Music To My Ears - And Soul - 07 July 2021 - Plague Journal Day 482

Micah 6:8
Psalm 150
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?


Today is Gustav Mahler's 161st birthday. Thinking back on my musical journey, he was either the first or second of the out-of-the-mainstream composers I discovered. (I think this photo makes him look like he belongs in a Harry Potter flick.)
By that mainstream I mean Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and the like - the composers everyone has heard of (and probably heard something they wrote) .I came across both Mahler and Sibelius browsing for records at the Student Union or maybe Discount Records in Ann Arbor back in my university days.

One thing we miss by having lost most of our record shops is random discovery of music based on what the store was playing. I found a lot of classical and jazz that way in Ann Arbor. I found more of those as well as some off-beat pop and folk and so forth later on at Harmony House and Village Records in the greater Grosse Pointe Metroplex. Mahler, Sibelius, Al DiMeola, Return to Forever, Asleep at the Wheel, Richard Thompson, the New World Renaissance Band, the list goes on and on.

I miss record stores - and I miss live music. Fortunately, that's coming back, and we're already scheduled for a festival in August and our DSO tickets are set for the upcoming season with our new music director, Jader Bignamini!

Keep Calm and Don't Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.