Randy Phillips

27

Sep

Sing-A-Long Sound Of Music

My RP Rhonda and I had the good fortune to join a sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Bowl for the Sing-A-Long Sound Of Music on Saturday Sept. 26. I have some pictures to share with you of this fantastic event. Read more…

posted by Randy in Los Angeles,Music,Photos,Video and have Comment (1)

08

Sep

Been havin’ fun all summer long

I haven’t posted much in the way of personal stuff this summer, so here’s a little catch-up.

Although we’re still a couple of weeks away from the official autumnal equinox, summer’s done with the end of the long Labor Day weekend and the fall is approaching. Although, as I noted on Facebook earlier today, Southern California is likely to be subject to six to eight more weeks of summer weather – it’ll be in the mid nineties for the rest of the week.

We also have the major portion of fire season to come in the next couple of months. There’s been nothing in my immediate vicinity (yet) but the enormous Station fire on the northeast side of the LA Basin is stubbornly hanging on. The smoke in the bowl of the San Fernando Valley was easily visible yesterday as I came home from a weekend in Santa Barbara and Ventura.

Los Robles Master Chorale starts its 2009-10 season tonight with the first rehearsal of the newly-reauditoned 85-voice group, holiday concerts scheduled for December. This is also the inaugural season for The Consort Singers, a 24-voice group drawn from within the Chorale. This smaller group will be a little nimbler than its larger parent, and thus will be doing more outreach activity. Its first performances will be in November, an all-a capella program.

Also of note – get it? Chorale, Singers, music, we sing notes? Get it? Ahem – the Chorale will be taking much of the program from its Spring 2009 concerts ‘on the road’ with a long weekend trip of some of the old missions in southern California next summer.

The reunion about which I’d posted several times last spring and summer came off without a hitch the first weekend of August. Some 80 people came together at Merced First Baptist Church to reminisce and worship together, and it was just fantastic. I couldn’t have hoped for a better turnout, and my only regret that we didn’t have more people and more time together. A bunch of us stayed to participate in the Sunday morning worship and that, too, was a glorious time. Several of us ministered with the worship team, I sang a solo, and about 20 of the alumni formed the Reunion Choir and sang a song at the end of the service. The church will be celebrating its 70th anniversary next year, so maybe we’ll see everyone again sooner than we thought we would.

My friend Elaine from Minnesota came out here three times over the summer, once to celebrate our birthdays at the beginning of May during which she also came to hear both Chorale concerts and to squeeze in a birthday visit to Disneyland, again over the Independence Day holiday, and yet again for the reunion in August – an embarrassment of riches after so many years away from one another. I was hoping to return the favor for the Minnesota State Fair last weekend, but unfortunately I couldn’t pull it together this time.

Other highlights include a couple of movies (Star Trek, Julie and Julia), a concert (Liza at the Hollywood Bowl), a trip or two to my favorite beach in Camarillo, the afore-mentioned trip to Santa Barbara. All in all, a fun summer in a lot of ways, and in some ways a bit of regret along the way. So here’s to you, summer – I’m happy to see you retire, and looking forward to the filtered-light days of autumn followed by the chill of winter – at least as chilly as it gets around here.

Tags: hollywood bowl, Los Robles Master Chorale, LRMC

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03

Sep

Huzzah!

From left: Randy Phillips, Arlan Anderson, Rosemary Storm, Patricia Mace, Deanna Thomas, Kevin Lewis, Pandora Simmons, Darin Adler, Paulien Strijland

Waaay back in the ’80s I was a member of a little madrigal group called ‘Huzzah!’ Based in Silicon Valley, the group was made up for the most part of young professionals in the tech industry who’d had a background in choral singing and had come together and work up a few songs from the Renaissance, ostensibly to get in the Renaissance Pleasure Faire for free as strolling singers. Somehow the ever resourceful Deanna Thomas arranged for us to do some recording one night at Mission Santa Clara. I ran across the DAT from that evening, and here are the results.

Fair Phyllis I saw sitting