Ciao di Sorrento!

March 24:

It's early afternoon, and I'm sitting on the patio of the suite we've rented in Sorrento, Italy, listening to the birds chirping, wind rustling the olive and citrus trees, and church bells tolling in the town below.  I'm enjoying some vino, a small lunch (fresh bread, mozzarella, and tomatoes), and a stunning view of the ocean out to the Bay of Naples.  Earlier this morning, Oliver and I walked into the town square of Sant' Agnello, which is basically straight down the hill-- the town is built up along the cliffs from the water.

View from our patio over the Bay of Naples-- Mt. Vesuvius in the background

neighbourhood cat begging for lunch

front door to the villa

It is Palm Sunday, and everyone was emerging from the church in the town square carrying olive branches.  We stocked up on groceries and vino, since the supermarket closes at 1:30pm on Sundays.  After a small breakfast on a patio in town, we hiked back up the hill to our place.  It is so peaceful and gorgeous here that it's hard to find the motivation to leave the patio!  But there is so much more to explore in the area-- I think we're planning to walk over to Sorrento and check out the marina later.  Hopefully a trip to the island of Capri is in the cards for later...

church in the town square- Sant' Agnello

Later:

We spent a lovely afternoon exploring the town of Sorrento.  We saw all the typical sights: lemon and orange trees, ceramic tiles, tourist shops with limoncello and more ceramic items... and of course the impressive views over the water.

Lemon trees and mosaics...

We also checked out the marina from above, but didn't walk all the way down-- I think we're planning to take a boat over to Capri tomorrow.  After enjoying an early dinner in town, we did a bit more walking around and exploring... it was quite windy and cold, but what a beautiful town!  

narrow roads through town

All the sidewalks in town were just as narrow as the roads... many times we had to walk single-file.  But the roads themselves are pretty amazing... twisty and hugging the cliffside.  Small cars, tiny 3-wheeler trucks and scooters are the norm.

One of the patio views from a cliffside hotel in Sorrento.
It was a bit too windy and cold to be sitting out there today, but we were able to check it out...

memorial to Torquato Tasso

Oliver leaning against an old door

Yes, it was windy!

Marina Grande di Sorrento

Arrivederci...  domani vediamo l'isola di Carpi!

The longest day...

March 23:

One of the longest days ever... a series of mishaps so comically horrible that it seemed like something from a movie.  We got up at 3:30am, and left the Livia Hotel in Tirana, Albania.  Our early morning flight to Rome was fine and uneventful-- it was after that that things started to go wrong.  Our plan was to take the train from Roma Centrale station to Napoli, but we accidentally boarded an earlier train leaving from the same track, which turned out to be a non-stop train ride to Milan!

Oliver enjoying a croissant as we watch the sun rise at Tirana International airport

Milano Centrale

(If anything, now I can say that I've seen Bologna, Firenze, Milan...)  We got off the train about 3 hours later, and went directly to the customer service desk, where we were kindly granted a free return trip to Napoli, after we'd explained our mistake!  We had to run to catch the train back, but we made it, and ended up in the business class carriage.

a bit of a detour...

Oliver slept, while I watched a movie on his iPad.  A bottle of raki we'd received as a gift kept us company.  We finally arrived in Napoli Centrale at about 6pm.  From there, we transfered to the local train line, the Circumvesuviana.  We were finally headed towards the suite we'd rented in Sorrento, and couldn't wait to get there and settle in... little did we know that our adventures were just beginning!

Our re-authorized ticket

views from the train...

more Italian countryside

Roma Termini

Napoli Garibaldi

We were on the local Circumvesuviana train for maybe about 45 minutes, counting down the stops from Napoli to Sant' Agnello, when suddenly everyone got off the train, and were telling us it was the last stop.  We were confused, since according to the map on the train, this was not the last stop.  There was one last train going in the opposite direction (little did we know that this would have been our last chance to connect to our stop that night), but we didn't take it, since it seemed to be going back towards Napoli, where we'd just come from.

Enter: the town of Poggiomarino.  This was definitely the lowest point in our trip.  We were supposed to get in touch with the owners of the suite we'd rented, to let them know what time we were expecting to check in so they could come over with the key, but I hadn't been able to use Oliver's iPad early that morning from the Livia Hotel, and we'd been on planes and trains all day since then.  So, we went into a few places around town (a coffee shop, a bar, and the train station itself) where I tried out my Italian by asking to use a phone.  At the coffee shop and the bar, I got a rude response and was told bluntly that there was no phone or taxi in town.  I should add too, that I had trouble understanding some of the people in this town, since they spoke in a different dialect.  Oliver was dependent on me, since he couldn't speak with the people there either.  I squeezed back tears of frustration.

