Happy Valentine’s Day (and Ash Wednesday)! As a romantic Valentine for you, I have the “Finale” from my new ballet music for you to hear, below. But first, here are the two photos (front and back) of our annual Valentine card that we sent out a week ago to around 150 friends. It is always odd that it takes several days for some local friends to receive theirs, while others in far away states get them after two days.

For each of the past dozen years we have posed as a different classic romantic couple (Jane Eyre and Rochester, Phantom and Christine, Beauty and the Beast, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon, etc.). If you know this year’s couple, you may recognize Rose’s “Heart of the Ocean” necklace and her butterfly comb (on the left side of the right photo).

As always, it has been a busy and eventful two weeks since I last wrote – for better and for worse. But the craziness has mostly been due to more of the same projects that I have been writing here about lately, so I won’t say too much about those.

We’ve had some good rehearsals of my show, Dear Miss Barrett, and the actors keep on learning their scripts, music, and choreography. TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE!  Click HERE. And they are now starting to post publicity for the show on Facebook, etc. Here is a photo of a small group of actors rehearsing one scene last night (coats, because it was chilly in the room at the theater they used), with Crystal as “Miss Barrett” seated, second from left. Rehearsals continue this week. Actors have to be “off book” on Sunday, though they can still call for lines.

Our Hilltop weather cannot seem to decide what season it is — very cold the last few days, yet today it will be sunny and in the 60’s F! As usual by Valentine’s Day, this morning we have loads of daffodils and tulips already coming up in bunches of green about four inches tall. I choose to take that as the arrival of spring.

Plans to record my next two new CD’s in Europe continue. I created a packet of information to be used by my fundraising friend, and he sent those out with a free Symphony No. 2 CD yesterday. The recording sessions are tentatively scheduled for early September. I may not know for a few weeks or months whether it can really happen. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. We are looking for 25 donations of $5K each, or the equivalent from people who can afford it – to those who want to give to the arts, but with assurance it will be spent on uplifting traditional beauty rather than on the disturbing. (I think many people are already disturbed enough.)

We’ve had another bi-weekly Zoom meeting of the production crew for my ballet project (premieres in June), with progress being made this time on such necessary details as you wouldn’t think about, like ticket prices, lighting, and publicity.

I think I only have one new piece left to compose for the ballet, totaling 70 minutes of music. Lately, though, I have had to make, and am still making, revisions of the music already composed, to illustrate recent story changes. That was expected. I also had a big software problem with my music notation program, called Sibelius. Suddenly, flute sounds were coming out of the violin 1 part! (I’m glad it is now fixed.) Next will come the rather laborious clerical work of editing the scores and players’ parts. Mind you, I am not complaining. I wouldn’t trade being a composer for anything else. Here is our new logo for the ballet, and below that are some charming sketches the head set designer did for possible sets, and below that a virtual demo in video form of a recording of the newly revised Finale of the ballet. The ballet has a preliminary web site up now at www.raffaellaballet.org.

Here is the final scene in the ballet, which takes place in a snow storm, and a glorious ending for the apotheosis of the title character and her dream prince.

For her part, my wife, Crystal (in the Valentine photos above), has started to direct rehearsals of Annie Kids, the musical, with the schoolkids she teaches, in addition to playing the title character (“Miss Barrett”) herself in my show rehearsals in the evenings.

Sad to say, the biggest news we have to share is the demise of our beloved indoor kittycat of fifteen years, Noah. I got him at a rescue shelter as a kitten two years before I married Crystal. He and I have been through a lot together. He had lately been suffering from arthritis and several other troubles. A new blood test revealed kidney failure last week, which is common at his age and incurable in cats. He was just sitting in the same spot all day and night, apparently suffering. The vet said we could only take measures to keep him from pain, which were expensive (including two shots a day), but even then, Noah would still only have about a month more to live. Rather than let him suffer, we went ahead and had him put to sleep, under anesthesia.

The fatal injection happened at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 7, and somehow I managed to not begin sobbing till 4 p.m. I will always miss him. Noah is survived by his “brother,” Oliver, who is also elderly and himself on thyroid medicine but a year younger than Noah. Noah was a very beautiful cat with a very affectionate and gentle disposition. They don’t come any better. At least we were able to love him and give him a nice home for his entire life, and he was happy. He had a multiword vocabulary of several different meows, which I came to learn, so I always knew exactly what he was trying to tell me!

The rest of last week, we attended the musical Bonnie and Clyde at a local theater on Friday. It had superb vocal performances by all, though I must confess that for me a little bit of music in the style of 1930’s-Bob Wills’-Western-Blues Swing goes a long way. Then there was a Mardi Gras fundraiser at Crystal’s school on Saturday, Shrove Tuesday pancakes yesterday morning, and on Sunday afternoon and last night more Dear Miss Barrett show rehearsals. Life goes on.

All the best to everyone till next time!