Rigoletto dress, some good jazz
Last night we had the dress rehearsal for HGO’s new production of Rigoletto, opening night is Friday 4/17. Scott Hendricks sings Rigoletto, Albina Shagimuratova is Gilda and Eric Cutler plays the Duke. Amazing singers all three of them, I’m always blown away by what it takes to do what they can do. Just being able to sing over a seventy-piece orchestra with no amplification, talk about breath-control and technique!
Tonight we’re having the rehearsal for the Mozart Requiem, so I’ll drag out my $160 Chinese alto trombone. Mike Warney plays tenor and Rick Reeves basstrombone, the HGO trombone section.
If you want to hear great jazz, come to River Oaks Baptist Church Sunday night 4/19 at 6 pm. New Orleans native and piano-great Matt Lemmler has put together a program about the history of jazz, with a kicking band doing the playing. Gary Welden on trumpet, Warren Sneed sax and clarinet, yours truly on trombone together with a swinging rhythm section. Should be loads of fun!
Rigoletto 2009
We had our third orchestra reading for Verdi’s Rigoletto today with the HGO orchestra, Patrick Summers conducting. Tomorrow night we’re having the sitz-probe, which means we get to meet and hear the singers for the first time. It’s one of the all-time great operas. I especially like the opening, it’s me and the trumpet, HGO Principal trumpet Jim Vassallo. The rest of the brass joins us in the second bar with low, dark chords, setting the stage for the dramatic story. Opening night is Friday April 17, 2009.
The end of “The Magic Flute”
A little update on what’s going on in my musical life.
We finished Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” with the Houston Grand Opera early February. It was a blast playing it, with a great cast and a really fine conductor, Steven Sloan. It was a little unnerving though with all the exposed soft playing for the trombones!
Down in Mexico
In early November nine of us from the HGO orchestra went down to Mazatlan in Mexico to play the Sleeping Beauty, Tjaikovskij’s ballet. It was for the Festival Cultural Mazatlan, and the orchestra consisted of both musicians from Mexico and the US.
We had a great time, and it got even better after I got over the food poisoning!