Running With Cheese

• Summersong 2012: I'm going to have to reach for the Thesaurus seeking new superlatives for the chronically hard-to-top music camp if I'm going to write a fair assessment of the 13th Summersong - but hell, just go back to previous posts and you'll get the idea. I loved my classes and loved that they embraced some eccentric choices of repertoire: Tom Waits' Way down in the hole, Iko Iko, Nancy Jacobs' Baby a re yeng and the Kyrie from Byrd's Four-part Mass. And the vocal impro night was equally entertaining and inspiring. Lloyd Siegal did some amazing (blistering/jaw-dropping etc.) guitar tricks and sang like a force of nature. The final concert was possibly the best yet, tight, well-paced, full of variety, embracing the weird, the hilarious and the heart-stoppingly beautiful. (Pam, you're a goddess.) Thanks as always to Alison, Ellie, Terri, Luciano, Kristina, Pam & Troy, and the rest of the gang, see you next year.
    I stayed in the shire for a few days, and ran a couple of workshops, curated by my new friends Jessie Vintila and Emma Royle (The Lucky Wonders) - a one-day a cappella gospel workshop (sounded great) and the other a choral directing workshop (more a discussion group that I moderated), both of which I enjoyed very much. Thanks Jessie and Emma - see you next year too.