The others arrive later though I will almost certainly be in bed by the time they get to the hotel. My emails show that Mark was working into the wee midnight hours, corresponding with Miller Theatre about various admin issues. I pick up the slack for him this morning and attend to various other things before heading out to Central Park for a run. Matt and I have talked about this. Both of us like to do the 10k circuit of the park and a day like today – cool with bright sunshine – is perfect. They are setting out seating and barriers, which makes me think that Sunday may be the day of the New York Marathon. It turns out it’s not, but these are definitely preparations for it. I imagine myself crossing the finishing line. We can all dream.

I head off to Columbia after lunch to deliver my lecture. Giuseppe Gerbino is there to greet me and a bunch of intelligent and educated students and others attend. The talk is perhaps too long, but I’m excited by recent discoveries of the use of early music in other films of Joan of Arc. Call me a geek. Wine and cheese follows and I chat with the postgrads, most of whom will be attending the American Musicological Conference in Rochester in a couple of weeks’ time, as will I. Their topics are varied – music and media (with special reference to online cat and hamster videos), heavy metal, improvisation, and Troubadour songs. I always feel humbled by such encounters, once again realising how much there is to learn.

I’m now sitting in Land, a Thai restaurant that we all like to frequent. Some hot green papaya salad is on its way. All alone in the Big Apple.

Day Three

 

So this is the day of the first concert. Matt, Mark and Angus arrived safely last night and we all do our own thing till we meet to rehearse: Matt buys some new shoes, Mark buys a new iPad, and Angus catches up on some admin. I meet up with Anne Stone, a musicologist and friend, and then the group heads down to Smoky Mary’s. We dust off the cobwebs from our voices and get to grips with the program once more, a nice selection of chansons and mass movements from composers whose work features in the Loire Valley Chansonniers. These delightful books may have been designed for listeners rather than singers. Singers were, if respected, not rich enough to be able to afford them, but their wealthy patrons could immediately have followed the music and the poetry. The events when this music was staged were likely to have been formal entertainments, a forerunner of concerts as we know them, though quite what form they take we don’t know. Still, it’s tempting to imagine our audiences holding such books. After all, they have program notes with full texts and translations.

The concert goes well. The acoustic is as generous as ever and the knowledgeable New York audience gracious with their applause. We sell some CDs after the concert then it’s off to the Amsterdam Ale House with Melissa, the driving force of Miller Theatre, and Brenna, her more than able friend and production manager. Nachos are ordered, our standard on such occasions, and beer is drunk. Well, not the Coconut Porter that Melissa mistakenly orders. That is passed around to somewhat predictable ridicule.

It’s a short night for all of us even though it’s not an early start; the second night is always the tough one, particularly when you’re chock full of adrenalin after the first concert. Then it’s off to pick up the hire car. Note to self: never order a car from Budget again – we wait for an hour to pick up the vehicle, one poor guy trying to deal with a line that seems to stretch to Brooklyn. Now a four-hour drive to D.C with a Nor’easter as company, the rain lashing down. Lunch will be at Panera, another group favourite, then dinner tonight together and an evening off.

Day Four

We duly arrive at our hotel in D.C. which is good enough to offer us free drinks in the bar. We don’t say ‘no’ to that kind of offer. So after a couple of Bell’s Two-hearted pale ales, we totter off to a Thai restaurant. I have the hottest Som Tum I’ve had outside of Thailand, and Mark has the same experience with a pork Larb. We both sweat profusely as we work our way through the chillies.

It’s an early night for all, and the morning is spent variously catching up on admin, exercising, warming up and, well, repacking for the next part of the tour. The three others head home, whilst I go to Peabody Conservatory to do some teaching, and more the following day at Georgetown. I then head up to Boston where I get a little break before a pretty full-one teaching load at Boston University. I’m interested in learning more about the US education system and the various institutions are taking full advantage of that, so it’s a mutually beneficial exercise.

There’s plenty for me to prepare, and the rooms in this hotel are great. We’re not Trip Advisor, you understand, but we’re all happy to give a shout out to Kimpton Hotels, who are our discovery of the year. We stayed in another of theirs in D.C. when we were here with the Folger Consort back in January.

The concert this evening is at the Library of Congress, which holds the Laborde Chansonnier, the object of our program. Afterwards it will be beer and drinks with Robert Aubry Davis and Patty, a presenter of a long-running early-music broadcast in the USA; Frank Albinder, a former member of Chanticleer and a conductor at University of Virginia; Jane Alden, a British musicologist and expert on the Loire Valley chansonniers, who teaches at Wesleyan; and Steve Wilson of New York Polyphony fame, who sang with us in March. The only downside is that we all have to be up so early the following morning