The year that was

Well, only a few hours and the decade will be done.

2010 started in uncertainty and ended in a bit of sorrow.  Altogether it hasn't been a bad year, but it hasn't exactly been outstandingly good either.

Before

January was taken up with thesis amendments, with the mad scurry to get the thesis back to the examiner so they could pass it.  I didn't see much outside the house for most of the month.  My birthday falls in the last week of January, but this year it passed quietly amid the flurry.

The best event in January was returning a mountain of library books, filing away a lot of paper and revealing the wood of my desktop for the first time in six months, as the photos show.  I've been relatively successful in keeping the paper mountain down over the rest of the year!

At the end of the month I put the thesis in again and worked on forgetting about it for a while.

After

February was a big choral month.  I began work at the Australian Youth Choir.  On my very first day we had a dreadful storm, resulting in flash floods all over the city.  In getting to Essendon, I ended up abandoning the car in a side street in South Melbourne, hiking to Spencer St Station and catching the Craigeburn train.

Also, the choir up at the Anglican Parish of Jika Jika started weekly rehearsals in preparation for Holy Week.  The group has been through some vicissitudes this year, as later months will show.  But for the time being, in February we achieved quite a lot: singing more in tune, listening more attentively, and tackling new things.


March brought glad tidings.  The chair of my examining committee sent news that my thesis had been accepted.

I went to a research forum at the Victorian College of the Arts during this month, and came away stunned, amazed and utterly depressed.  A bunch of people sat in a circle in a poorly-ventilated room to listen to a certain member of the staff (now departed the institution) holding forth about her evolving ideas about what constitutes research.  I was inwardly screaming something along these lines: "you take an investigative method, apply it to sources, frame questions and write out what you find.  It's not that bloody difficult unless you want to make it so."  So many of the problems at the VCA have proceeded directly from wooliness and shoddy thinking -- let alone failure to communicate and consult.

During this month I had the pleasure of turning pages for Thomas Trotter at the Melbourne Town Hall.  It really is a privilege to see such a master at work.

A further development in March was my resigning the secretaryship of the Society of Organists.  Like all small groups, the politics were perverse and silly, reflecting no glory on anyone and achieving nothing.  Given my strong distaste for small-group politics, I have enjoyed no small amount of peace since ridding myself of that burden.


April fool's day fell on Maundy Thursday this year.  After two months of preparation, the Jika Jika choir sang very well for Holy Week.  The Easter Vigil was very largely sung, rather than said.  Many people commented that it had been the best music for some years.

On Low Sunday a small committee met to get a timeline together to commence a new youth choir venture in the parish.  This took a while to get started, but the work in cultivating goodwill and support was the essential function of the committee, which they did very well.

And, most important, this blog was commenced.

May was the month in which a whole stack of university services ceased.  My library card expired, along with my email account, and the duty of selecting a graduation date.

The funeral bookings really began to take off in May.  I played for a funeral at Sacred Heart, Kew, where the family wanted a stack of Frank Sinatra songs.  The priest wasn't willing to let me into the gallery to use the proper organ, and was insisting that I use the plastic granny organ down the front.  When he relented, the priest wanted to talk about my availability to work for him!

June began with the first of a short run of recital engagements.  I played a varied program at St Gabriel's Catholic Church, Reservoir, which was received well.  I was completely silent that weekend, having been assailed with one of my several bouts of flu for the year; the priest was happy to read the program commentary, which he did with amplomb and wit!

In mid-June the youth choir commenced at All Saints, Preston.

At the end of June I participated in my first three-day intensive Performing Arts School for the Australian Youth Choir.  Things went very smoothly, mostly because the other conductor took it upon herself to organize the division of labour.  I met a good number of the other staff, and felt more settled in the organization afterwards.  The only fly in the ointment was the rehearsal manager, who took a very negative line with the students right at the start; it was very awkward gaining their trust after they had been berated at the start of each day.  Still, every silver lining must have its cloud!

Shrine of the monoped organist.

July began with another recital, this time at St Cuthbert's, Brighton.  The program was for trumpet and organ, and was featured as part of the Early Music Guild's Early Music in the Very Round concert series.  The venue was detailed on this blog, including the memorial of the one-hooved organist.

