Laura Conrad

News of the week of September 2, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

The current warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth.

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

Playing and singing opportunities

West Gallery Quire

The first meeting of this year’s West Gallery Quire will be this Sunday, September 14, at 2pm at the Newton Highlands Congregational Church, 54 Lincoln St., Newton, Massachusetts.

This is one of the better places to play with singers, and as far as I know, the only place in this area to sing with a serpent on the bass line. If you haven’t tried it, you should.

Boston Recorder Society

The Boston Recorder Society finally resumes monthly meetings for coached recorder playing on Sunday, October 5 from 1-3:30pm at the Leslie University building at 1815 Massachusetts Avenue in Porter Square.

The Loud Band, which has been meeting regularly for a couple of years now, will continue to be an option.

We are back!

What’s been happening

No meeting reports, because we haven’t been meeting.

I got sick, and stopped hosting the meetings.

What seems to have happened is that I got lyme disease, which was undiagnosed because the rash was where I sit down, so I couldn’t see it, and the fever was atypically low, so the doctors weren’t interested. But since I couldn’t eat and couldn’t move much, I stopped being able to poop, and when I hadn’t pooped for a week, I went to the doctor and they took it seriously, although by then the fever was even less impressive.

Their idea was to admit me to the hospital for workup of the constipation (a terrible idea – even if you aren’t constipated when you go into the hospital, you probably will be after a couple of days of not moving or eating right, which you can’t do in the hospital). The first test they did showed really low blood sodium levels, so they got really interested in working that up.

Nothing they did seemed to be accomplishing anything about the sodium level, until I complained about the rash where I sat down, more because I thought the nurses might find me some kind of cream for it than because I expected it to contribute to the diagnosis. But the doctors got really interested and took pictures, and one of them got sent to a lyme disease expert who said, “That used to be a bulls-eye rash.”

So they started treating me for the lyme disease, and I’ve been getting better ever since.

The recuperation is very slow, and I still need to go back to bed for my after breakfast nap after I’ve gotten up and walked the dog a couple of blocks and eaten breakfast. But when I sing or play for a few minutes, I sound ok, so I’m going to invite you all to a meeting tomorrow night. If I can’t handle a two hour meeting, I’ll go lie down and you can play without me for a bit.

Many thanks to everyone who’s been helpful and supportive.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

The current warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth.

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

News of the Week of August 5, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

This week several people will be away at Pine Woods, so it’s particularly important that you not only let me know you want to come, but also let me know if you change your mind about coming.

The current warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth.

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

News of the Week of July 29, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

The current warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth.

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

News of the Week of July 22, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

Our new warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth. (The link in the playlist above is only transposed down a fourth, which is what we played last week, but won’t in the future, so don’t use that for printing.)

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

Performing

Several people like the idea of performing at a porchfest or similar event. It looks like we’ve been too slow to organize for any of the ones we know about this summer (how Cambridge expected anyone to organize an application in the time they gave us is baffling), but in future we should be more on the ball. So if you’re connected with anything like that, please let me know when the applications and performances are happening some time in advance of when we’d have to do them.

To explain, in order for there to be a performance, there have to be people who commit to being at the performance time and place, and at some rehearsals before the performance date. None of this happens by magic – every performance you’ve ever seen has happened because someone did some organizing for it.

News of the Week of July 15, 2025

Meeting reports

July 8

We played:

Weelkes, O now weepe, now sing
Arcadelt, Je ne suis pas si sot
Byrd, Memento homo
Josquin, La deploration de la morte de Johannes Ockeghem
Row, row, row your boat
Ravenscroft, To Portsmouth

Thanks to Pace for taking notes.

July 15

We played:

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

Our new warmup piece is Weelkes, Come, Sirrah Jack, Ho! If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

News of the Week of July 1, 2025

Meeting reports

June 24

We played:

July 1

We played:

Weelkes, O now weepe, now sing
- Mundy: My prime of youth; In deep distress; Lightly she whipped o’er the dales
- Smith, To Anacreon in Heav’n

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

Our current warmup piece is Weelkes, O now weepe, now sing. If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

News of the Week of June 17, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

Our current warmup piece is Weelkes, O now weepe, now sing. If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

Politics

The two city council orders which would have stopped or delayed the removal of parking on my street both failed. So sometime this summer, it will be harder to park here. People with no mobility issues who aren’t carrying heavy instruments will probably be able to just park at meters or in loading zones a block or two away.

