I’m up for review this year at UCSC. This means I have a lot of lookin’ up to do. I have to submit reviews I can find (stupid me; I forgot that the Merc doesn’t keep things up for free after one week!), I submit some programs (needless to say, not ALL of them), and I list anything I deem important enough to list.

As I was going through my little folder (why, oh why, don’t I save more programs?!) I ran across the two programs from the Merola Grand Finale concerts I played. The first was in 1996. Listed there, among other singers? Anna Netrebko. Gee, not only did I hear her live, I was on stage with her. Go figure! (That was the year the former resident of OSJ—and now no longer performing—Mel Ulrich was there as well.) My 1998 program shows that I also was there for Rolando Villazon. How ’bout that?

I think I may have played one other year, but if I did I must not have saved a program. Ah well. Typical me. (I love to clear things out, often only to regret it later.) Or maybe it’s just that I’m remembering the other two times I was blessed to play with the Big Guys: I did a Pavarotti arena concert, and I played the last week of Butterfly in 1997. Ah, memories! Very, very faded memories.)

In my quest—which was a failure—to find more reviews in which I was mentioned, I did run across this:

Rossini’s “William Tell” Overture began the program aptly enough, as the opening cello serenade — superbly led by assistant principal Cheryl Flippen — promised more cello delights to come. There were also excellent solo turns by flutist Maria Tamburrino and the English horn player, a bearded young man whom the orchestra’s chronically error-ridden program identified as Patricia Emerson Mitchell.

Heh. I guess I can safely say Mr. Kosman has mentioned me, eh? I just can’t say why. (RTWT) And no, I hadn’t grown a beard back in 2001. I suspect the player was Jason Sudduth, as he was our second oboist then, and I’ll bet I was playing opera.

Putting together this packet of stuff is difficult for me. But it’s got to be done. And soon.