Celebrating ...
Music
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Somewhere along the way I did what so many old theater people do - I became a critic, writing for The Baltimore Guide, a weekly paper serving East Baltimore and South Baltimore neighborhoods. The editor and I hung out in the same wonderful watering hole - Birds of a Feather, in Fells Point. Every Thursday before a weekend opening I would go to Birds for dinner and a drink and she would tell me how much space I needed to fill in the next issue.Over a decade into this adventure, I've become very adept at writing 725 words or 300 words or 450 words, no more and no fewer, on demand. After the show I would go back to Birds and deliver the photos for the column to the editor, who, upholding a true newspaper tradition,would still be there and still expounding on issues of the neighborhood and the Baltimore Orioles. |
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The Pits of 1965 - 2009 included ... A
Christmas Carol |
Kismet |
I
made my debut as a pit musician in second grade, playing for the
class production of a musical version of The Elves and the Shoemaker.
I don't recall much about that show other than the total terror
of playing in front of all those people and even then the comfort
of knowing that they weren't looking at me, they were watching the
show - and if I was a really good accompanist, they'd never notice
me. That was about 1949. In 1965 I found myself teaching in a Catholic
boys' high school after a year in a Baltimore middle school and
swearing I'd never teach in the public schools again. In a moment
of boredom, I asked the drama teacher if he needed a piano player
for the school production of Brigadoon. I've spent most of
the more than forty years since playing in the pit for the small
theaters of Baltimore, as principal trombonist, as rehearsal pianist,
eventually as music director. About 1995 I added being accompanist
for The Arundel Singers and with them played nursing homes, hospitals,
churches, and the main stage at Carnegie Hall - and loved every
minute of all of it until health issues forced me to cut way back
in the 2005-2006 season.Copyright SecondWindGH
Last updated July 23, 2010
SecondWindGH
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