DABlog

I’m in Boston, having just spent four days at the Boston Early Music Festival. My brother Gavin, director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center, rented an exhibitor’s room—basically a hotel room from which the beds have been removed—where he displayed his oldest harpsichords (one made in London in 1785, one made in Italy in the late 17th century). Visitors to the room were encouraged to play on the instruments, and many did.

It wasn’t just a display, though. Gavin also produced something like fifteen half-hour musical recitals, involving himself, me, and various musical colleagues and friends. The result was that Room 921 at the Radisson was a hot-spot of wonderful performances and presentations. Highlights included:

• Baroque music performed by its composer, Grant Colburn (unusual at an early music event!)
• John Thompson performing on the qin (pronounced ‘chin’), a Chinese instrument, with Gavin playing clavichord selections to complement the pieces
• John Burkhalter discussing the Neff manuscript, a one-of-a-kind handwritten collection of pieces, dating from late 18th century Pennsylvania and belonging to John
• Two recitals by the baroque group Col Legno, of which I am a member

And there was more. Room 921 was, as Gavin and I said to each other almost simultaneously when we were discussing it afterwards, a festival within a festival. Congratulations to Gavin for producing these four days of music, and thanks to everyone who participated and everyone who came to hear us.

I also spent a lot of time looking at the exhibit halls, where there were lots of instrument makers and sheet music sellers. There were not as many cellos as I would have liked; in fact, I only saw three. Viols seem to rule at this event, and the violin family is mainly represented by the smaller instruments. I guess it’s understandable, since the makers have to lug the instruments to the festival… but I still would have liked to have seem more baroque cellos. There were a lot of bowmakers on hand, though, and that was interesting.

I’m going to miss RubyConf, for the first time ever.

This is happening for two reasons. The second reason erases the first—that is, it would be sufficient in itself.

The first reason is, or was, that I accidentally scheduled a training course in conflict with the first day of RubyConf. That was just dumb—though I’m happy to be doing the course, which is a 4-day Ruby/Rails intro in Alexandria, VA>

The second reason is that a dear friend of mine is having her 80th birthday party on October 21, the second day of RubyCOnf. So that pretty much takes me out of the picture.

It feels weird to miss a RubyConf. I’m one of only seven people who have been to all of them. Even Matz has missed one. (He had a good excuse: his wife was about to have a baby.)

But it’s definitely in a good cause. And you’ll all be very well looked after, as always, by Chad, Rich, and the hotel staff.

Now this was fun.

In London, the past Wednesday evening, I had dinner with two old friends: writer and critic Nicolette Jones and literature scholar-turned-banker Gurdon Wattles.

I met Nicolette in 1981, when I was a senior at Yale and she had come over to do a year at Yale as part of her graduate work in English at Oxford. So we’ve known each other for about 25 years. Nicolette and her family are among the friends I spend the most time with in London; indeed, I’ve spent more time with them over the years than with any number of my friends who live in, say, New York, less than fifty miles from me.

Gurdon I’ve known for forty years. We met when we were seven. My family was living in Cambridge, England, for several months, and I was going to school there. Gurdon and I became best mates at school. Over the years we’ve seen each other, either with our families or on our own, only three or four times, the most recent being in 1988. It’s only in the past few weeks that we’d been back in touch at all.

Here’s the funny thing, though: Nicolette and Gurdon, quite independently of me, have been good friends since their university days back in the late seventies or so. How did we figure out that we all knew each other? It was back in 1982, in the Spring of the year that Nicolette spent at Yale. She and I were sitting across from each other at a table in a student dining hall, and she was writing a postcard. Postcards are fair game, right? So I glanced at it, and saw that it was addressed to my old friend from Cambridge, Gurdon Wattles. That broke the ice, you may be sure.

Now it’s 2006, and the three of us were together in one place for the first time. And it was really fun. A long time in the making, and an absolute delight. More of the same to follow, I hope!