How right I was!

Just found out this afternoon that Performance Today will air UCA's performance of C.V. Stanford's "The Blue Bird" tomorrow. I thought we would eventually get something of ours on the show.

More Guppies

I have been inundated with Guppy babies. There are about a dozen guppy babies in the main tank and I transferred a couple more to the smaller tank, in which there are now six fry. I may have gotten more than I bargained for with this guppy breeding experiment!

Guppy Update

Here's the latest with the guppy fry: At one point I counted six fry in the main tank. A few days later there were only four fry in the tank and I confirmed several times over a period of a few days that there were only four fry. Tonight I discovered a fifth fry in the tank that appears much smaller and darker than the other four. I don't know if it was just barely born or if it has been there a couple days already. There is a female that looks like she is going to give birth any day now. Perhaps this was just her first with more to come. Meanwhile, the four fry in the small tank are doing just fine and seem to be growing as fast as those in the main tank. The first batch of fry are almost three weeks old now. It looks to me like the 3-week-olds in the main tank are no longer in danger of being eaten by the adults.

Guppy Fun

Because I haven't had choir rehearsals the past few weeks I had to pick up another hobby. I have chosen to breed guppies! I had a couple males and a female or two already, so I bought four more females on Saturday. I read that it's best to have a ratio of three females to every male so no one female gets picked on too much by the males. One of the new females was obviously due to give birth any day when I bought her. Well, she gave birth to several fry yesterday while I was at the fish store!

I was debating between leaving them in the big tank where they could get eaten by the big fish or moving them into a smaller tank. I ended up hedging my bets. I figured I would have a hard time catching all the fry in the big tank anyway, but surely I could catch a few and put them in the smaller tank for protection, which I did. As of a few minutes ago, I have four fry in the small tank and at least four fry in the main tank as well. It's fun to see them evade the big fish by hiding and swimming away. I'm told that they won't be big enough to be truly "safe" for 3-4 weeks. Wow. I'm amazed at their survival instincts so far. But when there are six big fish actively trying to hunt you down 24 hours a day, you can't afford to make a wrong move! We'll see how it goes for both groups of fry!

Inauguration Gig

We sang for the inauguration of the Governor Gary Herbert on Jan 3. We rehearsed all morning to learn Dr. Bradford's new arrangement of "America the Beautiful" and had to re-learn Copland's "The Promise of Living" which is a fairly difficult piece. Then we stood on the steps for the entire 45-minute program (except for Melissa who, as you can see, was feeling lightheaded and needed to take a seat for a while).

Christmas Concert

The Utah Chamber Artists Christmas concert was held on Monday, December 6, 2010 at Libby Gardner Hall on the U of U campus. The hall was sold out and the occasion was festive to say the least. Here's a track of our conductor, Barlow Bradford's arrangement of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."

Say an 'Ave' there for me

A heavy drop of sweat dripped from the tip of my nose as I sang the second movement of Tarik O’Reagan’s Triptych: “In the beauty of autumn we remember them.” I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Couldn’t autumn possibly come a little sooner this year—perhaps within the next ten seconds?” Indeed, the first half of UCA’s collaboration with the Utah Symphony on July 28 as part of the Deer Valley Music Festival was hot—and I’m not just referring to the superb quality of our performance! The Triptych was followed by the choir’s rendition of Herbert Howells’ Requiem, which has become a UCA favorite and was well received by the audience.

After a brief stroll outdoors and airing out the building at intermission, the audience got cozy with an intimate performance by the Utah Symphony strings of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.3. The program concluded on a lighter note befitting the scenery and the season with the choir and full chamber orchestra together performing four of Barlow’s folk song arrangements: “Danny Boy,” “The Water is Wide,” “Sakura,” and the rollicking “What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor?”

St. Mary’s of the Assumption proved to be a gorgeous venue with warm acoustics and a lovely view of the alpine landscape looking out toward the east. How fitting a scene it was for our performance of “Danny Boy”: A quaint church set on a hillside whereon a solitary cow grazed in the shadow of a lofty mountain peak. The church was filled near capacity and many new, satisfied-looking faces could be seen in the audience. Perhaps they’ll come back and hear us again when summer’s in the meadow or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow. ‘Tis we’ll be there in sunshine or in shadow, in blizzards, or, as was the case for this concert, in extreme heat and humidity. And should I pass out from heat exhaustion, please kneel and say an ‘Ave’ there for me!