E G O S P E W

Clouds of Gull (Contest Winner), originally uploaded by LlewellynL.

I am proud to announce that the above photo has won Honorable Mention in the 2009 Life in the Finger Lakes Photography Contest. Here captured is a perfect spring afternoon in July in the new hood.

My breathless caption:
“With discretion I approached my timid tractor subject hovering near its favorite implements, backed by a field bespeckled with hundreds of large white birds lazing in the crop that lay about their feet. Suddenly, of a single thought, the flock took wing, rising in massive synchronicity, the zenlike execution of a giant clockwise sweep.
This was that moment.”

You may obtain framed museum quality versions at Tractorland and RandomiCity.

This is my first photo winner since the honorable mention I garnered in the 1969 Kodak Teenage Movie Awards contest. Every 40 years is a long time between drinks indeed. Cheers.

Haydn's The Creation: Concert December 1st

It’s time once again for a concert by the Hobart and William Smith Community Chorus.  We will be honoring the 200th anniversary of Franz Joseph Haydn’s death with a production of The Creation, his wonderful oratorio.  It has been one of my favorite pieces since childhood (more organic and transcendent than the other one by that George Frideric dude, IMHO).

To do it justice, the director Deanna Joseph, with the support of the HWS Music Department and Bob Cowles, not to mention cash contributions from the choir itself, have pulled together a production including, besides the HWSCC, the Colleges Chorale, a full orchestra, organ, and hotshot paid soloists.  Many of the individuals are drawn from the truly impressive ranks of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where Deanna is completing her PhD.  As I said in the poster, it will be “a Magnificent Collaboration of 125 Choral and Orchestral Musicians”.

It has been wonderful finally getting to sing in a piece that has lifted me without fail over many decades.  Please come and enjoy it.  And thanks, F.J.