Change of Seasons

Usually there's an overlap between the end of the racing season and the beginning of the concert season. This year my first concert was to be a nearby Boston Artists Ensemble chamber music performance on September 21, followed by Race Committee duty during the day on the 22nd, followed by a concert opera performance that evening. But the racing scheduled for September 22 and 29 was canceled (I was not scheduled to serve on the 29th,), with the result that my last Race Committee duty was on September 13 — a race which ultimately had to be abandoned because there wasn't enough wind for the boats to get around the course. So there was an eight day gap between Race Committee service and concert going.

I attended a Handel and Haydn performance on Sunday, September 30. My first Boston Symphony concert will be on October 11, and my first Harvard Musical Association concert will be the next evening. There are another thirty-two events on my concert calendar after that, with the last one coming on May 2, 2019 — well before the first racing event. It all adds up to thirty-six events spread over thirty-three weeks, and thirty-one of them require trekking in to Boston. Fourteen concerts are BSO, eleven HMA, five Boston Artists Ensemble nearby, four H+H, and two opera. It's possible I could add BSO, H+H, and opera performances, and that I could skip some BSO or HMA concerts if I am under the weather literally or figuratively.

Later this month there will be a Race Committee Appreciation Party, but I don't count it as part of the sailing season, nor do I consider that the season begins for me when the club opens in April with a flag-raising event which committee members attend in uniform. For me, the season is when I am helping run sailboat races. This year I had fourteen times on duty over twelve weeks.

Another change of seasons occurred on September 29, Michaelmas, when I switched from straw to felt hats. Straw hats will return, as always, on Memorial Day.

Change of Seasons

This week marks the transition from winter, broadly speaking, to summer, broadly speaking. I'll be going to Boston on three successive evenings for the last of types of events until next fall (autumn) and one next to last. It will be a play on Wednesday, the penultimate Boston Symphony concert on Thursday, and the final Harvard Musical Association evening on Friday. Then on Saturday, the yacht club officially opens for the summer at noon.

I'll be helping to run sailboat races on various weekends and a few evenings from May 30 through September 26. Symphony will resume in October, as will HMA. The club will officially close at the end of October. Baseball season overlaps both ends, beginning in early April and running through October. I'll watch most Red Sox games on TV.

So as April ends my focus shifts from attending events in Boston to sailboat races and televised baseball games, and that's how it is through September. Of course, church is big all year.