Musical notes

I was recently on vacation in Carmel and thereabouts. Art gallery heaven. Hail-on-the-beach heaven too, interestingly enough.

Another highlight was on the way home, in Pacific Grove. There I discovered Bookmark, a shop billing itself as "devoted to printed material for the performing arts." It could have called itself "where people throw bricks at you," and I still would have had a fabulous time. This Broadway musical lover found new scores, old scores, scores galore. Songs sold individually, by show, by vocal type. Hi, I'm Becky, and I’m a soprano.

I could grouse (more than usual) about how the Internet is putting music stores out of business left and right. But then some smartie would point out that I'm using the Internet to point out Bookmark. Well. At least I'm not putting any blog stores out of business.

In other music news, I returned to work to find a note from the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, an SF group that frequently performs in Palo Alto. Thanks to an anonymous gift, the orchestra has just acquired an Andrea Guarneri violin, made in 1660 in Cremona, Italy.

The instrument will need some changes to put it into "true Baroque form," such as a shorter fingerboard, orchestra executive director Robert Birman said. After that, I'm sure we'll be hearing it sing once again.

In still other music news, I love the fact that the Peninsula Women's Chorus is doing a new commission based on the last poem of Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass." Written by Argentinean composer Marta Lambertini, it groups the human voice with cello, piccolo, piano and percussion. And Mark Foehringer and his Dance Project. Check it out this Saturday at a concert at Stanford's Memorial Church.

Pictured: The 1660 Andrea Guarneri violin just acquired by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Photo courtesy of PBO.