In years past I've sent out an email summary at the end of the year. This year, rather than burden your email In Box with a lot of graphics, I've made this page which you can read and look at or not. Sorry, you can't send it to the trash like an email!
I went to America and Canada twice in 2003. In winter I stayed again with my friends Jake and Gudrun in Vancouver. Jake and I did a bit more recording to add to our efforts from 2002. I also recorded Richard Geisler's recorder in March and that has pretty much been the last of recording for the La Primavera CD project. You can hear tracks from the CD on Internet radio. Check out Magnatune.com. For the radio stream, click here. I've been informed that one track from the CD has been chosen for inclusion on a classical compilation CD by Magnatune.
In the summer, I made another trip to Vancouver and again stayed with Jake and Gudrun while I took part in the Vancouver Early Music Festival at UBC. This time, I decided to forgo the Lute Society of America's summer school in favor of the Medieval music course. I felt it was an opportunity to push into an area I don't deal with much. Crawford Young, a great Medieval lutenist was there. It was a fairly intensive 2 week course. I was able to visit Paul and Coleen Bankes at their lovely homestead on Vancouver Island 1/2 an hour from Victoria on both of these trips to Canada.
When I got to California, Alisa was already there. We went by Amtrak bus and rail to Las Vegas and visited the Winston family, our friends who moved from Japan 5 years ago. We had a very interesting and exciting week there. The one day that we had on the strip was very interesting for me. I actually didn't know how I was going to kill all that time because my main objective was to go to Excalibur and check out the possibility of playing there. After that, I saw the lions at MGM, then thought I would walk down to Paris to see what Mike's place of employment was like. Just in front of Aladin, the casino next to Paris, there was a big strike, and just as I was walking past the stage, (you couldn't stop), the anouncer said 'and now a man who needs no introduction...' I snapped this photo. We went to Lake Mead one day too. The only scorpion I saw was dead in a jar.
I was plagued with a case of tennis elbow that affected me all summer. At one point I stopped playing all together. It has now healed to the point where I can play more or less as before, but it is still not 100% healed. I also did something to my left hand little finger, so that it hurts when I stretch. This getting old bit pretty much sucks on the physical level. Everytime something happens to my hands I think it might be the end of my playing career and I regret not recording things when they were worked up.
Attending my HS reunion party has started to become an annual event. I hooked up again with Jimmy Borsdorf whom I've known since Little League days. He became a professional musician. He and his wife Nancy play a zillion instruments and are deservedly more famous than me. They call themselves Hawkes and Eagles .
Alisa is busier than ever. She has 8 regular jobs including two TV shows and a bunch of magazines which she models for. She has completed her first movie which will come out in the spring of 2004. She seems to be on a career path. Last year she made as much money as I did.
We finally started to sell stuff regularly on Yahoo auction which is the equivelant of Ebay over here in Japan. It feels good to be making progress getting rid of stuff, but it has only made a small dent in the pile so far. Almost everything thus far has been old studio or computer equipment.
I've been continuing to learn Baroque lute on my own. This is getting into my second year of semi-serious practicing, I guess. I can see why many lutenists give up Renaissance lute after they take up Baroque lute. The spacing is so different it becomes all consuming to master. It is a Heavenly sound though.
I acquired a new lute in October. I bought this on Ebay. You can bet I was a bit nervous to spend so much money on something I'd never touched, but I had seen instruments by the well known maker John Rollings and I asked a lot of questions. This was just before I got ADSL so the slow connection made it difficult to 'snipe' at the end of the auction. Somehow I won. Next time I'll use Esnipe. :-)
I had a few things published: A review of Douglas A. Smith's The History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance appeared in the Early Music Promotion Newsletter in Japanese. It will probably appear soon in the Lute News published by the English Lute Society. (Click to read My review of The History of the Lute)
An interview I had done via email with Robert Barto appeared in the Japanese Lute Society Newsletter in Japanese and then later in the Lute News of the English Lute Society. (Click to read Barto interview)
I had the opportunity to interview two more world famous lutenists in Vancouver. I was having problems with my DAT recorder and the wonderfully spontaneous interview I did with Jacob Heringman didn't get recorded. We did it again via the Internet and that was also good and may appear in an upcoming Lute News. (Click to read Heringman interview) I recorded a long interview with Crawford Young that I am still in the middle of transcribing.
Computer-wise, I've been using the iBook exclusively. My G3 died a year ago last September and the iBook has just stepped up to the plate and done the job. I don't think I'll go back to a desktop computer (although those new G5s are awfully sexy). Did I mention that I recorded most of the La Primavera CD with it? Together with the MOTU 828 firewire interface, two Shure SM81 mics, a Neumann U87 mic, FMR's RNC compressor and RNP preamp, I have a portable recording studio I can take anywhere.
I went for a walk the other day and encountered a mamushi snake, one of only two venomous snakes on mainland Japan. There is one other on Okanawa. So I've seen BOTH of the venomous snakes in the wild (well, if you call on a road in the wild). I saw the other, called yama kagashi when we first moved to Hanno. We've now been here 10 years. Speaking of walks, if you would like to see what it is like up behind our house, click here for a walk in the forest with Zippy and me.
John Rollins alto lute made in 1980
Jessie Jackson. Did he just happen to be in town?
Alisa, Dena & Judy at Lake Mead
spider in our toilet
Mamushi snake I saw in November.
Alisa at school festival in November. She's right in the middle in dark blue.
Walk in the forest with Zippy and me.