms of Colorado history!



*The death toll of the 1921 flood in Pueblo may have been higher, but was not well documented. Estimates of lives lost in that flood range from 100 to 350.