You may recall me announcing about 400 times that the Bernstein Mass got nominated for a grammy. Ok, so we didn't win. Whatever. The group was so jazzed about the whole thing. We sent a huge entourage down to the ceremonies. Lynne and Dick returned to regale us with stories of the evening. Gene put together a slide show of the evening. All good fun!
Gene was our man on the scene, using his camera phone to take some pics that he then im'd to me on my phone so I could then email them to the group. It was all good fun:
"doot doot doot ... doot doot doot...
Dateline Burbank. Our intrepid reporter Dr Gene is on the scene for the 2006 Grammys Award Show! No cameras allowed inside but that doesn't stop this resourceful fellow! In an early morning communique we see a bleary-eyed Hern tanking up for a hard day's work of partying and basking. How will we get those images without a camera? Why he's got one of those new-fangled contraptions on his phone! Welcome to the aughts dear reader. As the info and images pour in we'll keep this conduit open for all the latest breaking news! Good morning and Good Luck!"
Ok, so I got a little dorky on the day, but dude it's the Grammys! I remember once when I was at Cal (you know, back in the dusty old 80s). The Cal Chamber Chorus was nominated for a grammy. I don't remember if they won but boy was I jealous! I was singing in the totally fun, but pretty fringe Perfect Fifth. I say fringe 'cause it was not an official Music Dept group, just a bunch of people who liked singing. Our director Tony Pasqua is one of the most influential people in my musical life. He probably doesn't even remember me, but I learned a ton singing for him in that group. He didn't know it at the time, but he was basically teaching me how to run a rehearsal. I took that training and put it to use in a ton of a cappella groups over the years. I heard recently that Tony's still banging around the bay area directing choirs. I hope we cross paths again.
Wow what a digression! Did I mention I met Gene at a P5 Audition? That's a great story for another time. Back to the freaking Grammys! There's more good stuff! For example, here's one of Gene's dipatches. Don't they look pretty? Ok that's a totally rhetorical question. Yes. Yes they do look pretty. Hell if I saw them coming down the street I'd invent some kind of award just so's I could give it to them!
A big bonus was some free publicity on local TV. The week before the show. KPIX filmed a rehearsal and followed a few Peemers around for a new piece. The piece aired the night of the grammys and is hopefully still on-line here. You have to wait about 5min but then there we are in all our glory. Super cool. You even get a brief shot of yours truly singing in our fabled pre-Berlin concert. (If I've related this story to you, you'll know that concert was full of false hubris that was summarily dispatched upon arrival in the German capitol.)
Ok I think that's it for this round of PME glorification. I hope there is round after round after round! Here's the rest of the pics. (be aware, there's none too many and they're mostly camera pics)
-E
Technorati : Grammy, Kent Nagano, PME, Pacific Mozart Ensemble
Here we are listening to get some insight into our performance before trying it on the big stage. I have to say, it was hard listening to the tape of the show. No matter how good a show is, the recording is always a bit of a let down. It's really almost too easy to pick apart the faults. Dick gave us a few pointers and in typical PME fashion we all gave our opinions, sometimes to excess. Ok, almost always to excess. But then that's what we do. I think in the end we still feel like we're ready (warts and all). A former member of Meredeth's ensemble was in attendance at the Sunday show and had lots of nice things to say. That's certainly encouraging.
