I'll be performing in the Bloomington Early Music Festival (BLEMF) opera, Tigrane, by Alessandro Scarlatti, in two weeks. I was originally recruited for the chorus because they were short of singers. Then at the first rehearsal, our stage director from North Carolina did a workshop on Baroque dance (which will heavily inform most of the staging), and then recruited me and several other singers for very minor dancing roles. Then today I got an email from the staging director telling us when we'd be needed in rehearsals and mentioning in passing that she was recruiting another singer and me for another 4 or 5 dance numbers. These could be very short--this is Baroque opera, after all--but I really feel like I've been sucked in! I also go the third of three separate and occasionally contradictory rehearsal schedules in this email. One was from the director, one from the staging director, and one from the chorus director. This is fairly typical, I think, for the early music department here.

Anyway, I'm excited for that, and actually for all the concerts that are part of the schedule! They're all listed here. One of the highlights for me will be a performance by a good friend of mine in his group Liber unUsualis--they're very good and do really neat repertoire.

...

Two days ago Sara took a day off and went canoeing. It was just a little bit cool out, but otherwise it was pretty much perfect. Sunny most of the time, excellent water level, riffles spaced just perfectly so that the river stayed fun for the whole 15 miles or so, and amazing scenery. Sugar Creek is supposed to be Indiana's most beautiful river, and I believe it.

We started at the first of three almost identical covered bridges along the route.


(Incidentally, Nate, this might be the first picture I've ever taken with that tripod you got me last year, only because I always forget it. It's really nice!)
The whole route was surrounded by limestone, new green growth, and lots of hints of purple flowers.


There was also this beautiful, vivid green moss growing at the bottom of the river, which was surprisingly clear for Indiana water.


The rocks were very cool the whole way, but this segment was particularly striking, between rust deposits, grey limestone, and moss:


I'm pretty sure limestone is one of the coolest rocks in the world.


We lunched in the middle of the river, after making some ducks very nervous.



Limestone is cool, and even cooler when it juts out over the river with a bridge across it.



The end!