Singing season behind us

Well, we successfully navigated two weeks of intense singing. I posted last week about River Singers. This past five days it was the Brattleboro Concert Choir, with rehearsals Wed, Thurs and Fri, and concerts Sat and Sun. Our program was Ola Gjeilo, Sunrise Mass, John Taverner, Atma Mass (two movements), Will Todd,  Call of Wisdom and Paul Dedell,  Sanctuary. The Gjeilo and Dedell were with string ensemble, the Todd with piano, and the Taverner with a bass viol drone. All contemporary. Each quite beautiful in its own way. You can listen to the Sunrise Mass on YouTube if you want to.  Sanctuary was a world premiere (Paul is our director's husband). I think we came to really love Sanctuary, which was Paul's setting of a text from Henry David Thoreau. Sadly, no recording was made of our concerts - I think our director dislikes recordings. And I never thought to take a photo - too busy! I used a tall stool on the floor - I stayed off the risers! It worked well. We had good audiences and while our performances were not perfect, I think we performed well and we got good ovations. John and Cynthia came Sat., and Katie Tolles on Sunday, so we had family there both concerts, which was nice. We are quite fortunate to have these opportunities.

Now things are a little quieter. Last evening Ellen and I enjoyed doing the Spelling Bee puzzle from the Sunday Times, which we have come to love. We not only do the Times puzzle, we make up our own. Here is one I made up which is quite good, I think (Ellen agrees):
                                       
   CYMAUN+ L  

How many words of five letters or more can you make from these letters? Every word must contain the letter "L." You get 1 point for each word, and if you use all seven letters in one word, you get 3 points for that word.  In addition to 1 three-pointer, we came up with 23 words.  How well can you do? Here is the scoring:

  9 points = good; 15 points  = excellent; 21 points = genius 

I'll post answers in a few days.