Other people may need some assistance getting their instruments in from a temporary spot in a driveway or double parking. Please feel free to request the assistance.

News of the Week of June 3, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

Our current warmup piece is Morley’s “It was a lover and his lass”. If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you. We are thinking of switching to another piece soon, so I’ll email the regular attenders if I get around to doing anything about that before Tuesday. Otherwise, it’s a good piece and another week on it won’t kill us.

BEMF

I blogged on Tuesday morning about the events I went to on Monday night, and intend to add more items after I recover from the strenuous week. You should be able to see anything that’s up at the time you look at the BEMF 25 category on my blog.

Politics

I don’t normally discuss my political views on this list, and I wouldn’t be doing it now, except that this particular political crisis may well pose an existential threat to the continuation of this group.

The problem is that the Cambridge project for increasing bicycle safety, which originally did not include changes to my street (Broadway), is now scheduled to install Protected Bike Lanes and remove over half the parking on my block by the end of the summer. I believe that reasonably mobile people will still be able to park within four or five blocks of here, but someone with less mobility because of either physical impairment or carrying heavy instruments or both, will stop coming. We’re none of us as young as we used to be.

The last chance to stop this project is tomorrow, Monday, June 16, because the Cambridge City Council stops meeting for the summer, and the work is scheduled to happen before it resumes.

If you want more information about this, let me know and I will send you both the email I wrote to the councillors and the one from the “The Coalition to Save Broadway Parking”. This is especially true if you might want to write a councillor, since the one from the Coalition had a suggested cut-and-paste mail and all the relevant email addresses.

I think it would help if everyone signed the Petition, maybe with a comment if you aren’t a resident of Cambridge saying that you’re a regular visitor.

Everyone who’s a Cambridge voter should also consider writing any city councillors they have a relationship with. The organizers of the group trying to block this project believe that Councillors Nolan and Siddiqui are the ones that aren’t on board yet, but might be convinced by a demonstration of voter support.

If you’re near Central Square tomorrow afternoon, there will be a demonstration in front of City Hall starting at 4:45 and ending some time before 6, when the Council meeting starts. The more people show up for that, the better. I have seen on-the-fence councillors about the cast their votes, and it’s obvious that one of the pictures going through their minds is the mass of people asking them to vote right.

Aaron Sheehan and Paul Odette: The Excellency of Wine

rs=w:2560,h:1280,cg:true This was the second concert I went to at this year’s Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF). It was at Jordan Hall at 10:30pm on Monday, June 9.

Unlike the first one, this one was exactly what I expected, and I enjoyed it a lot. Instead of wondering when they’d get to what I’d come for, I wondered things like where I could find the music so I could sing it too and whether there would still be wine left in the wine glasses they clinked and pretended to sip from at the end of the concert. (There was.) But it was good acting.

The 10:30 concerts are one of my favorite things about BEMF. The seating is open, so if you get there on time, you can sit wherever you like and talk to any friends you happen to see. The audiences are smaller and friendlier. And now that they’re at 10:30 instead of 11, as they used to be, you don’t have to worry as much about the T closing down before it gets you home.

This one started with a Dowland group, which were the only songs I had heard before. (I know the poem to “Go, lovely rose” from the Lawes group, but I really don’t remember ever hearing it sung.) There was also a wonderful Dowland lute solo from Paul Odette.

Then there was a group of French Airs de cours and the concert ended with two groups by Henry Lawes, whom I will definitely look at whether I can sing some.

I picked a seat in the front row, so raving about how intimate the setting was and how clearly you could hear the words might be misleading to people who like sitting further back. But while I sneaked peeks at the translations for the French songs, I really didn’t need the words for the English ones.

In this case, they had definitely rehearsed an encore (Her Votary, by Lawes). It was a very well-planned conclusion to a very enjoyable program.