Holy crap, I'm going to the Samhain festival organized by CMA. I'm so excited!
A year and a half ago, I went to a Beltaine festival put on by a small group and I had such a wonderful time. This time, however, will be with hundreds and hundreds of people. I'm so excited. I'll be going with my friend Brett who convinced me to go with him (and kind of helped me a little bit with the fees).
Who else is going? Let me know so I can plan to find you. Maybe even camp out near you. :)
So, as some of you may remember, for my birthday Rubèn bought me tickets for us to go see the opera Norma together in July. While searching around, I found a video of the famous aria from Norma. The aria is called Casta Diva and in the video it is sung by Montserrat Caballé, the best Norma ever, and perhaps the best soprano ever. Oh, and she's Catalan too, by the way! Montserrat is a typical Catalan name for girls. It's pronounced moon-suh-RAT. The letter E in that word being pronounced as a schwa, (like the U in the English word "up" or "under". And roll the R... like a lot. ;)
Anyway, enjoy the video. When I listen to it, she really takes my breath away. I hope that the soprano who sings it when I see it can compare. I'm sure I'll cry like a baby when I see it live.
So the Houston International Festival started. It's going on this past weekend and next weekend. For those of you who didn't go, you missed out on some awesome concerts.
I work on the Hospitality team which, as you may know, offers hospitality to the artists and musicians flying in from everywhere. We pick them up from the airports, we transport them to the hotels, festival, wherever. It's a pretty cool gig. Anyhow, this weekend I had the opportunity to meet one of my favorite singers and the members of her band: Angélique Kidjo. I've been a fan for about two years. Her music is awesome. I spent some time with her and she is such a cool person. Her personality is very fun and energetic. She seemed to me so powerful and childish at the same time. Really interesting.
After their performance last night, the band members wanted to go to have dinner, so we took them all to Mai's for some yummy Vietnamese food. I finally had the chance to get to know them a little better. I sat next to Rubens who is a really cute Brazilian guy from São Paulo... the guitarist for the group. He was super nice and fun. He even gave me his card and contact information so that we could stay in contact. His brother is an opera singer in Barcelona and he's going to try to introduce us while I'm there this summer. Yay for networking!
Anyway, there should be some good shows and concerts next weekend. If anyone is going, you should contact me!
Oh, and just for fun, here's a cute photo of my niece Kaiya playing with my second cousin Jayden.
