Remembering Dotty Davis

Saturday's performance at Spivey will be dedicated to the memory of our friend Dotty Davis, of Atlanta ( and the world.) As the story goes, Wilkes and Dotty Davis came to their first Chanticleer performance in Atlanta about ten years ago. Matt Oltman appeared on stage in white tie and sunglasses, explaining to the curious audience that he had an eye problem and asked, only partly in jest, if there were an opthalmologist in the house. Dotty came backstage after the concert to tell him that her husband Wilkes was the best opthalmologist in Georgia. Off they went at 11pm to Wilkes' office, followed by dinner, and an enduring Chanticleer friendship was born. Wilkes and Dotty turned up all over the place - in San Francisco, Atlanta, Florida, and Verbier and Wilkes is keeping up the tradition. We'll always remember our Dotty - to us "the Queen of Sheba" ( a nickname she happily adopted) and what a dear friend she was.

Wilkes and Matt after the concert.

April: New York to Atlanta

Leaving a beautiful day in New York for a beautiful day in Atlanta. We're heading for two performances in the legendary Spivey Hall at Clayton State University in Morrow, Ga. Sam Dixon who directs Spivey writes some lovely things about us in his blog: "Some of Spivey's happiest days are when Chanticleer sings here." It's quite mutual!
http://spiveyhall.blogspot.com/

Bus to Newark Airport. Adam's coffee has an interesting effect...

At a recent Q and A our newest member Gregory was asked if there had been any strange things to adjust to when he joined Chanticleer. He said that the first time you go to an airport and you AREN'T accompanied by 11 other people of whom you're subliminally aware at all times-THAT's pretty strange...Of course this wasn't one of those times.

Last stage - waiting for the rental car bus. All in all, a pretty normal day of travel for us.

April in New York

An all too brief stop in New York for our spring show at the Metropolitan Museum's Temple of Dendur. Although we arrived in the cold and the rain, today was beautiful. A very familiar crowd included members of our Board, Alan's parents, friends from Big Sur days Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker, John Stirling Walker ( who wrote the poem to which David Conte's piece is set) and other dignitaries. "Wondrous Free" seemed to be a hit.

The Temple of Dendur is of course temptingly photogenic especially when you're the only ones in there.

We always arrive for a warm up two hours before the show. It's never just warm up - adjusting to the acoustics is the warm up part of it, but we also review and re-work musical or vocal issues which came up at the last performance.

Hong Kong added to our China tour!

When we planned the China tour, we and the presenters were hoping for three cities. Our presenters in Shanghai have outdone themselves, and we will be performing in Suzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzen AND - just confirmed- Hong Kong on May l0. That's seven concerts in about ten days as well as a visit to the Shanghai Conservatory and a workshop in Hong Kong and some time with the patrons who will join us. It would be nice to rest up, but we're off next week to New York, Georgia, and Alabama, and a week in Minnesota. We're thinking about everybody in Moorhead where we're scheduled to perform on the 24th of April.

March goes into April: Connecticut

After concerts in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, we came to Connecticut, where our Trustee Dudley Roski organizes an annual concert at St Mark's in New Canaan ( great acoustic!) which benefits the Youth Choral Festival held the following day at Darien High School. One of the great things about this annual concert is that most of the students who will participate in the festival are there.