Good morning, all! I have to go to Toyland this morning to check on the place and use the office scanner. It's been over a week now since I've been there. I hope it's still there. With our leader, the Master Toymaker, one cannot be too sure.
2011 began badly: we finished recording 101 Victor Herbert songs in early January, and on March 3 Toyland was closed down; my four colleagues were put on hiatus, while I remained as an employee with no crew and little to accomplish without them.Worse events followed: April 26 brought the death of my dear friend Russell Warner, a wonderful arranger who could offer a sympathetic shoulder and make me laugh whenever things stank. He died because he needed a new heart and the irony is that Russell had the biggest heart of anyone.
Luckily, the Man from Philadelphia and his foundation rescued us, and we spent the nxt four months preparing a recording of EILEEN, which I cast and recorded in August. The two weeks of recording in Dublin in August were two of the best weeks of my life, and I miss my new Irish friends enormously.
My first recording as an executive producer was released in December, I'm preparing the next for a May 2012 release, EILEEN is nearly ready with one overdub to be recorded, and I've got a recording scheduled in Dublin for August and two scores for future recording ready for the copyists,
This was also the year in which a concert piece based on Appalachian Christmas carols went from a workshop in April to a fully staged tryout in November, and it continues to grow.
It would still be nice to win the lottery.
