Freezing My Buns Off

The view from Arlanda

After spending only one year in Basel, a surprisingly temperate place, I have gone soft. When EUBO arrived in Copenhagen a few days ago we were greeted by high winds, fog, and it was hailing sideways. Already Bojan and I had caught a cold, but after walking just 15 minutes to the Black Diamond, our conditions deteriorated. Surprisingly, we put on a very good performance (this was confirmed by listening to the Danish radio broadcast of the concert that aired last night).

From windy Copenhagen we trekked to Stockholm. Only a few hundred kilometres to the north, the Swedish capital was noticeably colder. What surprised me about the city was the landskape in the surrounding area. Just travelling between Arlanda, the airport, and the hotel in the centre of the old town it was clear to me that the ecology and geology were relatively similar to that of the Ottawa valley. In fact, if it weren't for the signs on the highway being printed in Swedish, one could easily make the mistake of thinking they were travelling from downtown Ottawa to Kanata, the city's western suburb. 

Within this familiar context, it was telling how I reacted to the sub-zero temperature. Ottawa's average winter temperature is -10 degrees Celsius and our day in Stockholm was spent in -12. Not only was I wearing two sweaters under my coat, but it didn't seem like my mittens and hat were doing enough. If this were two years ago, I wouldn'tve flinched going out in this weather. Now, however, it's a different story. 

I write this as we travel to Manchester, where we will perform our penultimate concert as Eubo 2013 for BBC radio 3's Early Music Show tomorrow. The concert will be broadcast on January 19, 2014.

New Angle

About a month ago I read an article on the Ottawa Citizen blog about an upcoming concert series spearheaded by Ottawa New Music Creators board member Curtis Perry. Curtis and I both went to the same high school and were classmates in university as well so I was eager to read. 

The series hopes to present new music at a local coffee shop during store hours. In the discussion with Interviewer .... Curtis very eloquently lined out the broader dilemma facing new music, and indeed classical music. When posed the question regarding the abundance of recordings and what made a live concert relevant anymore, though Curtis' answer was fine, I felt that he missed a crucial argument. This got me thinking.