Weekend post, even though it’s Wednesday

I know it’s Wednesday but I never did a weekend post, so…

Saturday I sang in Choral Arts Philadelphia’s performance of various Renaissance polyphony. We did Josquin Desprez’s Misericordias Domini and Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass, among other pieces (including an amazing one called In Convertendo Dominus by Lupus Hellinck, who I had never heard of). This was intense. The acoustics in St. Patrick’s church near Rittenhouse are amazing but wow was this tough music, with me needing to count out the beats and subdivide in my head the whole time, and it was all a cappella of course. We made it through, white knuckled at parts, but it sounded good. I had woken up at 4:30 a.m. with my jet lag so I was pretty tired at the end!

Speaking of tough music — on Sunday morning my church choir then did Durufle’s Tota Pulchra Es, a challenging a cappella piece for 3-4 part women’s choir (it kind of switches off). We made it through that too but there is no rest for the vocally weary. The upside: I sit between two of our staff singers (professionals) in the choir loft, so close harmonies are a total treat.

On Sunday afternoon my husband and I took our newly minted 18-year-old into NYC to go to Peak restaurant at Hudson Yards. This is up on the 101st floor. I had booked a window table, and so we had a fabulous view — including of the building where we lived when this young man was just a baby. And the hospital where he was born! Full circle moment. I won’t say it flew by. It didn’t. But time does pass, even big amounts of time. After our meal, we headed out onto The Edge, the observatory deck and spent about half an hour looking out at the city. My son and I, over the years, have now done the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, and One Vanderbilt, in addition to The Edge. He seems to like high vantage points.

Then we walked along the High Line back to our car for the two-hour drive home. With a stop at Starbucks of course. The Thomas Edison plaza one is (allegedly) open 168 hours a week.

It really is fairly easy to get into the city, so perhaps we should do it more often. Maybe over the summer…

One fun thing: The 18-year-old has been working in a first grade class these past few weeks for his senior project. The kids all made him birthday cards, and they are so sweet, but I was laughing so hard that they were all addressed to “Mr. Conway.” Very adult sounding!

Photo: Not the direction of our old apartment, but a nice view nonetheless