Finally, an older woman at the train station had a cell phone, from which we were able to reach one of the brothers who owns the suite we'd rented.  He was very kind, and when I explained our situation, he sent a friend in a taxi to collect us at the station.  There literally were no taxis or public phones in this town!!  One of the people working at the station offered us a ride to another station (to connect to the Sant' Agnello train) after he finished work, but it seemed out of the way, and I was sort of getting a creepy vibe from him.  The taxi would be expensive, but seemed like a solid option.  By this time we were cold, exhausted, and I was reaching the point where everything was so bad it was starting to be funny... I couldn't imagine a weirder scenario, and everyone in this town seemed like a surreal, exaggerated character from a bad movie.

lowest point of our trip: stranded in Poggiomarino

So, Oliver and I waited around in the town for another hour at least, before finally the taxi showed up.  It was such a relief to be driving along the coast towards Sorrento.  The road was narrow, crowded and wound along the cliffs... we were imagining what it must have looked like during the daytime.  Finally, we arrived at our place in Sorrento (Sant' Agnello), and it was gorgeous.  We would have the whole downstairs floor of a villa to ourselves for the next couple of days, with a patio and spectacular view over the Bay of Naples.  We ordered pizza, and curled up by the TV before going to bed.  It was not the day we'd hoped for, but we'd made it to Sorrento, and waking up to the view from our patio the next morning was so beautiful, it was impossible not to feel totally alive and caught up in the present moment.

view from our patio in Sorrento

Getting out of town...

March 22:

Today was a beautiful, sunny spring day.  I was itching to get out of Tirana... I'd been hoping to visit a castle to the north, Kruja, and Oliver had been hoping to see the seaside town of Durres.  Both were only about an hour's drive away, but unfortunately the person who had offered us a ride was indisposed, and so Oliver and I decided to just wander around Tirana and shop.  We didn't buy anything other than a morning cappuccino and beer en route, but we did end up discovering a part of town I hadn't ever seen before.

It was a perfect way to get out of town, without actually going too far... we found a large park and walking trail through the woods, which snaked along beside a man-made lake, some cafés, a small amphitheatre (probably from the communist era), plenty of trees and park benches... finally ending at Juvenilia Castle, where we enjoyed lunch.  Today was apparently a holiday too, so everyone was out and about... the park trails were very popular.

After a delicious lunch, we wandered around behind the stadium, where we were ambushed by a flock of sheep!  Luckily I had my camera ready...

We wandered around a bit more, through the eastern part of town, and back to our street, where thankfully the exchange was still open, and we were able to change our remaining Leke (Albanian currency) back into Euros, in preparation for our flight to Rome tomorrow.  The work is done-- now it's time to relax and enjoy!  Faleminderit and mirupafshim, Albania!  

Premiere in Tirana!

March 21:

Today was a very long and busy day.  Oliver and I were up early to meet with Bujar at the Radio-Television headquarters, where we were ushered into the makeup room before going on set for our interview for the morning arts programme.  (We found out later that the woman interviewing us was the sister of the timpanist in RTSH).

Here is the link to a print interview (in Albanian):

http://www.sot.com.al/kultura-intervista/bujar-llapaj-veprat-muzikore-shqiptare-rrezikojn%C3%AB-t%C3%AB-zhduken-zgjidhja-e-vetme

Following the interview, we headed back over to the Academy of Arts, where Oliver had an hour to warm up before the dress rehearsal, and I went upstairs to give a short chat to the composition class.  There were about 7 students there; I showed them my two scores ('Tides' and 'Mosaic'), and together we listened to a recording of the second movement of 'Mosaic'-- courtesy of the Canadian Music Centre's online Centrestreams archive.  I also showed the class the CMC website, where I told them they could listen to Canadian music, and also request to borrow scores, which can be sent to anywhere in the world.  The students seemed quite interested, since due to Albania's political history-- the country being almost totally closed off from the world for much of the 20th Century, they are just now starting to discover things from the past few decades (Oliver's performance of Richard Strauss' 'Horn Concerto No. 1' would be a premiere in Albania, for example).

Albania has had very minimal exposure to North American composers especially, and I was told by a couple of people that I was only the second Canadian composer to have music performed in Albania (the first being Patrick Carrabré, in 2003, I think).  Trombonist and conductor Alain Trudel had apparently also been in the country a few years ago to conduct.  Anyway, the students seemed very interested, and I invited them to come hear the dress rehearsal later that morning, which was happening in the hall downstairs.

