KAFFEE KLATCH FRIDAY

Kaffee Klatch Friday
   I'm way late with this....but I have made it at last.
Our question for discussion this week is; 
  1.  What was one of the most memorable events in your life last year?
       Well, this could be really easy. It would be something everyone who has visited my blog recently would know and that is our adoption of Scruffy!  Then there was our visit to Kauai -- always memorable.  But I decided  I wanted to think a little more deeply and this is what came to mind:
It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was at home alone because Barry was in Micronesia. Something reminded me of a piece of music I had heard a good number of times before and liked very much. I found it on You Tube that afternoon. I know a lot of people are not very fond of opera, but I really like it.  It is something I learned to enjoy when I was in the equivalent of Junior High School. This piece is the male duet from "The Pearl Fishers" by Bizet. The two men in the duet are pledging their lifelong friendship despite whatever the outcome might be from the woman they both loved, who was at that moment deciding which of them she would choose to be her lover.  This piece of music is one of the most beautiful and uplifting I have ever heard.  It is only short and here it is sung by Thomas Hampson and Jerry Hadley.  It is made all the more poignant because Jerry Hadley died at the age of 51.  He committed suicide.  A brilliant young tenor who thought he was losing his singing voice.  Please click on this link  The Pearl Fishers.  You won't be sorry, I promise you.

Thomas Hampson, Baritone

Jerry Hadley, Tenor.

      Anyway that led to an afternoon of scouring You Tube for other pieces of my favorite music and singers. In the process I discovered another tenor whom I had never heard of.  He is from Peru and is brilliant.  He is not quite 40 years old and has a great future ahead of him.  Please go and listen to Juan Diego Florez at this LINK
     The upshot of all this was that I spent about three hours listening to the most inspiring music and feel I had a very happy and fulfilling afternoon.  I must add that I also listened to Alfie Boe, and Michael Ball, Jackie Evancho, Josh Grogan and Andrea Bocelli among others.  What a great afternoon!  And it was all thanks to the computer about which I so often grumble. 


    Our second discussion question was, What do you look forward to regarding your blog this year?
    I guess my most optimistic hope is that I continue to blog!  This is the beginning of my sixth year and sometimes inspiration just doesn't come.  If I were able to get out and about more I could take more photographs and they always help.  In addition I want to include more photographs that would be unusual and more illustrative of my life.  I want to do that because I have made a blog book of every year I have been posting, and they have become like an illustrated journal. My new blog book for 2011 is expected to arrive next week.  I'm looking forward to it.