Knowing then what you know now

I am actually quite fortunate in that I went to two "quite good"  secondary schools.
When we moved to Australia I went to Whyalla Technical High School
But in those days country schools had no conception that  "country students" might do more than work on the land, or at the steelworks, or in the shipyard.

Let's face it ...this was never going to be my fate!
I came from England with two other languages in tow....French and German....but could only pursue French.  ( I can just get by in both...,.this is a case of how 'education' may well have destroyed a native talent!)
The Science and Maths was Ok and the English was OK.  Music was virtually non-existent,  
as a mediocre cellist there was no-one who could take me to the next step. 
As a quite reasonable singer, there was no one to train my voice.
I didn't even really realise this was happening....I was too busy learning how to smoke!
I lament these things. But life's like that
Whitehaven Grammar School was a classic school of the English Grammar School tradition.My French and German would have been cemented and I would probably have got a grounding in Russian.
I learnt only later in  life that I have  a bit of flair for languages.
I can now struggle by in Hebrew, NT Greek ...and my German and French are still OK.
I lament the lack of Russian!
Soooooo....today, as you do,
I have had a little contact on Facebook 
with former school contacts.
I remember that  
I played the Cello in the orchestra for Trial by Jury in 1967, 
that I was a policeman & a pirate of Penzance. 
That I had been H. Higgins in Pygmalion along with Lynn Breuer (formerly Raymond...and speaker of the Legislative Assembly....who was much better than me !) 
That I had been a Duke both in Merchant of Venice,  and in Twelfth Night. 
That I had conducted  B.Britten's Let's Make an Opera!.....so I can't complain.
Just sort of wish I'd known then what I know now!

Self knowledge

I rather think that as I get older I am understanding myself better. (I may of course be mistaken)

It is one of my 'theories' that not everyone who simply grows old gets wiser. I hope I will get wiser as I get older!

In the last few months I have realised that one of the principal dysfunctional mechanisms of my life has been that I build a wall and repel  'The enemy'. 

My strategy? Hide behind the wall and tell them to get knicked!

This is an interesting strategy, but it is not without casualty. Not least me. 

I have been so good at building repelling walls that most people don't even try to attack! It's just too hard

And so I feel...well I am pretty alone....people won't approach me because the wall is too hard to breach. 

In the last two days I had disagreements with two folk.....so what did I do?

Even though I realised it was wrong...I got behind the wall.

I withdrew my communication, I stopped even texting.....what a dick! (excusez moi!)

I want to do better.

Shouldn't we all do better?

As I write this I am listening to "Carousel".
I think it is THE great R& H musical..."Walk on walk on with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone"
Maybe I am just an incurable romantic ..as they say...but I suspect there is more to
it



PPPPPS if you don't listen to Spotify yet then maybe now is a  time to try

There she blows!

The State Opera Company's production of Jake Heggie's Moby Dick was truly amazing. (There are only two more performances if you can then do go and see it)
I always know when we go inside the Festival Theatre how fortunate we are to have such a facility.
But, in this electronic age it is also the effects and the staging that is the 'hero'.
The picture above is of the whaling boats and is essentially an electronically projected image. It allows all sort of things to be done on stage which could otherwise never happen. And someone actually asked me today if I felt seasick. And ion the great climactic scene at the end I swear I did.
The music is not melodic, but is powerful and rich. The ASO were truly excellent.
The  (all but one) male chorus were excellent...and drawn essentially from local talent it makes you proud. Their sound was phenomenally coherent and deeply moving .


For once, too, the story made sense which is more than you can say for most of the film versions of the novella. I suppose it seemed to me that it's about heaven and hell here on earth (or at sea in this case), about how we are driven and how we drive others. Rivetting stuff.
I think everyone who has seen it has been affected (two people in front of us left at half time). I found myself wondering about how all this fits in with the great tragedies that the world faces at this time. The famines, the wars, the imminent climate collapse....and of course whales are ever close to us as a sign of man's inability to grapple with creation
Yet some how art interprets life so profoundly that we all know that we need it to stay alive.