The dress rehearsal went well, though the hall was cold-- many of the string players were bundled up in thick coats!  Oliver told me afterwards it was difficult conditions, but to me it sounded wonderful.  I went up into the balcony level to get a better idea of the balance and blend, and I felt like I was really hearing my horn concerto, 'Mosaic' for the first time (i.e. the way I'd heard it in my head while composing).  I felt confident for a good performance that evening.

The performance was at 7pm in the hall of the Academy of Arts.  It was a pretty full house, and I happened to be sitting in the front row, right next to Steve-- a friend of Bujar's (and his first English teacher) who had joined us for part of our West Coast Symphony tour in Albania last year.  It was a coincidence, since he did not know about this concert beforehand, but definitely a nice one.  He came out to dinner with us after the concert.

I did another short interview on stage before my piece, and the cameras were rolling.  The concert went really well.  The programme was: 'Tides' and R. Strauss' 'Horn Concerto No. 1', followed by intermission and then 'Mosaic', and Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Capriccio Espagnol'.  Many of the RTSH musicians talked to me backstage... I think they genuinely enjoyed playing my music-- especially 'Tides', which had been inspired by my trip to Albania last year, and contained some Balkan rhythms and elements.

After the show, we went out to dinner again at King House, with Bujar and a few friends and musicians to celebrate!  The raki flowed freely...

Oliver, Elizabeth, and Bujar

Bujar and Steve

Balkan meats!

All in all, a very successful and enjoyable time!  I am honoured to have been part of this experience, and hope that in some small way I've helped make connections that will grow over time.  I wish all the best to everyone there who showed us a warm welcome, and especially to the musicians and young composers.  Tomorrow Oliver and I have a day off in Tirana, before we fly to Rome.

Shqiptar!

It has been an amazing past two weeks!  We are safely back in Vancouver now, and I have just spent a day going through all the photos from our trip.  Since we didn't have any decent internet connection until the last couple of days of our trip, and I was also unable to load photos from my camera to Oliver's iPad, I'm going to be going backwards by writing the blog now... enjoy!

March 20:

It's been a busy past couple of days.  The other day, we met for coffee and raki (traditional Albanian drink) with Maestro Bujar Llapaj, and also met the RTSH's principal horn, Andrea Canaj, and the orchestra manager.  We also enjoyed lunch with Bujar, which gave him and Oliver a chance to discuss the scores.

Andrea Canaj (principal horn, RTSH), Bujar Llapaj (guest conductor),
Elizabeth Knudson (composer), Oliver de Clercq (guest horn soloist)

We've spent the last few mornings in rehearsal with the RTSH, and Oliver gave a horn masterclass at the Academy of Arts the other day. It sounds like I will be meeting with some of the composition students at the Academy tomorrow.

Horn masterclass

We were also invited to dinner with some of the RTSH brass players the other night, and enjoyed some typical Albanian food at the King House Restaurant.  Oliver has been busy practicing at the Academy in the evenings too, which gives me time to take a nap back at the hotel!

Dinner with Bujar and some of the RTSH brass players

We've had some intense rain here (makes you realize how very uneven the sidewalks are), as well as some lovely spring weather, though it is still quite cool out, and a very different experience from visiting the city in early summer when it is around 40 C.  Yesterday afternoon we explored a bit around town, and saw some historical artifacts inside the National Art Gallery, which had been closed last summer when I was in Tirana.  Albania is much the same as I remember it from last year, but the park right near our hotel has been upgraded from a muddy hole to a nice grassy area with benches, a small playground, a working fountain, and some popcorn and balloon stands.  In general, the people here have been very open and friendly.  I think Oliver is starting to enjoy some of the quirks and randomness here, too...

Oliver near the 'Pyramid'

Banner going up for a new opera, 'Ali Pascha'

View from the steps of the National Art Gallery

Tomorrow morning, Oliver, Bujar and I have an 8:30am interview for a national TV show, followed by the dress rehearsal, and concert in the evening.  As far as I know, the concert will be recorded as well as televised nationally.  My two compositions ('Tides' and 'Mosaic') are coming together well with the orchestra, though some small adjustments have been made, since the orchestra does not currently have a harpist, or some of the standard percussion instruments (xylophone, vibraphone).

Oliver is back from practicing now, and we're headed off to dinner... until later, "mirupafshim!" (goodbye)!

Me on the patio of the Livia Hotel in Tirana (WCSO people will recognize this!)