Some important developments took place in July.  Negotiations over All Saints, Preston, acquiring the organ from Brunswick Baptist Church reached a threshold point with the discussion coming up at parish vestry in Preston, and a congregational meeting in Brunswick.

And, before I forget the trivial point, this was the first time I had spent the whole of July in Melbourne for about four or five years.  July 2009 was spent in the UK attending conferences and following up archival sources.

St Francis, Mooroolbark.

August was probably the worst month of the year.  I was sick almost continuously for the duration of the month, with secondary effects dragging on for far too long afterwards.  I lost a ton of weight, all by the wrong means.

However, for all that, August remained a mildly productive month.  I completed the revisions to an essay -- Resisting the Empire? -- which will (touchwood!) be published next year.  Another recital was received well, this time at St Francis in the Fields, Mooroolbark, where Peter Wakeley very kindly invited me for a second year in a row.

KC with supervisors: Kate Darian-Smith & Warren Bebbington.

The most important event in August was The Graduation, which took place on the twenty-first.  Ms Gillard rudely intruded into this event by calling the federal election for the same day.  She was repaid in kind by being forced to negotiate herself into minority government.

Choosing the date was relatively simple from my side.  Because my principal supervisor, Warren Bebbington, is one of the high-ups in the university, he was committed to being there as acting Vice Chancellor for the day.  His role was to oversee the ceremony, introducing the occasional speaker and generally acting as Ceremonarius.  The essential point is that he was definitely going to be there.  Fortunately, my other supervisor, Kate Darian-Smith, was able to make it too -- only the fifth time in four years where both supervisors were in the room with me at the same time!

There are a few quirks among the finer points of Australian academic etiquette, none of them more prickly than graduating as a Ph.D.  Becoming a doctor of something is akin to assuming a new ontological status.  There are different ways of dealing with the title according to various university protocols, but at the University of Melbourne, you don't get the title until the testemur is in your hand.  Thus, even though my Ph.D. was accepted waaay back in March, it would not have been correct to refer to me as Dr until after I graduated.  That said, on graduation day the marshalls called us by our new titles.  I suppose if you're floating around in the Essendon gear anyway you look the part well enough.

The following day there was a big party at a club in Toorak, which was well attended.

September was busy with funerals and a couple of big weddings.  This also provided me with my most embarassing moment for the year.

I got my wires crossed and failed to double-check the time of a Sunday wedding in my diary.  As a result, lunch carried on longer than it ought to have, and I arrived at the church thinking I would have an hour to wander around and relax.  To my horror, it looked like things were getting to a critical point with guests flurrying about and flowers being distributed -- not to mention an anxious sacristan peering out towards the carpark with a look of desperation in his eye.  It turned out that I had arrived with less than ten minutes to spare.

Fortunately for me, the bride was seven minutes late.

The first international British Music conference in Australia was held at Monash University, where I gave a paper and read that of an absent delegate.  The conference was wonderful because a good number of the nineteenth century people in the UK came out.  It was good to have the opportunity to renew friendships.

October was spent navigating the further reaches of the city.  I was engaged as a representative for the National Institute of Youth Performing Arts to visit schools and carry out voice trials, and to invite children to audition for the Australian Youth Choir.  Perhaps the highlight of this work was seeing the disparity of standards in primary schools around the northern and western suburbs.  Australian Youth Choir rehearsals got a bit swamped with completing assessments -- it all comes up very quickly once Term IV begins!

The highlight of the year came in October, with the re-opening of the Grainger Museum.  This was such a long time in coming, and it is good to have the collection back in its old home.  The opening itself took place on a soggy Friday evening (the sort that only Melbourne can turn on), followed by a day-long symposium at the Con.  Malcolm Gillies spoke really well at both events.

The task of writing a paper for another symposium took up most of my spare time in October.

November proved to be one of those months where nothing stayed still.  All Saints celebrated its patronal festival on 31 October, and then two weeks later the choir toured to Brunswick Baptist Church on 14 November.

The purpose of the visit was to mark the gifting of the organ to All Saints, Preston.  The choir sang well, and a number of people at the Baptist Church came along and joined in.

