How lucky are we to be living in a world with so much incredible literature and entertainment unimaginably accessible? Growing up, I had bookstores (Barnes and Noble and Borders in the Chestnut Hill Mall), music stores (Newbury Comics and Tower Records just a short T ride away on Newbury St), walkable video rental (Newton Highlands Video and Blockbuster), movie theaters and some good music venues (Middle East, Ryles, Sanders Theater, The Orpheum, Great Woods). I thought I had it pretty good! Then computers and the internet shifted every paradigm! With the exception of live music, which I now enjoy at…

The annual return to school and work is underway; a transition that lasts several weeks, ramping up to full employment again. It's hard to give up the freedom of Summer for the schedule of Fall but I have been really enjoying my reentry this year; I feel very fortunate to have such a fun job, playing music with enthusiastic kids! I have been teaching for 20 years, but I still strive to do it better every class, learning from my mistakes and always seeking new approaches to stimulating a love of music in my students! After attending a Kodály conference…

I have just enjoyed a phenomenal 10 days of music! First was a trip to Nashville--we left the kids with grandma and spent four days in Nashville, Tennessee with eight of our closest friends. It was a true music safari, and I was blown away by the quantity and quality of musicians we heard. The main strip, Broadway, is known as The Honky Tonk Highway and it lives up to its name and reputation, with live music pouring out from every floor of its multi-storied bars from morning to late-night. Some venues, like Robert's Western World, focus on the country…

She became a grandmother when I was born and when I first made noises, I dubbed her Mommom (and her husband Daddad, of course). Summers at her house, Asticou, on Cape Cod and holidays at her home in Bethesda, Maryland was ample time spent with the matriarch (and her four sons’ families). When I went to college, the time together dwindled, sometimes to just a day or two in the summer. When Daddad died almost 17 years ago, I lost my connection to her almost completely; I moved to Brooklyn, and started my own life. But when I had my…

I skied yesterday! For the first time in 9 months I schussed the alpine slopes, with a wonderful solo day at Hunter Mountain. I had never skied at Hunter before and they are reporting a 1" total snowfall on the season at this point, but there was plenty of terrain open and the conditions were solid; it was a beautiful sunny day with zero crowds on big, fast lifts and I rode from 1st chair to last chair for 40,408 vertical feet and a max speed of 55.3 MPH. I look forward to more of that soon! The Beatles documentary,…