Quick change on tour!

Shahzore suggested I show the obvious differences between where we woke up this morning (Glenwood Springs, Colorado), and where we ended up (Joplin, Missouri) through a couple of pictures.

But it's more than that. This is priceless.

This was hour 1 through 2 of our drive today:





















...This was hour 3 through 13:




What a difference!!

Some pictures of tour

We've traveled a long way from Minocqua, and there have been many pictures taken since then! After Minocqua was Antigo and Sheboygan in Wisconsin(on Gary's birthday!). In Sheboygan, the theater looked very small from the outside, but it turned out to be one of the most beautiful theaters on the tour (and some of the best acoustics too).

Then we went on to Sioux City, IA, and then to Norfolk, Nebraska, where we had ANOTHER little mistake having to do with our press. Remember "Sanctus"? It turns out our press photo was used twice on their posters for the Allied Concert Series, once for Cantus, and the other for...The Harry James Orchestra?


After Norfolk was Rapid City, IA, and while traveling from Rapid City to Butte, Montana, we stopped by Mount Rushmore. It was really great to get some pictures of the whole of Cantus in front of the monument. We also stopped by the always in progress Crazy Horse Monument, which was amazing (and HUGE!).



Most recently, we've been in Glenwood Springs, where we took advantage of the world's largest hot spring pool. The sulfur may have made us smell, but we were more relaxed (by far) than at any other point of the tour thusfar!

Today we're driving to Joplin, MO (A long, long drive), so send us good vibes, and we'll write again soon!

Victims of Spellcheck?!

After enjoying a good show in Willmar MN the night before, and making an emergency stop back in the Twin Cities for some percussion and clothes we'd forgotten to pack, we pulled into our Wisconsin concert venue to find that perhaps we shouldn't have made the trip! It appeared that unfortunately another ensemble was scheduled to perform:

We never got to the bottom of it, but at least the programs had the right information (and the correct group name) printed, with only minor confusion from the audience (eek).

So, Minocqua was a pretty little lake town, and we are enjoying the start of Autumn, surrounded by trees that are just beginning to change into pretty reds, yellows, and oranges. A few of us took an opportunity to take walks around town, or exercise across the road by lakeside. After Antigo tonight, we head for two days to Sheboygan, where will have a night off to rest.

Touring begins for the 2009-10 season!

Welcome, Cantus fans, to the 2009-10 season!

After singing a very successful show last week at the Minnesota State Fair, as guests of Minnesota Public Radio, we're kicking off a three-week tour of the midwest tomorrow--Please check out our concert page to see when we'll be near you this season. This first tour is for Allied Concerts Series, and takes us to smaller communities, performing a bit lighter fare, before we begin touring our full, more classical-oriented Elemental program.

We get asked often about the touring lifestyle, and how it affects our relationships. It affects each member differently, but I have a special case, because my wife is also a professional singer, who also travels from time to time for performing. The quick and dirty answer to "is that difficult?", is "YES! It's difficult". Sometimes we have to contend with international calling rates, time zone issues, and even daily schedules can be problematic. But thank goodness for the web and Skype!

Here's an example of the kind of thing that goes on:

So, my wife was recently in Germany singing for a month. I went with her for a week (had a great time, btw), while Cantus still had a little vacation, but had to rush home for the start of rehearsals.

We only just got ourselves webcams for our last-generation PowerPC macs, so we were able to connect some mornings for free with video chat--fantastic. Except that she was 7 hours ahead, making her afternoon break my 7 am. I actually managed to stay up till 2 a.m. a few times to catch her at her 9 a.m.!

As it turned out, she needed some sheet music for an audition that she didn't bring, so I needed to scan in some scores and post them for her to download. All pretty simple, if a little tedious, but we accomplished it without spending a fortune in postage and time. Gotta love scanning technology!

