And by the way…

On this auspicious day I am adding a new blog — the Other Mozart… http://theothermozart.wordpress.com/  On this blog I will be focusing on looking at the life of Wolfgang Mozart from a different perspective…well, mine.  I will be exploring the nebulous topic of Wolfgang Mozart as a Christian; something that is rarely tackled.  I will be including posts with a Bible slant, and label them so (MFB– Mozart for Believers)…and hopefully I will make some inroads in defining my unique position, which seems, in many instances, to be akin from living inside an opera…well, ahem…yes…

#MinnegeddonPartDeux — Happy Birthday!

It is ironic and amazing to me how Gd can take a set of circumstances that seem almost hopeless and turn them into something wonderful.  So it was long ago when I made a decision that, unfortunately, resulted in my children and I being sold into a kind of bondage.  I had not been treated honestly, but by the time I understood what had happened, great harm had been done.  I agonized over how to right the situation, and how to protect my children from any further negative effects related to this situation.  I did my best.  It wasn’t great.

But then, not long ago, something unusual happened.  A 200M arts organization was brought to a grinding halt, it seemed to me, so that the damage done to me and my family could be corrected.  And now that has happened.  All this angst seems to be turning into a wonderful miracle of healing and light.  And all of this battle, it seems to me, has been waged over the sound of a flute, a sound of light over darkness, of goodness over evil.

Minnesota is not even my chosen home — that would be the exquisite San Francisco Bay Area.  But Minnesota is where the battleground is, and this is where I have stayed, gritting my teeth for six months of the year, facing a winter that always seems impossibly hostile.

But now my children are grown and love Minnesota, and I have a horse.  The quality of my day is grounded more in whether or not he is comfortable and blanketed properly for it than for my own concern.

And so life has come full circle from that ominous day long ago.  And there is so much goodness all around.  Just another living testament to the fact that all works together for good…:-)

#MinnegeddonPartDeux…deja vu all over again? I hope not…:-0

As I watch the headlines this week, with the hostage siege in Sydney, a massacre in Philadelphia, and now a terrible event at a school in Pakistan, I find there are additional challenges for me as I prepare for our Die Zauberflote Holiday concert, which will be this Sunday, December 21, 2014, at 8 p.m. in the Mall of America Rotunda.  The last time we did a holiday concert was on the same date in 2012.  That happened to be just days after the terrible Newtown disaster.  I felt I had to change the theme, from a ‘Slightly Wigged Out Last Day on Earth” concert to performing the carols as though I were playing my children to sleep at night.  This year the theme is Baroque — Handel’s amazing Messiah, performed with lavish ornamantation  on my antique (silver Louis Lot) French flute.  This time there is not much to change, as Baroque improvisation is relatively limited in scope, and the theme is, of course, eternal.  But still, I have to wonder what additional turbulence might take place prior to Sunday, and pray and play for peace and healing for everyone…