Teaching, Gigs, Food and Baseball

Katie ended her blog with "....but I will leave you all now to allow him to expound upon his teaching, gigs, food choices and baseball obsession." So you should scroll down and read hers first before reading mine.

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Back already? Good. Now, as far as teaching, I am on a quasi-spring break. While I am still teaching at Mannes, I do not have to teach at Hunter and Hofstra. Katie, too, is on break. Which is how she found the time to write a blog post. Because the three places I teach never lined up for spring break, I joke that I don't really get so much a "break" as a "bend." But it was a nice bend, and Alan DID get to see me teach at Mannes during his trip here. My classes were all very interested in meeting him and tried to get him to dish gossip on their teacher. Classes at all three places wrap up within the next month, so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Gig-wise, I just wrapped up a busy Easter weekend (Alan hadn't heard me play for over 10 years) and am now busy playing a run of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeoman of the Guard." I will play a run of Carmen in May with an opera company up in the Bronx, and have several other small concerts and things coming up as well. The best news is that my woodwind quintet is being flown up to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a two-week music festival at the beginning of June. (A woodwind quintet is composed of a flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn...the horn is technically a brass instrument, but it blends so well with the other winds, it is traditionally included in the quintet.) We'll play some concerts, coach some high-school chamber music groups, and play young composers' new pieces. It should be fun. I'll blog more on this later.

I don't think I have time or space to write about food now. As many of you know, I have become more and more interested in food lately; I can actually have long talks about it, without realizing I my interlocutor is bored to tears. So, for now, I'll spare you all.

And yes, my baseball obsession is back. I've been waiting for the season to begin for some time. It's not only the national pastime, but also the harbinger of the balmy spring months and the lazy days of summer (or, at least for me, the less busy days...not so much teaching). Alan and I went to a Yankees game on Good Friday, and they lost to Baltimore 6-4. It was still pretty exciting, and we were among the first 18,000 fans (out of some 50,000 that came that night) so we got a free Yankees baseball cap. I am also watching the Mariners' box scores and can sometimes follow them in real-time on the Internet. They may have a good season (they started off well) and I am looking forward to seeing some games when I visit the Pacific Northwest in July.