Coventry II

In real life I am in Ekaterinburg in Russia, but in my blog I am still in Coventry because I haven't been able to get a Internet connection to my computer to work. In an effort to catch up I am retyping the blog on to the Internet from my computer.

I have a rule that if I am going to take electronic equipment with me I have to have bought it at least two months before I leave. It is not a rule I keep. On this trip, I bought a camcorder just before I left. I didn't really unpack it until I got here. I read the manual on the plane. Then since I needed to download the software CD's that came with the camera, I needed an external CD for my small travel computer. And the salesman who sold me the camera, said I needed an external hard drive to store the videos that I take while I travel which I believed. So I have one computer, one external hard drive, one external disk drive, one camcorder, two still cameras and three telephones for various countries, plus appropriate chargers and connecting cables. I need a better plan.

I found the camcorder easy to use and now have recorded six repetitions of our twenty minute score as well as a little bit of rehearsals. Now I need to get them off of the camera onto my hard drive so I can record some more. I manage to hook up the external drives to my computer, but something went wrong when I installed the software so I need to deal with that. Oh, well. Next time I will do everything perfectly.

Caroline and I took a brief walk around central Coventry and I was impressed by the interior space of the new cathedral so on Sunday when I had some time to myself, I went to Eucharist in the Cathedral. I was peaceably enjoying the service in a quiet Anglican way until after Communion they had a station set up for healing. Since I was instrumental in having lay people do healing after the Eucharist at my church, I went to the station for the laying on of hands and I began to get emotional, but I breathed and calmed down. Then they started the closing hymn and it was “How Great Thou Art.” This was the last hymn that my grandmother heard before she emigrated from Sweden at the age of 18 in the late 19^th century, and perhaps the last hymn I heard her play on the guitar before her stroke (I was quite young and there are two possibilities). Because of the association with my grandmother the hymn always had special significance for my family. I started singing and the tears welled up in my eyes and I had to stop singing. This happened again, and then on the third time I began sobbing silently with my eyes closed. When I opened my eyes, the procession of the clergy out of the church was passing my pew and everyone in front of me had turned around to watch them, but instead they were watching me. The woman next to me was very sweet and said that crying was what churches were for.

After the service, they were playing the bells in the cathedral tower. I think they have a peal of 12 bells and they were doing different peals with a different number of bells. I love the sound of cascading bells. It was wonderful to sit in the shell of the ruined cathedral and listen to them.

In the afternoon I napped, got up late, hurriedly washed dishes and then walked to the Uni to meet Caroline. I was supposed to be there at 4:30, but didn't get there until 4:45. Then we went and had pizza at the Pizza Express between the Uni and the Cathedral. We each had a glass of wine. I felt like such a grown up. It was very elegant pizza.

Then I went back to the Cathedral and heard Monteverdi's Vespero della Beata Virgine 1610 performed by the Saint Michael Sings, Girl Choristers of Coventry Cathedral, Monteverdi Plainchant Consort, and two orchestras, QuintEssential (old instruments) and ESO String Consort, a regional orchestra. There was also organ continuo from time to time and six soloists of which I especially liked the tenors, Simon Wall, the tall one, and Matthew Long, the cherubic one.

On the previous Saturday, Caroline and I and four students had the final showing of our piece. We did the piece three times, once in front of an audience, once for ourselves during which we had a chance to be silly, and one more time in front of a different audience. This went very well. I enjoyed the performances and then we had a feedback session and I talked briefly about my 42 years of improvising, and how, when I was young, I and my fellow improvisers would talk about what it would be like to improvise when we were old, and now I am old and still improvising. I talked about how moving I find working with the video that was made at an college that no longer exists and working with students who are just starting out on their careers. What a great cycle it is.