Category: Family

  • A good concert.

    We had another fun concert — the music was hard, but the result was rewarding. We had a great turnout on Saturday.

    Now we’ve got to start practicing for the next show. Here’s what we’ll be playing:

    • Dvorak, The Wild Dove tone poem Op. 110 — I hadn’t heard this one before. It looks mostly ok for the cellos, but definitely has some fast bits.
    • Chaminade, Concertino for flute and orchestra — This looks particularly challenging for the first flute.
    • Brahms, Symphony no. 4 — I have played this one with Divertimento before. I remember having to take many shortcuts last time; we’ll see if I can do any better this time around. 🙂

  • Divertimento concert incoming

    It’s less than two weeks until the next Divertimento Orchestra concert. The program this time is incredible; it’s literally some of the hardest music we’ve ever played. Definitely worth seeing.

  • My new minimalist blogging platform

    The phone that I’m always carrying around anyway, plus a really compact — say about 2 stacked credit cards in size when folded up — iPhone stand, plus a Logitech Keys-to-go.

    The Keys-to-go is surprisingly reasonable to type on. I’m able to touch type at full speed.

    Notes:

    • Apologies for the potato quality photo. Since I was taking a picture of my phone, I had to use the webcam on my laptop to take the picture. 🙂
    • Yes, I know the picture doesn’t show me blogging. I used the WordPress iPhone app to write this post, but the post wasn’t written when I took the picture, so…

  • End of biking season

    I had a good run this year, with >1800Km on the electric bike. Over the weekend I rode it to the Teslica dealership to get it tuned up and cleaned. I’ll pick it up later today, but given how cold the ride was on Saturday, I think I’ll just take the battery inside and call it end of season.

  • Cold ride in today.

    This was the coldest ride in to work so far this year. -5 when I hit the road (in the dark *sigh*). That’s about as cold as I can take it, so I’m not sure how much longer the season will last.

  • Cicada Sound

    In case anyone who reads this blog is a eurorack gearhead in Ottawa, I’d like to make a plug for a (relatively) new music store I discovered recently.

    Cicada Sound
    1198 Bank St
    Ottawa, ON K1S 3Y1
    613-909-4124

    I was, in fact, pointed at them by someone from L&M because I had been bemoaning the fact that they no longer had any eurorack modules on display. The person I was chatting with suggested I check out this new store, and wow am I ever glad they did! I also greatly appreciate a vendor that will send you somewhere else when they can’t satisfy your needs. Thanks, L&M!

    Cicada Sound has a range of synths and some guitars, etc. but their main focus seems to be eurorack gear, which is something I have been desperately looking for in Ottawa. As you can see from the picture, they have lots of modules set up and wired into workstations with headphones on each, so you can actually figure out what the modules sound like before buying them. Woot!

    In the spirit of “putting your money where your mouth is”, I purchased a Cre8Audio NiftyKEYZ modular case+keyboard from them. After some fiddling here’s a picture with it filled with some of my eurorack modules:

    I really like this device. I can honestly say that this is the nicest euroack controller I have ever used. It has some things I’d tweak if I had access to the firmware, but really it’s great.

  • Wet ride in today.

    I thought the rain had stopped by the time I headed to work today, but apparently I guessed wrong. 🙂 My bike is going to need a good cleaning this weekend.

  • Another season for Divertimento

    The first rehearsal for the Fall 2023 Divertimento concerts was last Thursday.

    The program is…

    • Brahms, Academic Festival Overture, Op.80
    • Chopin, Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op.21 (1st mvt only)
      (Laura D’Souza piano soloist)
    • Gounod, Faust: Ballet Music
    • Chausson, Symphony in Bâ™­, Op.20, 35 minutes

    Most of these we’ve played in previous seasons, but there’s a ton of good music here. The Chausson, in particular, has some great cello parts.

    The soloist for the Piano Concerto won the honour of playing with us by taking first place at the Ottawa Piano Festival in May of this year.

    Concert dates are November 10 and 11. Hope to see you there.

  • First ride to work

    It was cold (-1° C), but I found a system that works to keep me warm. Given all the red lights I stopped at, the time wasn’t bad at just 40min from home to work.