Weekend Pictures

The video of the concert isn't supposed to be ready for about 2 weeks, but DH and DSons took pictures at the concert.

Here's Ryan conducting the chorus


Here's The first song of our set - "I Can't Sit Down". I'm sitting next to Dick Frost, who is a wonderful baritone. I love singing with him, we always have a great time. We weren't singing for this one. But the funny thing is that I was singing along silently with the chorus, to stay warmed up. You don't see it in this picture, but there's one picture where my mouth is closed while my throat is obviously working. You see that a lot with singers.

And MTV videos notwithstanding, singing is not an aesthetically pleasing endeavor if done right. Watch any good singer and you will see that when they open their mouth, they have a lot of stuff going on at the back of their throat that doesn't photograph well. Usually when you see stills of singers, they aren't really singing. Same with videos. You'll see people lipsynching, and keeping their lower jaw set so they don't get a double chin effect. Not so when someone is really singing.

Dick was up next. He sang "I Got Plenty o' Nothing", and nailed it.

The audience just ate it up. What fun!

After that, I sang "Summertime". Interestingly enough, I wasn't nervous at all. I think this was the first time in about 20 years that I didn't have butterflies when I stood up to sing. I was even sitting there while Dick was singing, thinking, "Wow, my mouth isn't drying out like it usually does before a performance. Whazzup with that?" I think it went really well. I love this song, and I can't believe I never performed it in public before.

It was a truly wonderful moment. I've said before that the closest I ever get to a religious experience is when I sing. This was it. Allow me a little navel gazing for a moment. When I sing, I really try to interpret and internalize the text. The music is beautiful, but it's the words that make it communicate. "Summertime" is a lullaby, and when I sing it, I immediately call to mind holding my children and rocking them to sleep or comforting them. I try to float the high notes, not blast them. It makes the music that much more lovely to me, and I hope that comes across in my singing.

Okay, enough navel gazing. The last song was "I'm On My Way". It was a blast. I got to hit the wicked high note at the end, which is always fun. That one I did power through. Fun fun fun!

Here's a better picture of the dress I wore. It's Butterick 4343. I made it 5 years ago for another concert. It's actually a little big these days - yay! It's made from a 4 ply silk, lined with silk habotai. You can't see it, but I did a hand-set embellished zipper with sequins and beads on both sides. It's fabulous and comfortable!

Okay, enough about me. Here's the parting shots from the weekend. Mother's Day was wonderful. One of the things we did was take Hoover to a place we call "Dogtopia". It's a huge field in Lexington that has a cistern where dogs can swim. Hoover loves to jump into the water, so here are some action shots I took:


I cut out another knit top and am about 2/3 of the way through it. I'll review it tomorrow.
Happy sewing!