Gene M. (SMCC board member and all-round good guy) and I recorded (and he edited) a promo video for the upcoming “Menotti’s Madrigal Fable” concerts (Oct. 9 and 11), about which I wrote at length in last week’s Weekly (q. v.). The video is a good summary of all that. Here’s the video:

Since St. Martin’s has never recorded anything by Menotti; and, because copyright laws forbid us from using any recorded music in the background of our videos for which we do not have written permission; the problem arose of what to use in this video. Gene M. had the brilliant idea, I think, of using the wordless chorus “To be sung of a summer night on the water” by Frederick Delius that we recorded in 1999 on our “Dreams all to brief” CD. The visual background of the shoot is the chancel of St. John’s Cathedral, where the Friday performance will take place. And I think I’m looking particularly natty in this video, to boot. Sort of a cross between a university professor and an English country gentleman. 🙂