I just realized that it’s been exactly a month since I last posted here. Aack – I certainly didn’t mean to go so long without writing. But at least now I have quite a bit of Joana Miranda Studio news to share in this art bulletin.
Joana Miranda Studio Art Bulletin
March was a busy month for me. In addition to playing two pops concerts with The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, I braved new train lines to travel into the depths of New Jersey (that is, if you consider Ridgewood the depths).
A lovely conductor…
Hired me to play the 1st viola part in Faure’s Requiem. The Faure Requiem is a truly beautiful and haunting piece that I will never tire of hearing or playing. (If you don’t know it and you’ve got 3 minutes, have a listen to the Pie Jesu movement sung by Arlene Auger. Her interpretation is one of the purest and most musical I have heard.)
The choir…
Put their heart and soul into singing the Requiem. They also sang a handful of other pieces on the program which was dedicated to the memory of friends, family and strangers lost to the pandemic.
Musically Speaking…
My plate has continued to be full with a lot of practicing. I have upcoming concerts with the New Jersey Symphony this weekend. I’m also preparing for a chamber music concert and the start of the New York City Ballet spring season. Highlights of the latter include a Stravinsky festival as well as lots of other new (and somewhat thorny) works. I suspect that some of my colleagues are feeling like this as they contemplate learning ALL THOSE NOTES…
As You Can See…
Being busy wearing my music “hat” doesn’t stop me from squeezing in time for my art, cartoons and illustrations. In fact, the musical gigs often provide me with great subject matter!
That said, I’ve also kept faithful to my twice-weekly posting schedule on my channel at YouTube. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s yesterday’s drawing demo video:
P.S.
I frequently share new work from my sketchbook on my channel at Instagram. If you’re on IG, make sure to follow me so you can keep up with my posts!
Lovely video and limerick! I too have been having trouble balancing my art and music worlds. I survived my first week back at MSO with some exhaustion (lots of counting!) and this week has a little-known piece with bad manuscript to decipher, which takes up quite a bit of mental energy, as you know. Our concerts were still quite rewarding, and I’m very glad to be allowed to pollute all the air with no mask. I’m surprised at how many people still wear the things, some devotedly, some now and then, some only on stage but not in the green room (where they drink coffee, eat treats, and socialize with friends, with maskless abandon! Is the air in the green room safer???)
Hi Helen,
The NJSO is now letting us choose whether or not we want to wear our masks onstage. However, everywhere else in the hall, we’re supposed to be masked. The “It’s just theater” line from the video you sent me keeps going through my head. 😉
Meanwhile, the volume of notes I have to learn for the next 6 weeks of work at the ballet is rather overwhelming. A lot of the NYCB spring season music is stuff I’ve already done; that said, since half of the upcoming season is a Stravinsky festival, it’s all music that needs repeated “re-visitings” even if I’ve played it before.
I just rewarded myself with an hour of afternoon TV to make up for having to be up at the crack of dawn to get out to Jersey today. Now I’m off to do more woodshedding. Toodle-ooh. 🙂
xox – Joana
Is that a bow your musician is holding or a dagger?😁 I sympathize!
It’s a bow being held as a dagger…very symbolic of the way we musicians sometimes feel when encountering new music (that is, when it’s badly written…) 😉 xox – J