the following lines, taken from vienna teng lyrics, are so deeply moving (for me, anyway) that they keep circling in my mind ever since i heard them:

he said: “go where you have to,
for i belong to you, until my dying day.”
so like a fool,
blue caravan,
i believed him and i walked away
vienna teng – blue caravan
 

so i ask you to meet me tonight,
by the gardens we walk in the twilight,
the roses abound by your side,
i will hold you and let you decide.
vienna teng – abound
andreas sahar – abound (vienna teng covered it)
 

you’ve got a journey to make
there’s your horizon to chase
so go far beyond where we stand
no matter the distance
i’m holding your hand
vienna teng – harbor

 
i’m a little disturbed by how much these words, combined with vienna’s soundscapes, provoke in me.
besides, i’m so addicted to “blue caravan” that i hear marika’s chello when it’s totally silent around me.
that last paragraph was written in early april, when the webcast of her house concert was online…

about an hour ago i got home, and i have so many memories from today that it almost feels like i’ve been away for a week.
“we’re participating in a tyrol-wide choir contest on saturday.”
that was today, and it was amazing.

i haven’t sung that much in months and (or “thus”) had a great day. i spent a whole day with cool, funny people and had lots of fun!
we were very productive (musically), too: our choir came in second in the contest “tiroler jugendchorwettbewerb” (“tyrolean youth choir contest”), and we won a 250-euro prize.
this kind of sticking around and being together AND singing reminded me a lot of krems in 2001, when we went to upper austria for a week to participate in an austria-wide choir contest (“bundesjugendsingen”; this is where the winners of each federal state’s “landesjugendsingen” contest).
as usual, i did everything i could to document this event: photos, audio recordings, … – will be up soon!

after the awards show, most of us went to a café near the golden roof for a drink, and after that, fabio, joel and i went to “segafredo sky”.
so basically, i had a 12+ hour choir-trip to …innsbruck :wink:

 
side notes:

• it’s just crazy how many people i ran into in the previous three days: christina, anna, stefanie, anita, flavia, michi, raphael, daniel, sandra, (another) daniel, …
  not to mention all the people i intended to meet and the ones i got to know!
• my singing qualities have finally risen again. i hardly ever got to sing recently, which made me suck. rehearsing for (and singing on) good friday (cantus borg), holy saturday (osternacht jugendchor), and today (schulchor borg) got me back on the track.
• lately, my home&awake-time is more or less zero. this is VERY unusual for me.

all i currently feel is profound contentment, and a lot of tiredness.
i can’t keep my eyes open any longer…

 
***edit***
pictures are up now:
[view photos]

i also uploaded two of the four songs we sang there:

[listen to samples]
in klausn isch kirchtag (tyrolean folklore song) – zip [mp3], 590KB
shumaela (traditional african song) – zip [mp3], 1,3MB

the obligatory statement:

the quality isn’t the best, because i’m only recording with my mp3-player. we do sing with (loudness-) dynamics, but the auto-level-function of my Iriver iFP-390T adjusts itself to the volume…
on the other hand it’s really handy because i probably wouldn’t get the proper settings to record *everything*.
it also messes up some combinations of frequencies, so some clean harmonies are messed up (think of a camera with only 32 colors).
i know it’s easy to just pretend it does, but i can supply evidence as soon as somebody sends me a mini-disc recorder and one or two high-quality microphones. don’t hesitate!

i wrote this today (friday) around lunchtime, but i couldn’t finish the whole post… so there it is:

wow – what a nice (yester-)day!

shortly after my last post, sentiments changed. i left work early and went up to innsbruck’s “loge” hungerburg, where i joined a rehearsal of kurt and the …young people of his small school choir. we’re participating in a tyrol-wide choir contest on saturday.

little side note here: i feel old in general, but in certain situations – surrounded by ~15/16ers – i felt REALLY OLD.

