So, this is the first Real Time blog entry. As in, these events happened today, May 25. Enjoy!
Today we went to Коломенское, the sight of the Moscow summer palace of the Tsars before Peter the Great. It took nearly fifty minutes on the metro, but it was totally worth it. The palace was torn down in the....1700s, I think, but it’s been converted into a park of sorts, with a couple nifty things like a house where Peter the Great lived, and the like. But the best part is the Church of the Ascension. It’s a small church, more like a chapel, really, built by Ivan the Terrible. It’s incredibly beautiful, and has a rather amazing icon that takes up an entire wall. It’s been completely restored, and it’s just awesome. Even better are the chapel’s acoustics. They’re... well, I don’t know the details, but I can tell you that they are very, very, very good.
You see, one of my classmates, Isabelle (a French woman who has joined our little Ole Miss group) plays the piano, and had heard something about the acoustics of the chapel. She managed to ask the person supervising the chapel about the acoustics of the building (I think our teacher helped). I wasn’t really paying attention, as I was focusing on the icon, then I suddenly heard her call my name.
“Huh?”
“Женя, you sing, don’t you?”
“Yeeeeaaah..... why?”
“Great. Stand there, and sing.”
“What?”
“Stand there.” I moved to where she pointed, roughly in the center of the icon, about three feet away from it, facing out. “Back a little.” I backed up. “Other way.” I turned to face the icon. “There. Now, sing.”
So, after a moment or two of hesitation and mental song selection, I did. I can now say with complete honesty that I have sung a solo in front of a small audience in the Church of the Ascension. It was.... it’s a little hard to describe. There’s always something special about singing a song to God, for God in a house of worship, especially when it’s one of the old, impressive European cathedrals or chapels, and the Church of the Ascension is no exception. What’s more, that chapel has some seriously good acoustics. It didn’t sound like it was just me singing, there were echoes and a certain richness of sound that’s hard to match. It was incredibly eerie and haunting. Susan has the last three seconds or so of my singing on video, and I’ve got to say, even through the recording, it sounds so... different from the way I normally sound, and definitely in a good way. It was something that I will remember for the rest of my life, and will probably gush about to anyone who will listen.
I have just experienced the high point of my singing career, and very possibly of my spiritual life as well. Singing solo at the acoustic center of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is also a church of your religion, even if it was just the first verse of “It Is Well With My Soul” for a small handful of people visiting the chapel, isn’t something that you get to do every day. Am I gushing? I don’t care. It was a gush worthy moment.
Today we went to Коломенское, the sight of the Moscow summer palace of the Tsars before Peter the Great. It took nearly fifty minutes on the metro, but it was totally worth it. The palace was torn down in the....1700s, I think, but it’s been converted into a park of sorts, with a couple nifty things like a house where Peter the Great lived, and the like. But the best part is the Church of the Ascension. It’s a small church, more like a chapel, really, built by Ivan the Terrible. It’s incredibly beautiful, and has a rather amazing icon that takes up an entire wall. It’s been completely restored, and it’s just awesome. Even better are the chapel’s acoustics. They’re... well, I don’t know the details, but I can tell you that they are very, very, very good.
You see, one of my classmates, Isabelle (a French woman who has joined our little Ole Miss group) plays the piano, and had heard something about the acoustics of the chapel. She managed to ask the person supervising the chapel about the acoustics of the building (I think our teacher helped). I wasn’t really paying attention, as I was focusing on the icon, then I suddenly heard her call my name.
“Huh?”
“Женя, you sing, don’t you?”
“Yeeeeaaah..... why?”
“Great. Stand there, and sing.”
“What?”
“Stand there.” I moved to where she pointed, roughly in the center of the icon, about three feet away from it, facing out. “Back a little.” I backed up. “Other way.” I turned to face the icon. “There. Now, sing.”
So, after a moment or two of hesitation and mental song selection, I did. I can now say with complete honesty that I have sung a solo in front of a small audience in the Church of the Ascension. It was.... it’s a little hard to describe. There’s always something special about singing a song to God, for God in a house of worship, especially when it’s one of the old, impressive European cathedrals or chapels, and the Church of the Ascension is no exception. What’s more, that chapel has some seriously good acoustics. It didn’t sound like it was just me singing, there were echoes and a certain richness of sound that’s hard to match. It was incredibly eerie and haunting. Susan has the last three seconds or so of my singing on video, and I’ve got to say, even through the recording, it sounds so... different from the way I normally sound, and definitely in a good way. It was something that I will remember for the rest of my life, and will probably gush about to anyone who will listen.
I have just experienced the high point of my singing career, and very possibly of my spiritual life as well. Singing solo at the acoustic center of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is also a church of your religion, even if it was just the first verse of “It Is Well With My Soul” for a small handful of people visiting the chapel, isn’t something that you get to do every day. Am I gushing? I don’t care. It was a gush worthy moment.
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