All Entries in the "Vignettes" Category
Upstairs/Downstairs
The following story actually happened while I was working as a chambermaid at a four star hotel in Manchester city centre. What music students won’t do to pay the bills. I wish I was embellishing, but truth really is stranger than fiction here. [Warning: Things do get a little graphic towards the [...]
This One Time….
Four years ago, I was contracted by happenstance to play the Beethoven Horn sonata on a charity concert. The stance, as it happened, was that I was practicing for my Masters recital in the concert hall just before the pianist had booked some time and the rest, as they say, is history. The [...]
Overheard
Miss Mussel had her reviewer’s hat on last night and managed to overhear this delight:
Computer Engineering Student #1: I wonder if you can hire these guys?
CES #2: What guys?
CES #1: The orchestra…you know, for a party.
CES #2: What kind of party would you have an orchestra at?
CES #1: Dude. Any party. Like we’d be [...]
Me, You & Edith: Montreal Edition
Three final year horn players rent a car and drive six hours to Montreal to audition for grad school. It is February. In Quebec. Something the girls have failed to take into account when packing their suitcases in balmy Southern Ontario. It’s not a big deal. They were only going for two days [...]
Beans, Beans, The Musical Fruit…
A couple of years ago, Miss Mussel was lured to a Halle Orchestra concert by a bit of Tchaikovsky. This is noteworthy in itself, as she almost always find his works to be overly sentimental, deathly dull affairs. The ticket led to a balcony seat next to a pair of women in their forties [...]
Off The Cuff
Kenneth Sillito at Friday night’s concert:
We’ve heard tonight the work of teenagers. Shostakovich wrote his octet at 19, Mendelssohn his at age 16. There is another fantastic piece for this combination also written by a teenager, Georges Enescu, the great Romanian violinist, pianist, composer, singer etc. It is incredibly beautiful and takes about [...]
The One That Started It All
On her About page, Miss Mussel acknowledges the influence of Sir Donald Francis Tovey. The real truth is that he is the reason this blog got started in the first place. Well, that and writing about reverse mortgages really tends to destroy rather than nourish Miss Mussel’s soul. Here’s how it went down:
One day [...]
A Propos of Nothing
Scene: A grocery store in Southern Ontario
OM: Excuse me, where do you keep the tahini?
Adolescent Stock Boy: The tzatziki?
OM: No, tahini. It’s a sesame street paste.
ASB: Sesame Street?
OM: Yes, sesame street.
ASB: [obviously wondering if Miss Mussel is suffering from some sort of mental defect]
OM: Oh no! Wait. I meant sesame seed.
ASB: Sesame seed…oh, [...]
Sunday Evening at the Theatre: The Interview
The Omniscient Mussel Theatre is proud to present a fabulous one act play provisionally entitled The Interview.
Dramatis personae
Distinguished Professor - a well known expert on Shostakovich and, as it turns out, semiotics.
Somewhat Younger Professor - a quintessentially British academic, stammering, fumbling, hair constantly falling in the eyes, razor sharp wit.
Miss Mussel - PhD candidate, forthright [...]
Idiocy and the Border Patrol
The Rambler is spot on. The US Border guards are the most “inappropriately incompetent, lazy, smugly authoritarian individuals” Miss Mussel has ever encountered too. She has also been through Heathrow. And Luton. The Niagara border patrol people are definitely on the OM black list. When shopping around for Master’s programs some years ago, [...]
