Jacob Heringman's DGM Diary Archive

December 2001

19/12/01 1820

Today is my first free day in recent memory. The work finished yesterday. Virelai’s Christmas concert was my last engagement of the year. I’m spending today catching up a bit, and preparing for our departure to Wales for a week on Friday.

Yesterday’s concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 1.00 pm on Christmas day, UK time. For interested readers in the USA or elsewhere, if you go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3 at 1.00 pm Greenwich Mean Time (that’s 8.00 am in New York) on Christmas Day, you can hear us playing and me being interviewed.

It’s been a productive but very tiring few months. Sadly I’ve neglected the diary terribly (simply too much else on my plate, though that’s no excuse really--it’s a matter of priorities). It’s going to be great to stop, though I can feel that exhaustion is setting in as a result of suddenly having time to stop.

The highlight has of course been my new venture, the Alexander Technique teacher training. I’ve now finished the first term (of nine), and I’m confident that doing this was the right thing. As I hoped, it’s making me enjoy and value my music more. The combination of the Alexander work, and getting rid of some of the work I didn’t enjoy, has achieved this result. However, it’s tricky finding the energy to do concerts in the evening when you’ve been spending the morning on the training course, and likewise it’s hard to find the energy to get up in the morning to go to "school" when you’ve had a concert and a journey home late on the previous night.

I think I may have overdone it a bit this last term. Next term looks considerably less busy in my diary, which is probably a good thing. I’ll be doing only a tiny handful of concerts, going to "school" every day, and preparing a couple of longer-term projects, chiefly the Virelai / Riverrun Records contemporary music project, and my next solo disc.

In the background as I type, Jeff Buckley is singing (beautifully and movingly) the Corpus Christi Carol. What a great talent he was.

I’m reading Sid’s excellent book, and enjoying it immensely. Great stuff, Sid, and thanks for signing my copy! I’m honoured. I very much look forward to really getting stuck into it over the holidays. Other reading: The World and Other Places, a magical book of short stories by Jeanette Winterson.

New Year’s resolution: to write more regularly in this Diary.

And now, I wish all DGM site visitors a peaceful holiday season and a happy and productive 2002.

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