The Fredösphere

Do not let Greg Sandow find out about this headline:  Orchestra piece inspired by Cardinal John Newman poem to be performed.  Zzzzzzzzz.  And come to think of it, Elgar really blew it when he came up with the name The Dream of Gerontius.  He should have called it Gerontius' Final Fantasy or something.

Mezzo-soprano Victoria Livengood has no illusions about her operatic career:

''Let's face it," Livengood says, ''mezzos either sing boys in pants, or hags . . . or sluts." She is speaking over the telephone, but you can just imagine the smile spreading across her face.

''With my Miss North Carolina hair, I wasn't going to do the hags, at least not yet, so it was mostly the sluts. Some of my Southern Baptist friends and relatives ask me why I can't ever play a nice part," she says.

It's summer festival time:  Toronto will host choral groups including the wacky Shouting Men.  Meanwhile, locally, we have chamber music via MiniFest, and Marilyn Mason's organ-centric Ann Arbor Summer Festival.  Marilyn Mason is a wonderfully kind and engaging organist at U-M, whom I met when I took organ lessons from one of her students.  Please, please, do not confuse her with this person.

"Composer" ... "campy sci-fi" ... "Destroy All Humans" ... these guys really know how to push my buttons.