anyway, they’re all great singers and we had a lot of fun.
i did, however, sacrifice the illusion of me being a nice guy and played mr. “now shut up and concentrate” “shhh” (or “taskmaster”, as i was jokingly called). but in my defense, concentration was very low at times, i was still really kind!
at some point we declared the rest of the evening a “nice get-together”, but most of us were singing again not long after that.

i even got a strand of hair plaited, and for some reason i promised to keep it until our performance on saturday.

 
little contemplative paragraph:
it seems like lately, singing is one of very few musical occupations where the (very subjective) efforts are outweighing the (very subjective) values…
that’s another reason why i went up there again this afternoon.

 
when i got home (on thursday) around midnight, i noticed that weather conditions and the moonlight were practically compelling to take time exposure pictures (will be posted).

i have taken lots of photos on several occasions lately (including yesterday) but i haven’t had time to upload them yet.
highlights include: thursday night’s night photos, another episode of “innsbruck at night”, a super-macro session showing skin details, lots of buds ..budding, and a very different self portrait.
but they’re definitely not going to be up before sunday evening. maybe then i’ll find the time to post at least some of them…
man, i am written off!

***edit***
pictures are up!

[view photos]

a lot of “googlers” are coming to my site in search of the “i can see clearly now” flash movie – the one with the little gecko/lizard singing out of a front pocket.
well, i happen to know the address, so here’s the link:

go have fun!

this is coming kind-of late, but i would still like to mention it:

on march 11th, vienna teng held a benefit house concert (or, as she put it, a “public rehearsal”) at eric cheng’s place.
the show was taped, and the benefit-idea is carried on – so now there’s a webcast available here.
to watch it, you’re required to make a donation to “doctors without borders”.
it’s a GREAT show (with good video&audio quality!), and you’re contributing to a good cause!

the webcast will be online until april 15th, so there’s not much time left…

tonight, on what could be called “easter’s eve” (maybe it is even called that, no idea.), i was singing with our Osternacht Jugendchor (easter’s eve youth choir) – a project for “young” local people to have a festive easter celebration. i think it turned out well, and it *was* pretty festive!
 

i realized once more how bustling/hectic my life has gotten, because i couldn’t really concentrate for more than ten minutes at a time. after a short while, little things, glimpses, facts, memories, … just popped into my head. that’s why i suddenly smiled several times without an aparrent reason, just in case someone noticed and wondered.
i just did it again. :grin:
 

i took a few pictures, again – i’ve added them to the previous photosession, because there were only three again.
here’s the link:

[view photos]

yesterday was good friday, and cantus borg sang at the evesong in the church of pradl.
we were singing mainly bach chorals, which is one of my very favorite types of polyphonic music!

i’ve uploaded two songs, and at this point i have to make my standard statement again:

the quality isn’t the best, because i’m only recording with my mp3-player. we do sing with (loudness-) dynamics, but the auto-level-function of my Iriver iFP-390T adjusts itself to the volume…
on the other hand it’s really handy because i probably wouldn’t get the proper settings to record *everything*.

[listen to samples]
j.s. bach – wer hat dich so geschlagen – zip [mp3], 670KB
h. schütz – aller augen – zip [mp3], 870KB

 
afterwards we were standing outside, chatting, and i met (entre autres) lorenz and my former high-school computer-science teacher mr. koller (wow, i’m sounding like an adult :neutral:) – which was really a nice surprise!

i did take photos as well, but not too many.
on the one hand there wasn’t really much time to take pictures. on the other hand, i’m currently using tom’s camera (the Cybershot DSC-F505) because i let him have mine while he’s in spain. i’m really not used to his camera, which has a lot of differently located buttons and a completely other structure of menu… besides, it doesn’t have the later invented hologram autofocus, which ensures well-focussed photos taken in dark locations.

i’m really shortened, technologically: first, my beloved t610 dies, then my precious camera is “taken away” – what’s next? i probably shouldn’t ask…
 

anyway, here are two pics that (a) are worth showing, and (b) are sharp ;-)
***edit***
i’ve added the few pictures from tonight (march 26th) as well… just seemed like a waste of space.

[view photos]

that’s about it, for now.