How is the musical side of your brain working? Austin is so full of music it’s pretty easy to find music of any style. Recently I enjoyed hearing The Harmony Brothers (Max, Al, and Mark) at Artz Rib House. Good food, good music, one tip jar, and a set during the break by Austin Kessler. Nice!

I know those musicians in part through The Bakery Jam, founded in 2005 at Texas French Bread on S. Congress. (We were so sad when that TFB location closed!) We’ve been “spreading the music” for six years now in member homes week after week. Since there were plenty of guitars, I decided to dust off my flute. Depending on who shows up, we also have many vocalists, percussion, bass, violin, mandolin, harmonica, keyboard, melodica, and even an occasional trumpet (muted) or banjo (run for your lives!). Our motto is just right for a group of amateurs: “We’re all good at something else.”Among the harmonies have been romances that blossomed into permanency  and the benefits of professional musicians among us.

I grew up in a family of musicians–mostly piano, organ, and voice. My sister taught me to sing 3-part rounds when I was 3 years old. She and our middle sister needed a third voice for “White Coral Bells” (“White coral bells upon a slender stalk / Lilies of the Valley deck my garden walk. / Oh, don’t you wish that you could hear them ring? / That will happen only when the fairies sing.”) and “Johnny” (“Here we come singing / and here we come calling / for Johnny, Johnny. / Well! Well!)

How time flew while we washed, dried, and put away dishes after supper! Both my grandfather and my eldest sister were church organists for years. Mama could have been a concert pianist but she gave that up when she married and started a family. I started in “training choir” in 2nd grade at our Episcopal Church, moved through all of its choirs for 10 years, into college choirs, and now Tapestry Singers, the Austin women’s chorus since 2003. (No auditions necessary! All women who love to sing are welcome, and our director is terrific.)

New venture this summer: The Summer Symposium of the Texas Choral Consort, directed by Brent Baldwin. After an intense month of rehearsals 3x/week, we’ll sing in concert Aug. 20. Rehearsals begin July 23, so there’s still time for men and women to sign up to sing! From their website:

“In August, TCC will present two of the greatest titans of the classical canon: the Requiems of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gabriel Fauré. The program will also feature the world-premiere of a Requiem-based work by Austin luminary Peter Stopschinski, and “Out of the Silence” for orchestra and piano by William Grant Still.”

Saturday August 20, 2011 at 8:00 p.m.
Northwest Hills United Methodist Church
7050 Village Center Drive, Austin TX

Purchase tickets

Such fun to get out of my logical brain and into my musical brain! Where do you go to feed your artist within?