Art, science and religion

Tory Shepherd seems to suggest in the press today that everything should be explained by science. I don’t essentially have any problem with scientists testing the veracity of certain religious claims (if that’s what turns them on). I do have certain issues with propositions like those of Ms Shepherd which seem to suggest that everything can be explained by science, that in itself is essentially a logically unverifiable statement. We simply don’t live in a world that is only scientific, the great works of art are not just scientific constructs.
At some points painters, composers, sculptors, poets and writers can touch the humanity of another person in a way that transcends science. Who would would want the world to be anything less?
I love science and I love art. They are not mutually exclusive.

O Carol!

I don't look forward, by and large,to sitting through carol concerts. One of the hazards of the job I suppose.
So I was pleasantly surprised by our local offering tonight. We had opted for low key carols with our resident choir who have struggled over a number of years to 'get their act together'.
At times in the past I have thought it was OK (I used to be a tenor member),but we had a long way to go.
Tonight there was a sense of together!!
I have witnessed this with music groups before, after a while they actually begin to hear each other and start to sing together. This choir hast started to do that. Particularly pleasing is the way the men have come together, with one new addition to their number ...a younger male, T, who has had some rigorous choir training, now he has become a baritone he has provided (I think) a focal point for the wavering group of fellahs.
I was sharing this with J the director and she was saying the same thing at the same time that I was saying, and then again with B (one of the disparate basses) who was attesting that T had really brought them together . Any way it is true. T has unknowingly united his fellow male singers.
Great stuff and the Berlioz Christmas Carol was something special!!
Oh! and one reader reminds me that a very good thing was the way in which the Sops stood up to own the singing of the descants. They used to be too frightened to do that!!
What a good night!

Be Musing, Be Very Amusing

Sarah's graduation today as a Bachelor of Music. One down!
Another one next week! It never rains...but looks overcast this morning!

SARAH CLARK. B. Mus.

World Music

The phenomenon that is WOMAD, or World Music Adelaide has begun to unfold tonight. Indeed Adelaide is in the grips of Fringe Fever and Music Fever, almost too much to bear.
The Big Boss (His Archepiscopiensis) said to me tonight (he who grew up in the sticks of NSW where it is cooooold oh so coooold, and who lived in Canberrra where the cold night frosts freeze even the brass monkeys...well that's another question....and then went to be Bishop of Gippsland...WHAT land? I hear you say. A beautiful but rugged land of hard working people in a rough, rough climate......ask the fishermen)...well any way he said to me...how long can you go on having such perfect days?
Ahhh Yes I said as I looked far away (thinking of Europe in 7 weeks time), this foreigner has stumbled on the South Australian secret. God herself dwells here. So she caresses the days of March with warmth but chills the night and the early morn, even the washing is damp on the line. And then, lest we forget, this continues to ANZAC day.
So this guy, you know the purple one, he's discovered the secret. It's fantastic here.
Amidst the season of perfect weather we festivalise. Arts, Fringe, Womad...so it goes on.
Back to world music. I was interested in a comment Andrew Ford made last year..."Why does music have to be easy to listen to?". Since then I have tried to allow music to challenge me more.
One of my good parishioners, Peter, got this immediately. Good thing that you are Peter, and sagacious with it. So it may be drums, or African, or Chronos/Kronos Quartet...Flat on your Bacharach or New Guinea Tribal.....let it infuse you. If we get the import of music, I suspect we get close to the import of life.

Working from home

While there have been a number of debates around recently about education, no aspect is more interesting than whether or not kids should be doing homework.
We have already had at least one bout of tears and the "I don't feel well enough to go to school" routine once this year (3rd week of school).
The naked facts are that our school age daughter is at school by 8 a.m. on 3 or 4 mornings a week. She doesn't get off the bus until 4.15. She plays the piano, and the cello....wants to do softball and netball .... and needs time just to chill.
Why is it reasonable to assume that with 8 hours spent at school something will be achieved by having 1-2 hours more. I fail to be convinced.
At some point I just want her to play, to ring her friends and feel that she has some areas of her life that her under her control.
Others argue that it is a lesson in what the real world is like. It may indeed be like that for some folk. But most ordinary people I know don't come home from work to be told they have to do two hours more...some do, but is that desirable. I don't think so.
Too many families suffer because too many people go to work and then crowd their together time out.

And after all, does a 13 year old need two hours a night extra work.
I am not convinced that this does anything more than encourage children to detest self-driven education.