Keswick in Autumn
September 26th, 2006
The woods and fields are quite stunning this time of year. The leaves are just beginning to change in these pictures.
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Back at the home
September 20th, 2006
So I’m back in Keswick Ridge, in preparation for the concert I’m doing this Saturday. I guess I should have posted some more updates in the past month, but it hasn’t been too interesting – just busy. I’ve been working full-time at the helpdesk (I’m mightily glad that I’m finished with that now!), doing a bunch of choral gigs at church and with the Montreal Symphony, and frantically trying to prepare for this solo recital.
This concert’s been quite exhilarating to put together. I haven’t done a solo recital since I finished my master’s degree three years ago, and haven’t done a harpsichord recital in Fredericton ever (for that matter, I don’t know if anyone ever has, at least not in the past century or so). But it’s been going very well, with a good mix of familiar and obscure (some familiar for the audience, and some for me!), simple and difficult. I’ve been playing a few pieces that I performed many years ago – I always find that to be a rewarding experience, since I can feel how much I’ve improved. Something that took 6 months to half-learn now takes a couple of weeks to play very nicely.
If you can’t make it to the concert, I’m going to attempt to record it, but can’t make any promises – my laptop has pretty terrible input sound quality, and I haven’t gotten an external sound card yet (though the Tascam that Mershie suggested is looking like a keeper), so I’ll be struggling with the minidisc.
In any case, I have a preview available: the Scarlatti that I’m performing Saturday is available (in ogg format, as usual – let me know if you have trouble playing it, and I can get you turned away from the Dark Side). Unfortunately, it’s one of those acrobatic Scarlattis, so on a recording, you won’t get to see all the fun hand crossings and leaps, but you can surely imagine them. Without further ado, Sonata K.54 in A minor.
Cicada
September 1st, 2006
Sari found this beastie perched on the screen of the window. I’ve never actually seen one before! I’ve heard them though…
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Concerts and weddings and travellings
August 29th, 2006
I’ve been back in montreal for a week now, so it’s about time I put up some pictures from the travels! A couple of weeks were spent in New Brunswick, doing a concert with the Seasons Baroque Ensemble first of all.
Then we drove back to Montreal to meet a Joe at the airport.
After a very brief rest at home, we dashed off to Calgary for Ben’s wedding, presents in tow.
All in all, it was a fine few weeks! Just busy enough to keep things interesting, but with plenty of rest-time in there as well. We had a chance to do the usual walks in the woods and so on, but also managed some not-so-usual things in Calgary: a visit to the Zoo, horseback riding, and of course the wedding itself was anything but ordinary.
Now I’m back to the drudgery of working full-time at the help desk for a few weeks, while I frantically put together the first concert in my solo series in Fredericton that will take place September 23! Not much free time for editing pictures, unfortunately, which explains why I haven’t done much picking and choosing of the wedding pics as of yet.
update: With Sari’s help, I’ve gone through most of the pictures now, and trimmed it down to a much more manageable amount! If you were put off by the obscene number of terrible pictures, it’s much better now, and you should have a look.
Biking to Pointe Claire
August 26th, 2006
These pictures have been sitting around for almost a month now, but I’ve finally put them up. I took them on a fantastic day – after weeks of sweltering heat and thunderstorms, the weather was sitting at a comfy 20°C, with just enough clouds to keep the sun from being excessive. So I decided to explore!
I started out going through Verdun – I meant to head down to the shore, and travel along the bank there, but I took a wrong turn, and ended up following the canal instead. After getting to the end of that canal, I kept following the shore through Lasalle, then through Lachine, Dorval and part of Pointe Claire – at that point, the bike path runs out. It’s still a nice enough ride, though it’s rather strange to be so deep into suburbia, but I decided I had had enough. My legs aren’t used to that kind of treatment!
Next longish trip will probably be to see if I can find my way to my Grandpa’s house. Doesn’t look like there are any great biking roads to Dollard though, but there are only a couple of spots where you have to really slog through traffic. We’ll see when I get to it! Might not be for a while, because I’m exceedingly busy preparing for a concert in Fredericton on the 23rd of September, along with a recording for a competition that needs to be completed by the 15th. On top of that, I’m working full-time for the next two weeks, so I need to take what practice time I can find!
August in Keswick
August 10th, 2006
A trip to NB for a concert with Seasons. Pictures from the fields in Keswick Ridge.
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Lightning
August 2nd, 2006
Lots of storms this summer. This was my first semi-successful attempt at photographing it.
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lightning photos
August 1st, 2006
It’s been hot. Really hot. Today the humidex sat well above 40 all day… It’s been like this for a good chunk of the Summer too, though not nearly as bad here in Montreal as it has been for other parts of the world. I’m glad I’m not in those parts.
The one nice thing about this kind of weather is that we’ve been getting some great thunderstorms! Almost every day, in fact. Today I attempted to take some pictures of the lightning. Here’s my best shot: (links to the rest of the album)
I think it’d be a lot easier to take these sorts of pictures with a darker sky. As it was, I really couldn’t manage much longer than 3 second exposures without the sky just turning bright orange, and then the lightning doesn’t really stick out enough. With a darker sky, I could have just left the shutter open for 30 seconds, or even more – it’d be much easier to catch the flashes, and they’d have better contrast. And I wouldn’t have so many useless empty pictures – I took almost 300 pictures tonight, and fewer than 20 had any lightning in them at all! Maybe the next storm will be a bit later at night. During a power failure. We’ll see!
Biking to Pointe Claire
July 31st, 2006
A lengthy (55km) bike trip along the lakeshore to Pointe Claire.
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