Making It Up On the Fly

McDougall United has these downtown Wednesday noon concerts during the Christmas season. They host a regular Wednesday concert series, but the Christmas one is different. It's in the sanctuary, which is all decorated for Christmas. Starbucks donates coffee. The Journal donates advertising and carol sheets. The church provides greeters, leadership in the carols, and a number or two performed by the church musicians.

There's always a literary moment in the Christmas series, too. And yesterday that literary moment was ... me.

They had asked someone else - a bigger media name. But they didn't get a positive response, so they asked me to step up to the plate. The musical group was the Pergolesi Brass - and I have to say they were in top form. They zipped through a Bach fugue that made my ears quiver with pleasure. And my ears are usually deaf to the reputed charms of Bach.

John Henry Weinlick, the minister at McDougall, got behind the podium and started an introduction. I'm getting weirded out by these events. There was one a couple of weeks ago - a wonderful Women's Breakfast with 65 amazing women in attendance - and I thought I would die of embarrassment when my accomplishments were reeled off. "I don't recognize that guy!" I wanted to say. So when John Henry started to wax over-fulsome, I pushed him away from the mic.

I hadn't actually had time to write the story down. These days everything seems to take twice as long as planned. So I stood there, in front of a healthy crowd who had just enjoyed the brass, and I had 7 minutes to fill.

I'm paper-trained. I admit it. As a musician and as a storyteller, I am used to seeing the material on the page and lifting it off. I have tried to be less anal about the music - and I find I actually learn it very quickly without hanging onto the security blanket of the page. But flying without a net as a storyteller? Not me!

The good folks at T.A.L.E.S. (The Alberta League to Encourage Storytelling) do this kind of thing all the time. But it's nervewracking. All those people staring at you, and they've been given a buildup...

I started with the brass. The only other known musician in my family was a horn player named Kleebach, and in the mid-1700s he moved from Dresden to London. Yes, it took 250 years for my family to produce another musician. The gene is highly recessive. And it wasn't until a few years ago, when I was researching the period for a show, that I figured out why Kleebach went to London. Handel.

Handel spent a lot of time being his own impresario, lining up singers and instrumentalists for his opera company and orchestral efforts in London. He often went to Germany and convinced musicians to join him in London. And because Handel tended to put his players on barges in the Thames - and brass players are a susceptible and non-swimming lot - he always needed new ones.

So Kleebach went where the work was, and probably played enough Messiahs to be heartily sick of them.

Classical musicians do a lot of work at Christmas. Tinned music doesn't carry the same spirit as a live musician. But it means musicians have an odd Christmas - they work and work and work, and often they find themselves far from home. Like Kleebach in London.

My first Christmas away from home was when I was in Banff in 1985. Oh, it wasn't the first time I had been separated from my family at Christmas. At my level of singing, I was always booked locally at Christmas. So if my family wanted to spend time with relatives, they would have to go and I would be the one staying home. But I didn't mind, because I was out there, enjoying being a part of all those Christmas services.

In 1985 I was at the Banff Centre, and one of my musician colleagues couldn't afford to go home to Toronto for Christmas. I had enough money for one round trip ticket. So I decided to stay in Banff, and I gave him the money to go home. When he came back in January, he was able to pay me back.

So there I was, alone in Banff at Christmas. There were only 4 of us at the Centre, eating our meals at the makeshift cafeteria.

My mother makes a hard, sugar-crystally fudge at Christmas. Somehow the tradition developed that she would make it for the ones who were away - and those of us at home wouldn't necessarily get any. Mother not only sent me fudge: she sent Christmas in a box! There was a small fake tree, complete with decorations. And baking and presents and the fudge!

So on Christmas Eve I sang at St. Paul's church. Then I went back to Lloyd Hall, dressed more warmly, and I hiked up Tunnel Mountain in the dark. I was used to Tunnel Mountain - I had been running up and down it for more than a year. On Christmas Eve there was no-one else there. The bears had gone into hibernation, the elk were quiet, and the tourists were all busy doing Christmassy activities in the town.

I got to the top of the mountain, and I looked out over the town, which nestled in the Rockies and sparkled with the Christmas lights. The stars were bright, and the northern lights were humming in that annoying way they have. But it was music of a kind - the music of the spheres, like a natural high drone. And then I was singing. Christmas carols, mostly. And a little Handel, for Kleebach I suppose. And when I was hoarse, I put my hand in my pocket and brought out a piece of my mother's fudge. And I put it in my mouth to soften it as I picked my way down the mountain in the chill dark, feeling that this was the best Christmas ever: I had music, I had my mother's fudge, and the world had God.

So that's the story I told, on the fly, in my 7 minutes. And it's almost all true...

Happy Grammarians

I entered the marks for my college students today - those brave souls who have been coming out to class for 3 hours every Wednesday morning. And they came. If the final exam results are any indication, they even learned a thing or two about the English language.

This was a rare term in which all my classes - the creative writing class, the grammar class, and the more casual teaching and coaching I do - were a blast. The students were creative and alive, and they were a tonic through a period which is generally typified by the gloom and exhaustion I feel as the sun goes south and the work pace picks up. Without those vibrant students, I would have had a rough go of the past month. The constant round of chiro, and now acupuncture, to deal with the aftermath of the August car accident. And my beautiful dog is showing her age - she has terminal liver/kidney disease. It's winter, and she's lost much of her coat. The vet didn't sound optimistic about her prognosis; all I can do is keep her on a special diet and wait while the disease takes its toll. She seems perfectly happy. I am not. But I refuse to dwell on the dreary. Life on this side of the tracks has enough to be blue about, and I refuse to wallow. Why should I?

Vinok Worldance hosted their traditional Christmas Around the World program in mid-November. This was my seventh year as host, and it's one of the happiest gigs you can imagine. Partly because my other half celebrates a birthday November 16th, and Vinok means I can provide her with a party that includes live band, dancing, 200 guests and...Christmas carols! Back when I was first hired, the powers-that-be wanted the script weeks in advance. Now we're comfy enough that I can show up at a dress rehearsal. The exception is the new musical numbers. This year I massacred Norwegian and Puerto Rican Christmas carols.

There is a law of theatre, and I don't know if it has a name yet, but if it doesn't I'll claim it! The law states that if you are going to go outside your comfort zone and tackle new material - a language, subject matter, a different skill such as juggling - an expert will be in the front row for at least your first three shows. I know - I had the Norwegian fellow right up front!

The year I brought someone up from the audience to teach them a basic German Schuhplattler step, the man turned out to be visiting Canada...from Germany! The year I sang a faux-drunken version of the Bartok Roumanian Christmas Carols...yep, Roumanians in the front. There has to be a way to make this law work for you. If I were to mimic a media tycoon, would the front row suddenly be reserved for Black, Murdoch et al?

The Vinok show is a tough sell. "Folk dance?" Yes! But it's more than that. The dancers are excellent, and that should be enough. But the costumes are stunning - they come from the places where the dances originate. And the 4-person band switches styles and instruments at a whirlwind pace. I counted, and one of those folks played 9 different instruments in the course of the show. Instruments as far apart as the accordion, string bass, hammered dulcimer, violin...

November is the busiest month for me. Early Christmas performances, the crunch of end-of-term at the various institutions where I teach. The month flies by, and I am left exhausted. Christmas then passes in a haze.

So I have neglected the blog. And that must change! But it can't change tonight. I have to write a short story for a performance tomorrow. And I have to look up an acronym for a procedure done in pediatric intensive care - not sure what the acro stands for, and I need to know. And my dog needs walking.