This weekend I had the pleasure of singing some concerts with the absurdly named “Green Mountain Monteverdi Ensemble of Vermont,” or, translated into English, “The Green Mountain Green Mountain Ensemble of Green Mountain.” It has been pointed out to me that the only way to make this more ridiculous would be to hold out concerts exclusively in Grünberg. And I love ridiculous.
You will be happy to hear that George did not sing this year, and so my folder was safe. You will also be happy to hear that we performed a concert of madrigals from three different composers, all set to texts from the play “Il Pastor Fido,” which was a big hit back in the 1500’s. This play was as ridiculous as the name of the group, and the director of the ensemble informed us that, in between the singing of the madrigals, he was going to read the play’s synopsis, and that we were going to improvisationally mime the action. I don’t know if you have ever met me, but when someone tells me to improvisationally mime something, I am going to improvisationally mime it as hard as possible. So I did.
I received rave reviews from all of the “Whose Line Is It Anyway” fans in the audience, and it was a good thing I was so good at mime improv, because I was not always so good at, you know, coming in on my entrances or singing the correct notes, due to what some might call “excessive tomfoolery.” To be fair, I was not the only obstacle these concerts had to deal with. Our second concert was in Montpelier (Or, literally, “Peel Your Mountain”), and there were fireworks scheduled for 8:45 PM. We had planned on finishing around 9. So we cut the intermission, improvved a little faster, and tried to make it out of there before the explosions. We wrapped up ay 8:46, our last minute of singing rocked by the bombs bursting in air. We told the audience to expect earth shaking music, and we delivered.
Now, I have a little time before my next concert, and probably another year before the next GMMEV event, but I just want to warn you all in advance: get your tickets early. When the Green Mountain Monteverdi Ensemble of Vermont puts on a show, we really put on a show. Boom.