This week was a microcosm of my life. I live in a very small town and it constantly astounds me how many different musical genres I get to play in, just locally. Here was my week…
Monday started with making lunches for my sons elementary school and ended with a rehearsal for the Strathcona Symphony Orchestra, where I play flute. We are rehearsing tunes from the movies for a January Concert… some of which are REALLY hard! My piccolo lips need some training to hit those really high notes.
Tuesday was a lunchtime Rotary concert with Voices Three (see Wednesday) and the evening was Fiddlejam. A bunch of fiddle players, along with guitars, mandolins and a whole bunch of other instruments, get together to play fiddle music and its wonderful to see my 13 and 8 year olds playing alongside all ages up to 98 year old. I play piano for them while trying to stop my son from poking other kids with his bow. This is why mothers are multitaskers!
Wednesday is Voices Three night rehearsal. This is the 4th year that we have put on this concert at the Sid Williams Theatre to raise money for the Hospice Society. Voices Three is Sue Pyper, Judy Wing and myself, along with Bruce Wing, Jim Stepan and uber fiddler Trent Freeman on back-up. Each week we eat lasagna, drink wine and then rehearse our tunes for the concert. This week was my house and we were feeling adventurous so my daughter made pasta from scratch and we had a home made one!
Thursday I could relax, because the artwork for my new album has finally gone to the CD duplicators and I now just have to wait for the fruits of my labor in a shiny package. I also spent Thursday doing paperwork, signing the new songs from my new album with my publishers and sorting out the instrumental versions.
Friday morning I slept. That’s because I knew I had a late gig with Time Well Wasted, a 13 piece R&B, disco soul band. I am one of the 3 lead vocalists, along with Sue Medley and Charity Munroe. we have a blast singing songs from Stevie Wonder to Tower of Power to Eurythmics.
Saturday morning was junk food breakfast, taking my son to a violin lesson, taking my daughter and friend to the mall then watching my son do a gym class. I haven’t written a song in a while so Sat night I wrote and recorded a new song…. with a glass of wine in hand, of course!
I have an extremely full life and am truly grateful for it. If I’m not too tired I will take the kids skiing today and then it will all start again tomorrow.
Helen Austin's Blog 