I'll be playing March 11 at 9:00 at La Barbare. That's at 46, rue Gambetta 93100 Montreuil. Metros: Croix de Chavaux and Bérault. Tél: 01 48 59 71 76
So I went to their meeting last Sunday and talked a bit about my music. I was able to actually talk about myself in French, which was good. I had been provided with a translator who speaks French fluently and English very well. However, at one point, I think she missed that I was speaking in French and proceeded to repeat what I had just said. Funny! Must also mean that my french wasn't too awful, or it would have caught her attention, I think.
No men can come to my show. This means that none of my colleagues or teachers at school can come. Also, they have rules against using male voices in music. Um, well, errrr, I said. Fortunately, they have decided to make an exception for me. But I must first speak about my work, to tell people what the english words mean and why I use male voices. I can't just surprise people with radio announcer guy voice saying "And now! A message for the president of the Unites States! George W Bush!"
This generated a discussion of why they ban male voices. They seemed happy to consider the meaning of this policy and the discussion was lively, although I didn't catch all of it.
I talked a bit and they decided they wanted me, and then they asked to hear my stuff. They apologized kind of. Hearing music is NOT part of their decision making process, but they were all very curious. Thank you for the indulgence.
I've been assigned somebody to help me prepare my presentation and make a flyer. I waited until today to send off my program note, which apparently was a problem. damn it. Last week, I had class from 10-18 every day but friday and then came home and worked on my vocal piece until I was too tired to move. I didn't meet with my conversation partner either. My french degraded somewhat. I tried to make up for it by listening to french language podcasts from the Vatican radio while riding the metro, but thank god this didn't work. I can't hear the podcast over the noise of the train. Anyway, yesterday I did nothing chore-like because I was tired, but I prolly should have written the barbare woman. However, the email address she gave me had an error in it, so I would have had to call her, etc etc etc. the moral of this story is that I need to have a site which is at least somewhat bilingual. I maintain it to act as my press kit and to be able to tell people where to find bios and notes and stuff. (see previous post)
I hope that I can make some connections through La Barbare and maybe get some gigs that my classmates could come to. It would also be nice to play with some of them. If two of us play a gig, then both of us might be able to make connections that we can use and share and then we all get more gigs.
Anyway, I also agreed to join the collective or whatever it is. Tonight, they're having a "Méga brocante SOUTIEN A LA BARBARE" which is shortly going to send me to a dictionary. The "méga" sounds promising though, assuming it's a cognate. So I might go over so they don't regret programming me. Also, I want to feel out whether it would be ok for me to do a Sarkozy piece. I kind of hate that guy and he's probably going to be the next president. but I'm not French, so maybe it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it too much? Anybody who wants to clean out the suburbs with high pressure water hoses deserves some censure.
3 comments:
Woohoo!
That rocks! I will have a gig the same night, and it's about my relationship with a woman. :) There will be photos of me in drag and in rope bondage, and I'm doing the soundtrack.
um. wow.
Wow indeed! Yeah, we were assigned to each other by the curators of the Fling, which is the collaborative art show we are going to be in. We're supposed to envision a relationship together and present it in our art. So Shiloh will take the photographs and I will make the soundtrack.
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