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Canadian Music Centre
I'm always on the lookout for new music, and a friend share this site with me. You can check out composers, find music, read the forums, etc. Off to check it out further!
And the Winner Is…
1 week ago
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Canadian Music Centre
I'm always on the lookout for new music, and a friend share this site with me. You can check out composers, find music, read the forums, etc. Off to check it out further!
I'm always on the lookout for new music, and a friend share this site with me. You can check out composers, find music, read the forums, etc. Off to check it out further!
Friday, July 28, 2006
Hotel Internet Access - What You Need to Know Before You Stay
Another interesting collection of information that's important if you are on the road a lot. Especially for all my colleagues on road tours!
Another interesting collection of information that's important if you are on the road a lot. Especially for all my colleagues on road tours!
Hotel Internet Access - What You Need to Know Before You Stay
Another interesting collection of information that's important if you are on the road a lot. Especially for all my colleagues on road tours!
Another interesting collection of information that's important if you are on the road a lot. Especially for all my colleagues on road tours!
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Tips for Using Your Laptop in Hot, Warm Weather
I've been taking a few quiet moments to improve my business travel knowledge and came across this page. Most of it is common sense, but it's all food for thought, especially with how hot the weather has been this summer!
I've been taking a few quiet moments to improve my business travel knowledge and came across this page. Most of it is common sense, but it's all food for thought, especially with how hot the weather has been this summer!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Doc Soluri
It's hard to believe I first worked with Doc 10 years ago this summer, and now he's gone. He'd been battling cancer, but seemed to be doing so well. I can only say that Doc is one of the people who helped start me in this career - I clearly remember the first audition for Grand Hotel with he and Tim Baker for one of the last Lakeside Dinner Theatre seasons - it ended up being my first professional musical theater job, and he also later hired me for my first opera job - Hansel and Gretel. I was the DewFairy and understudied Janet Brown as Gretel, who graciously gave me 3 student performances to sing at. I sang Show Me from My Fair Lady, and he's believed in me ever since. Further back than that, he used to eat at my grandfather's diner and loved his pie. I'd love to joke that once he found out, Doc would only hire me to get a pie as his show gift - banana coconut cream, one of the few times I knew Grandpa too make that pie.
I did meet Doc once before that - and he bought me a drink. There used to be a cafe called Walter Melon's in Baldwinsville - billed as "the first smokeless cafe in the United States". The food was fantastic, it was a great place for our family, and I especially loved the watermelon sherbert with the chocolate chips. One weekend we went down, and there was a group playing called "Three For Tonight". The trio members: Kate McCaffrey, Bill Black, and Doc at the piano are now all people I've since worked with and for whom I have the utmost admiration. At the break, Doc did a little trivia game with the audience. He said "I'll buy anyone a drink if they can tell me who wrote 'As Time Goes By'." All the adults were shouting out names like Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Bernstein, etc, but no one got it right. I knew I had played the song out of a Reader's Digest Songbook, but could not, for the life of me, remember the composer. They continued on with a great collection of showtunes and closed the concert with Doc's arrangement of "Without a Song/With a Song in My Heart".
I was just a little smartalec then, so I went home and checked out of curiosity, not knowing what was in store. The next weekend, they were back, and even more packed than the week before. The trivia question was the exact same thing, and the same process as last week began again. I calmly raised my hand. In the middle of all the adults calling out, Doc quieted the room down and pointed to me - "Do you know?" he asked with a surprised grin on his face. "Herman Hupfeld", I calmly replied, to which he let out a great chuckle of joy which that I can still hear in my mind's ear, and which became this hearty laugh when he realized I was there the week before. He said: "Well, I did promise to buy the person with the correct answer a drink - what'll it be?"
I had a Sprite.
Thank you Doc, for all the encouragement and belief in my talents. I'll never forget that you were the first one to peg where my voice was going to go operatically - and I'll never forget the last compliment he gave me - at Merry Widow, which I ended up stagemanaging between out-of-town auditions: "I can't believe this was your first time stagemanaging - that show was beautifully called!" Of course, I had an easy job with all the great people in the cast and crew -it's always been that way up at Oswego - a great time working on great music with great people.
Thank you Doc, for all your faith in me. I will always have a song in my heart for you.
It's hard to believe I first worked with Doc 10 years ago this summer, and now he's gone. He'd been battling cancer, but seemed to be doing so well. I can only say that Doc is one of the people who helped start me in this career - I clearly remember the first audition for Grand Hotel with he and Tim Baker for one of the last Lakeside Dinner Theatre seasons - it ended up being my first professional musical theater job, and he also later hired me for my first opera job - Hansel and Gretel. I was the DewFairy and understudied Janet Brown as Gretel, who graciously gave me 3 student performances to sing at. I sang Show Me from My Fair Lady, and he's believed in me ever since. Further back than that, he used to eat at my grandfather's diner and loved his pie. I'd love to joke that once he found out, Doc would only hire me to get a pie as his show gift - banana coconut cream, one of the few times I knew Grandpa too make that pie.
I did meet Doc once before that - and he bought me a drink. There used to be a cafe called Walter Melon's in Baldwinsville - billed as "the first smokeless cafe in the United States". The food was fantastic, it was a great place for our family, and I especially loved the watermelon sherbert with the chocolate chips. One weekend we went down, and there was a group playing called "Three For Tonight". The trio members: Kate McCaffrey, Bill Black, and Doc at the piano are now all people I've since worked with and for whom I have the utmost admiration. At the break, Doc did a little trivia game with the audience. He said "I'll buy anyone a drink if they can tell me who wrote 'As Time Goes By'." All the adults were shouting out names like Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Bernstein, etc, but no one got it right. I knew I had played the song out of a Reader's Digest Songbook, but could not, for the life of me, remember the composer. They continued on with a great collection of showtunes and closed the concert with Doc's arrangement of "Without a Song/With a Song in My Heart".
I was just a little smartalec then, so I went home and checked out of curiosity, not knowing what was in store. The next weekend, they were back, and even more packed than the week before. The trivia question was the exact same thing, and the same process as last week began again. I calmly raised my hand. In the middle of all the adults calling out, Doc quieted the room down and pointed to me - "Do you know?" he asked with a surprised grin on his face. "Herman Hupfeld", I calmly replied, to which he let out a great chuckle of joy which that I can still hear in my mind's ear, and which became this hearty laugh when he realized I was there the week before. He said: "Well, I did promise to buy the person with the correct answer a drink - what'll it be?"
I had a Sprite.
Thank you Doc, for all the encouragement and belief in my talents. I'll never forget that you were the first one to peg where my voice was going to go operatically - and I'll never forget the last compliment he gave me - at Merry Widow, which I ended up stagemanaging between out-of-town auditions: "I can't believe this was your first time stagemanaging - that show was beautifully called!" Of course, I had an easy job with all the great people in the cast and crew -it's always been that way up at Oswego - a great time working on great music with great people.
Thank you Doc, for all your faith in me. I will always have a song in my heart for you.
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