Another project complete...

I completed another knitting project! It took a very long time, since the technique for sewing the pieces together was quite difficult. I also had to learn how to crochet for the edge. There's a matching hat, too. It was a gift for Andrea and Edgar and their new baby, Leila!

Whistler

We went to Whistler for reading week with my parents! That means spring break, but apparently it's supposed to be spent reading, not vacationing. We went on vacation anyway. It was so nice to spend some time outside... doing something other than studying. Yes, the academic load at Regent is quite rigorous. We also ate a lot of good food, so any benefits we may have gained from the exercise were immediately lost. There haven't been too many pictures on the blog lately. That's partly because I've been (gasp) shooting film with my other camera. I'm doing a project for one of my classes which will involve both photography and poetry. Bits of the project may show up here in April sometime.

This is me skiing.

Here we are riding on the gondola.

This is Keith--he's improving rapidly!

Lecture and Concert

Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to give a lecture in one of my classes, The Christian Imagination. This class discusses issues relating to Christian artists. We had not had any discussion of music-related issues (the professor is an actor), so it was good to be able to fill a need. I talked for almost 3 hours about music in the middle ages and the renaissance (thank God for Mass and Motet in the Renaissance class). This was my first time giving a lecture without the text written out word for word, and also my first time to use power point! I brought my viols so people could see, hear, and even try out a renaissance instrument. It went pretty well, and I received a lot of very positive feedback from the class. People seemed very interested in particular in the instruments and in hearing about some of my personal struggles as a Christian musician. This is encouraging, as I may be interested in teaching at a university in the future.

On another note (ha ha), Regent will be getting another dose of early music this Tuesday, when I will be playing a short lunchtime concert as part of the "Offering of the Arts" festivities. I'm playing both my viols (pieces by Hume and Ortiz) and my cello (Bach first suite). I'm hoping that perhaps we can have lunchtime concerts more often than just over 2 weeks in March. There's a lot of really great musicians here, and everyone loves to hear them.