Tag Archives: St. John’s

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Canada Symposium--July 2011

No post on Friday because I didn’t really stop long enough to do one. RB and I went from Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, to the outskirts of Philly (1284 miles) in about 36 hours. See the route at http://mapq.st/q2Puzi. Along the way, I had to stop at an Esso gas station, a holdover from years before it became Exxon? Was pretty much out-of-touch from 1 a.m. Friday morning when we left the ferry’s WiFi access until my cellphone finally ended its week-long “looking for signal” mantra somewhere around Bangor, Maine. As much as I appreciated the hospitality of the Canadians I met, I must admit I was happy to see the gates of home at the border. It was certainly much faster to cross there than it was crossing in either direction at Niagara Falls. Hmmm… wonder why? The lady who gave me a history of St. John’s on Monday…

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Canada Symposium--July 2011

Since I got in so late last night, it was after one a.m. before everything other than what would be needed to dress in the morning was packed.  I concluded that I didn’t have a snowball’s chance of dragging myself out of bed at 3:30 a,m., which I’d need to do to allow enough time to complete the 10-hour drive around Newfoundland and arrive in time to get the 4:30 p.m. ferry back to the mainland.  Plus, I probably wouldn’t be a safe driver if I did pull it off.  Actually beat the cellphone’s 7 a.m. alarm–one of the few things that’s currently working on the phone while I’m in Canada–by four minutes. Showered, dressed, checked out and was on the road by 8:30 a.m. While the weather was foggy and chilly (nearly noon before the temps rose above 50), thankfully it only rained sporadically throughout the day.  In the afternoon,…

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Canada Symposium--July 2011

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday, but I didn’t get back to my room until nearly midnight!!  And that was early because the party was just getting started when I left! The last day of the symposium was cold–at least to me–with intermittent rain.  The presentations that day were interesting.  It’s amazing the sounds that the human voice can make in the name of creating new music.  I got to admit some of it was more pleasant to this ear than others. The afternoon session featured lecture-recitals on music by Ralph Vaughan Williams and John Jacob Niles.  The singers were quite good. It was the evening closing programs that highlighted the day, though.  We started with a banquet at one of the local hotels.  After the meal, a man in a fisherman’s rain gear came up and regaled us about the joys of  being a Newfoundlander.  Then he invited everyone who…

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Canada Symposium--July 2011

Tuesday was very busy.  Last minute details that always seem to crop up.  Sessions were interesting with lively discussion, especially a couple that dealt with Newfoundland musical history. My presentation came that afternoon.  I’d put together a slideshow with pix and musical examples, then ended up not using most of it.  Surprisingly, when I asked how many of the audience attendees had either studied or performed a spiritual, they all raised their hands.  So, that changed the focus from presenting on the basics to getting into specific decisions on when I use dialect, choose to swing the melody and other stylistic considerations.  We also talked a bit about some of the recordings and in-print music scores available–recommending both the Hall Johnson collection and Willis Patterson compilation.  My audience was, as expected, all White, so we also dealt with the concern about non-Blacks singing spirituals. As I only had 30 minutes…

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Canada Symposium--July 2011

To say I woke up tired would be an understatement.  I’d set the alarm for 6 a.m. in a useless exercise.  Between that and managing to rehearse with the pianist, I missed the morning sessions.  The afternoon ones were primarily geared to choral music, so I’m afraid I didn’t get much out of them.  Hopefully, I’ll have lots interesting to report about tomorrow’s (beyond the obvious). I’ve now been on the east coast three days and hadn’t had a single bit of fresh seafood.  From what I was told, today’s 72-degree temperature was especially warm and sunny for this area.  So–impulsively and without even going back to my room to change, jumped into RB and took someone’s directions to a restaurant called Ches’s.  It has been in business since 1951 and very popular around here.  Boy, was their famed fish and chips wonderful!! Could see the Atlantic Ocean near Ches’s,…

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Canada Symposium--July 2011

Good morning! After the ship–anything big enough to hold semis is not a ferry, IMO–docked in Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, on Sunday morning, RB and I disembarked and started our 809 km (555 miles according to my GPS–btw, those who have been trying to get me to buy one for years now have permission to say “I told you so”) drive to St. John’s.  As I learned driving through Maine, it’s not a good idea to let your vehicle gas gauge drop below 1/3 tank since the distance between stations can be substantial.  I also discovered that prices here are extraordinarily high.  Gas averages $1.30 Canadian per liter, so it cost me nearly $85.00 to fill the RB, and that was regular unleaded gas. Discovered that Newfoundland is surprisingly mountainous.  I can see why there’s just one main road around the outer edge.  It makes for some great viewing along…

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Canada Symposium--July 2011

Wow, what a day!!  I left Lee, Massachusetts, at 7:30 a.m. EDT Saturday morning, beginning a driving marathon that ended at 10:45 p.m. Atlantic Time in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, a distance of 1525 km (948 miles to us in the United States).  This is the day’s route:  http://mapq.st/qFc8cv Why was I pushing so much?  I needed to reach the ferry that would take me to Newfoundland before its scheduled departure at 11:30 p.m. Atlantic Time Saturday. Someone asked how I can drive such distances so fast by myself.  It helped that there were a variety of driving situations along the way.  From Massachusetts into New Hampshire, the speeds ran between 85 and 90+ mph with rapid multi-lane changes.  I was grateful to learn that my reaction time had not been adversely affected by six years of living in Iowa.  The road through that part of the Appalachians was…

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Canada Symposium--July 2011

My preparations are well underway. The Red Barron will be serviced on Tuesday, I’m going to clean her trunk out today to lighten the load as much as possible and save some gas. I’m grateful to see the gas prices dropping. As of today, the local price is $3.36/gal, down over 50 cents from its high about a month ago. The last time I went on an extended driving vacation, the prices were near or above $4.00/gal.!! Looking at my gas receipts afterwards, I decided not to total them up because I really didn’t want to cry. Speaking of that July 2008 trip, I put up a Web page about it shortly after it was done. Want to see it? Like the man for whom Grinnell is named, we were Goin’ West. However, we went to see Mount Rushmore–something I’d wanted to do ever since seeing the movie North by…

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