Libera Animas Defunctorum

It has been a while since my last post, so here I am! We got some sad news this weekend: Katherine's grandmother passed away on Sunday. It wasn't unexpected, she had been declining, but probably that doesn't help that much. Katherine was able to go home for the visitation and funeral, though.

Several days have passed since I started writing this. It's two performances at the NAC later, and it was quite delightful. The choir kids got to use the extra tickets for the concert to sit in the front row, because we weren't on until after intermission. The Ottawa Fesival Choirs led off the concert with Faure's Pavane, op. 50, which is meltingly gorgeous even if the program was very disparaging about the lyrics. These are described variously as a "saccharine poem" and "merely a textual overlay", but this is okay because it "adds nothing essential to the music itself". Burn. Amanda Forsyth then played Shostakovich's cello concerto no. 1 op. 107. The cello diva wears a great deal of eyeshadow, but it went with her blue-and-gold gown with a Cleopatra collar. Anyhow, that didn't really matter because hot griddlecakes, can that woman play! It was the orchestral equivalent of a rock concert. The fact that the piece she played is insaaaane helped, because it must be mindbogglingly difficult to play as well as being really cool.

Anyway, I must get back to my studies. Politics of War in Africa midterm is on Tuesday and I am terrified.