Now, the crummy part of this is compounded because when she arrives home, a few days later Cantus goes out on tour. (acute failure on so many levels!) At least we'll both be in the same country, so we'll be able to talk every day.

All this aside, we all hope to see you on our travels this year, and we'll have numerous updates throughout the season to connect with you, which is one of our favorite things to do!

Take care, everybody: we'll see you on the road.

Irony

So most folks know by now that a Tornado hit the south side of Downtown Minneapolis on Tuesday. Cantus was rehearsing at Westminster only a few blocks away from "the action." We rehearse in a children's choir room with no windows and a very dry acoustic. This helps us hear all of the mistakes and doesn't allow for much distraction. Unfortunately it also didn't allow us to hear the Tornado sirens. Lucky for us, one of the Westminster folks came to get us. We went down to the basement, sat on the floor in the hallway and continued rehearsing. Not until one of the Westminster staff joked that this event was "our fault" did we even acknowledge that we were rehearsing They Call the Wind Maria from Lerner and Loewe's Paint Your Wagon. Pretty hilarious. Thankfully Westminster and the surrounding buildings were not harmed by the extreme weather.

Nonetheless, it's great to be back in rehearsal making music again. We'll be on stage before we know it--and I, for one, can't wait!

Back to Work!!

Cantus jumps back to work with the start of rehearsals tomorrow, Aug. 17th. After a very eventful summer, and a little break, we are working on putting together 3 different programs in the next 3-4 weeks: our normal Touring Program (this year it is called 'Elemental'), a special program for a tour with Allied Productions in September, and some early work on our Christmas shows: All is Calm: the Christmas Truce of 1914; and 'Away in a Manger', our annual holiday show at Harriet Island in St. Paul, MN.

'Elemental' is a program about the four Aristotelean elements: Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth. When these four elements are in perfect balance, Aristotle writes that a Fifth Element emerges: the Spirit. That is what Cantus hopes to achieve with this program. Some highlights from the 'Elemental' touring program include: music from 20th Century masters Zoltan Kodaly and Veljo Tormis; a wonderful part song by Franz Schubert that uniquely interprets a poem by Goethe about a sea-going apparition; a feisty setting of Greek palindrome by Twin Cities composer Abbie Betinis called 'Yhinx' that actually puts a hex on a former lover; and a host of other pieces from Japan, Sweden, Scotland, the Republic of Georgia, Venezuela, and the U.S.

We are in rehearsal weekdays from 1-6pm at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, MN. Rehearsals are open: if you want to see how the music is made, schedule a drop-in to rehearsal by emailing reinwald@cantusonline.org! Happy Singing!

A Rain Song

So I'm not one for much surfing the internet anymore. For some reason I've just gotten out of the habit and tend to get stuff done and head out, but today was certainly an exception. I've been working on painting my future apartment with my future roommates all weekend, and needed to just relax and not do much of anything this afternoon (not to mention the long programming meeting with Cantus)!

Not to steer people in other directions or anything, but there are plenty of music blogs that one could get lost in if one has an afternoon to waste. Blogs like Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise or Jeremy Denk's think denk are great places to start, but there are plenty more, ranging from marketing within the performing arts to just plain funny or interesting music.

What's funny about this particular post is that its title, "A Rain Song", stems from a video that I want to share which I found NOT on some other music blog. A friend of mine just happened to keep me on a listserve for an old men's group in which I used to sing (The Sons of Orpheus, in case you're wondering), and passed along this really interesting video while I was reading about the new Hamburg Philharmonic Hall, which will be finished in 2012 and is located in the middle of Sandtor harbour!

The video sort of cuts the song short, and the effects sound ALMOST perfect, but my favorite is the heavy downpour section...and the imitation of cracking thunder. Very cool, very interesting, and above all, I'm a little sad that Cantus is just 9 men. How cool would it be to prepare some sort of soundscape design like this in our regular "Surprise" slot for a touring program?

Anyways, enjoy this video. Will be writing again soon!

Rain