Chamber Orchestra

What started out as a casual evening watching Family W dish out some classical magic turned into nothing short of an auricular catharsis of sorts. It's hard to put a finger on it, but they don't write music like they used to. These days, it's often that they loop a couple of bars and heap on layer upon layers of relatively less complex textures into one cantankerous cacophony of brain jarring/numbing aural dissonance (depending on how you look at it). Not so with Mozart. No so with Mozart...or Macello, Donizetti and possibly Rubinstein and Schostakovitsch. Solos by MW (Mozart) and NW (Rossini) dazzled the audience. And to top it all off, you get treated to a modern worship band performing side-by-side with a chamber orchestra. Respect to the sound crew who managed to pull of this difficult mix (those in that line of ministry will understand just how tricky this can get). I like my weekends this way. It's just right.

Also Reading

A while back, I was reading Yancey's book on prayer. Well, I happened also to be reading that which he wrote before Prayer. It's great stuff - time to read and digest, in time for the home trip coming up soon. Then it'd be time to discuss with the good folks from Epainos. Miss you guys.

Essen-Münster & Back

First off, to all who prayed for Godspeed - a big thank you once again. It made the difference! And so it was. Weekend day trip to the Ruhrgebiet and Münster for some pieces of prized ceramics. You'll see them in the pictures. But perhaps what was more interesting, were the historical bits that came with the trip.


Shaft XII of the former coal mining facility was quite a sight to behold. More information on this architectural icon can be found here. And if you want to make your way there personally, look here for more information. Give it a couple of hours. There's plenty to see. And if time permits, take a look at the design school (actually the Zollverein School of Management & Design) a little down the road.


They were practising some baroque pieces in the church and the acoustics in there were just stunning. For all the music boom box technologies that we have these days - they don't quite match up to what they used to have. It totally brings a whole new meaning to the word ethereal.

Ok, parting shot of the Rathaus (Town Hall). No no, this is not a plug for that particular Cafe (but I do confess I like the City Mugs-They're nice). Considering the fact that the facade of the Town Hall looked like THIS some 63 years ago, they've done a tremendous job restoring this building.