Glenn Kubish

  Here a three little things that made for some happiness and gratitude this past week:                                                            1. Snow dome   Shelagh named the tune right away. She’s good at that. She knows what’s playing wherever she is, kinda like a virtual assistant, but real-er. The Pretenders, Middle of the Road, she’ll say, when we’re in a noisy restaurant where I hear only a cacophony of voices and cutlery. This time it was a symphony she picked off. We were in the car driving back from breakfast. The radio was on CBC FM. “Sibelius,” she said.  I first heard his Symphony #2 more than 30 years ago on vinyl at her place in Queen Mary Park, Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic. We experienced the music again in 2019 when Alexander Prior and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra pumped...

I woke up with sore chest muscles. I have no chest muscles, so this was a different feeling. It was the kind of discomfort that made me go back and conduct a mental inventory of anything done different the day before to have pulled things out of shape. I did go for a good bike ride in the snow yesterday. Nothing out of the ordinary there. At one point I did get off my bike and lie on the ground  to compose a low-angle pic of three miniature cycling figurines in Faraone Park. Kinda different, a bit chilly, but, really, nothing to have stretched my chest. I again didn't do any pushups on a day when I again didn't get to the gym. Nothing strange there either. So, what happened? I remembered. Sibelius happened. My chest this morning still registered the effect last night of my jumping out of seat C-138 in the upper level of the Winspear Centre, walking to the balcony rail and clapping, hands over head, and clapping harder, hands higher over head, while, below, Alex Prior ...

This afternoon, as I sat in a darkened theatre watching a movie I never would have chosen to watch had I known how sad this scene I was watching Amy Madigan in was, I remembered something Alexander Prior had said. Prior is the Chief Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. He is young, like 24, I think, which means I have two neckties, one suit and an old Trek 750 older than he is. Anyways, there he was above us on stage a couple of weeks ago during an ESO Late Night gig at the Winspear. He was introducing Jalons, a work by Iannis Xenakis. Right. I'd never heard of him either. Prior Before he poked his players to life with his baton, Prior said something remarkable to the audience. He said we probably wouldn't like the music. He said we didn't have to like it. Just listen to it and we could talk about it later, he said. And then they played it. The work was unfamiliar, grating in parts, coming apart in other parts, and soaring. I liked parts, but, overal...