Can we talk about this year's NC Folk Fest lineup?????
It's no secret that I'm one of the biggest fans of @banditsontherun . Their music has changed my life. I shed tears listening to it. Also, they're fellow Bruce Springsteen fans. 🎸
Then the very next name I spotted was @tomtroyerchestra --my favorite Greensboro songwriter and dear friend, slot so very well deserved and overdue.
But then! Who else should also be on the list but my forever-pals in @folkknot ?! ⚓
I felt some major FOMO when Folkknot played Shakori Hills last year. If I were still around, it could have been my first experience playing a festival (that is, besides my classical-music-nerd summers at Brevard).
But NC FOLK FEST?!
Mind you, they did snatch a spot last year as finalists of the Not Your Average Folk contest. But that's not the same thing as making it into the official lineup.
I'll be there. ✈️
Happy Mother's Day!
Our 2001 trip to Yellowstone was significant, as it convinced my parents that they could take their kids on big trips. In the following decade, we would make it out together to the Grand Canyon and even Alaska.
Mom's been a real hero these last few months, having mostly overcome her own sudden chronic illness that popped up last summer in time to become a nurse for my dad, who likewise suddenly developed a chronic illness that has greatly reduced his mobility.
Meanwhile, Ringo was diagnosed with severe heart problems and Lola with hyperthyroidism. We were ready to let both go, but they're miraculously still around today and happy.
To beat it all, Mom broke her wrist on Friday. Now she's helping Dad with one arm. 😅 We laugh to keep from crying.
It's been tough, but my biggest heartache comes from the fact that Dad's reduced mobility means we can't currently be travel-buddies as a family, as we've been doing since 2001 (and really before).
But life has an odd way of working out. The upcoming NC Folk Fest--which Mom and Dad would have missed on account of a previously-planned extended-family Oktoberfest trip that Dad had to cancel (😢)--has a killer lineup. It's given me the idea: since they can't come to me this year, maybe in September I'll come to them. We can enjoy the NC Folk Fest together. We used to go to music things together all the time before I moved to Germany. 😉🎶
Anyway, Mom, you're a hero. The challenges are unending these days. Always remember how much you are loved. There are better times ahead. 💜
Scenes from yesterday. Somehow I'm managing to play an orchestra concert tomorrow (even though I've missed some rehearsals thanks to having no work-life balance these days). Yesterday's Tutti-Probensamstag at HMDK was great fun and massively helpful. 🎶
Tomorrow, 11. May, 8pm, Stuttgart-Musikhochschule (HMDK): Beethoven, Dvorak, and Shchedrin!
/event/34654/konzert-im-konzertsaal-der-hochschule-fuer-musik-2026
On Friday evening, I got to hear Antoine Tamestit, a French violist who plays a 1672 Stradivarius and has a lot of activities throughout German-speaking Europe.
I had just happened to spot the ad for the concert in my Neckartor U-Bahn station (where the rotating posters often feature local classical music concerts) a few days ago. Exhausted from all the recent overtime at my job, I showed up Friday evening to Im Wizemann with 2 minutes to spare and still thinking about work...and then I was transported.
Like pretty much everyone, I have mixed feelings about New Music. But that set of Morton Feldman pieces, interspersed with a little bit of Bach, sent the whole room into meditation-mode. It was quite special.
(I played a Morton Feldman piece in the NC Governor's School West orchestra back in high school and absolutely hated it. Again: mixed feelings about New Music.)
The final piece, "Rothko Chapel," is based on a space in Houston that I realized--after a solid few minutes of cluelessness--I've actually been to. In 2017, I took a field trip with my 3rd year Comprehensive Studio (architecture school) to our theoretical project site at the Menil Collection, and we had briefly stepped into Rothko Chapel. It's an austere space. I appreciate the attention it brings to my favorite colors. The Feldman piece also evoked deep violet.
Thank you for a healing couple of hours, @antoine_tamestit . 🎻 From a Hobby-Edelbratscherin to a world-touring Profi: you're doing indispensable work.
And this has been one of my most unsystematic photodumps ever. The location was a secondary goal; most of all, I wanted to see two of my favorite humans in the world, @knicknackattack and @tomtroyerchestra , during their visit to faraway Berlin. Berlin, in my opinion, is...uh, fine.
So I managed to drag them a few hours' train ride south, albeit not all the way to Joy's Swabian ancestral homeland in my current neck of the woods. Come to Baden-Württemberg next time, ya goobers! Nett hier. 😉
Also, listen to Tom's new song, Let Your Self Move On (feat. Moon Lady). It's out in various places.
Two scenes from Tiergärtnertorplatz: afternoon and evening. In the evening, young folks really do just gather and sit on the cobblestone ground for a Feierabendbier. No special event or anything. Is it a uniquely Nürnberg thing?
I still remember the days when it was possible to only post one photo at a time on Instagram. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's still an option.
Catchup time!
Nürnberg is a real hidden gem. I'm so glad I went in the springtime--the famous Weihnachtsmarkt is epic, of course, but December is cold and gray. (That's why there's Glühwein, of course.)
I had a downright healing couple of days frollicking with two of my favorite humans in the world there. It was their first time to Germany, and I wanted them to see somewhere different from Berlin. (But they kind of fell in love with Berlin, too.)
This was a couple of weeks ago, of course, since I'm almost always late posting things. This is one of 3-4 posts I'll make of it. 🌱
Nürnberg 2.0!
Back in mid-December, when I was unknowingly suffering from mystery liver damage, I showed up to the overcrowded (but very famous) Nürnberger-Weihnachtsmarkt absolutely tweaking from an overdose of metaclopramide after a sleepless night of what was ostensibly a gallbladder attack. (Both my liver and gallbladder were all gunked up...into late February of this year. We may never know why.)
I waited in a long line for a toilet, then tried to pep myself up with a snack, then gave up and booked a fast train to my next destination in Munich. I spent the next 16 hours trembling in a hotel bed. I had been in Nürnberg for an hour.
We're gonna properly explore Nürnberg now!