The OHTA Oracle, John Maidment, attended the service.  He was very kind, and commented that he thought he'd never heard the instrument played properly before!

I spoke at G.W.L. Marshall-Hall: A Symposium, where it turned out I was the first paper in the two-day program.  My paper was titled Superman and Society, and was an exercise in contrasts, considering the ways in which Marshall-Hall and Franklin Peterson approached music history through a survey of public remarks and questions from examination papers.  The paper was well received, and I am now working on turning it into a properly worked out essay for a proceedings book.

The Australian Youth Choir wound down for the year at the end of November, with auditions, final rehearsals and the last concert for the year at the end of the month.

The state election was held on 27 November, where the government of John Brumby was defeated.

The end of November was the beginning of the annual spiral into Christmas.  Advent began early this year, and the choir toured to St Mary's, East Preston, for Mass on Advent Sunday, which was followed by the annual general meeting.  The AGM took ninety minutes, easily an hour too long, largely due to one person talking for much of the excess time.

I turned pages for a couple of concerts at an organ in a private home at the end of the month.  The instrument is quite innovative, being a hybrid pipe/digital organ.

December was simply chaos, as ever.  I had a series of rehearsals at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Hawthorn, which were very productive.  The choir sang well for the first Mass of Christmas.  All my other Christmas-related doings have been detailed elsewhere in these pages, so I won't recapitulate those events here.

The most harrowing event of the year came last week.  I woke up to find Mona paralyzed, and it was very clear that this was something from which she was not going to bounce back.  Taking her to the vet was the right thing to do, as the time had clearly come.

Mona has been a constant part of my home life for nearly twenty years, including a lengthy period when I lived alone.  She has been there when I go out, and arisen to greet me on my coming in.  And this is where I have noticed her loss most of all.

It's funny how some things just stick with you.  For example, over the last few days I have caught myself talking to the cat twice, and woken up after hearing her calling at the bedroom door once.

I notice the absence most of all whenever I come home.  The first thing I have done on coming through the door is to look at the place where she used to have her box, which is no longer there.

My consolation in all of this is remembering that a cat is one of the iconic attributes of St Julian of Norwich.  Julian is best known for the saying "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all things shall be well."  There are several redactions of the saying, none more famous than the occurrence in T.S. Elliott's Little Gidding:

Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's a quick tally of my freelance musical activities:

Funerals -- 24
Weddings -- 6
Concerts -- 4
Other events -- 16

This list doesn't include my regular work at All Saints, Preston, or St Mary's, West Melbourne.  It's been a relatively busy year for my freelance work.  It was surprising to discover that I'd only played for six weddings.  Not to mind, I've got at least three booked for the first quarter of next year.  It looks like things may be busier on the bridal front in 2011.

I haven't included a large wedge of school services.  I live near one of the major private girls' schools, and have had a steady stream of work there locuming for the chapel organist at various times.  This work is probably going to dry up next year in the wake of some timetable changes to chapel services.  On one level, it's a source of work that I won't particularly miss -- the chaplain has some peculiar liturgical habits.

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A couple of books stand out as having helped to expand or clarify my worldview.  One of these was When Sheep Attack, which I wrote about here.  It helped to bring my experiences at Christ Church, Brunswick, into perspective.  In many ways it was healing book, and one to which I will return fairly regularly.

Another book is Theo Hobson's Faith: the Art of Living.  When I was reading this, I ran across one of Paul Keating's comments about Mahler, where he was talking about how love lies at the heart of the art.  Hobson says something similar about faith; faith is there to give us the means with which to love.

On the professional reading side, there are a lot of books which have crossed my desk, many quite good, some worthy of revisiting soon, and a good number that I'm happy to leave on the shelf for some future emergency.  The last three volumes of Richard Taruskin's history of western music formed the basis of my reading before Easter, and I hope to get back to finishing the first two volumes over the rest of the summer.  A recent arrival to complement this is Mary Natvig's Teaching Music History.

So that was the year that was.  Not the annus horribilis it could have been, but hardly what one would describe as an annus mirabilis.

Above all, the great theme of 2010 has been waiting and uncertainty.

Perhaps I have learned something about patience.