September: On the Road in California - North to Napa

Two months ago exactly we were surrounded by grapevines in Soreze in the Southwest of France. Here we are with the vines again - but in Napa County- an hour and a half to the north of us, over one or the other of our bridges.

The Napa Opera House (on the left) in downtown Napa was renovated and re-opened about 10 years ago. We perform reguarly in Sonoma County, near here, but haven't heretfore performed regularly in Napa (perhaps that will change.) This was our first time in the Opera House, so we didn't quite know what to expect!

Warm-up (two hours before the concert) usually starts sitting down while everybody arrives on stage and we discuss whatever logistical issues we have to discuss.

The Napa House House has about 500 seats - a very nice size...

From the audience response we realized we were among people who know us - and like us! Our new program "In time of..." seems to be a winner. It has a lot of music written relatively recently (from late 20th century to earlier this year) which doesn't seem like the dreaded 'contemporary music' -just music which is as accessible to the listener as any other. That's a great feeling. The response to our rendition of Kirby Shaw's arrangement of Summertime - featuring Cortez Mitchell - is usually pretty ecstatic.

We've kept it in the program from last year, and it will be featured on our new CD release this fall. Listen to a sample of Summertime and Pre-order your copy here.

Many people stayed to greet us afterwards - turns out they came from all over - as far as Australia & Oregon - Placerville, Danville and other Bay Area locations. The Napa Opera House is a nice destination - lots of good restaurants within steps (not that we get to patronize them, but we get reports!)

Among the friendly faces were choral singers from Napa High School - we work with the choruses there from time to time.

There were also some of our smaller fans - we love to see them!

After an all too brief visit to Napa - that's one place we can imagine staying much longer!- we head this week to the East of San Francisco across the Bay Bridge to Livermore, Walnut Creek, and Sacramento.