Vol. XXIX No. 1
August-September 2004
 - Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry -

Picnic Meeting/PIRATES Singthrough

(How to get there - 281 Fairmount Avenue, Hyde Park, MA)

On Sunday, Aug 29 at 4:00 PM at the home of Dr. and Mrs. David Sheldon, last year’s hosts, who live at 281 Fairmount Avenue, Hyde Park, MA, just south of Boston.

We’ll begin at 4 p.m. with a complete sing-through of PIRATES (on book, of course), accompanied by Juliet Cunningham, followed by feasting and general merriment. All NEGASS members, prospective members, and their guests are cordially invited. All those attending the picnic are asked to bring their own entrees and beverages and one item (salad, vegetables, dessert, etc.) to share. Grills (with fuel) will be available for barbecuing, and there will be condiments and paper plates available as well.

Roles in PIRATES

Note: The roles of the Pirate King and Major-General are taken, and We know that at least one other role has been requested, so act soon! - contact Program Chair Dave Leigh at (781) 984-3009 or programchair@negass.org to tell him which role you want.

MAY 2: Elections/Fantasy Day: Another fun Fantasy Day, following another satisfactory Election Meeting!

ELECTIONS: Members-at-Large Linda Silverstein, Janice Dallas and Marion Leeds Carroll were re-elected handily, as were Vice President Tony Parkes and Program Chair Dave Leigh. The abdication of our previous Secretary led to a new arrangement: MAL Carl Weggel became our new Secretary (isn't this the third position he has held on the Board?), and new Bray Apprentice Skyler Wrench took Carl's place as Member at Large.

FANTASIES: Thank you to Tony Parkes, who collected the names of all who performed that afternoon - it was quite a day!

We started with the Act I Finale of PATIENCE, featuring Dave Leigh (Duke), Peter Cameron (Major), Eric Schwartz (Colonel), Tony Parkes (Bunthorne), Skyler Wrench (Grosvenor), Marion Leeds Carroll (Patience), Deborah Sager (Angela), Janice Dallas (Ella and Saphir), and - not least - Dave Leigh (Jane).

We then moved on to solos and ensembles:

Thanks, all, for a lovely afternoon! - mlc

Tentative Meeting Schedule, 2004 - 2005

(by all means!):
It’s time to renew your membership!

The Board’s decision several years ago to create extra categories of membership is still in effect. Please bear in mind that the majority of our members are still “Yeomen,” but that those who wish to contribute more to NEGASS have the opportunity to do so, in the following increments:

$15 Yeomen (basic membership)
$25 Daughters of the Plough
$50 Bucks and Blades
$100 Flowers of Progress

(On the other hand, if even the $15 basic membership is a problem, please talk to Membership Chair Janice Dallas. Please note – Charter Members officially hold their membership as a gift from the Society – but many insist upon donating at some level. And some folks just like to give special donations!)

Lacking the means for a Display of Fireworks in the Evening, We celebrate these friends by printing a yearly list of Members Extraordinary - those who chose a category higher than Yeomen for the previous year. Here, forthwith, is the list of 2002-2003 Extraordinary Memberships (Bow, bow, ye Lower Middle Classes):

Daughters of the Plough

Bucks and Blades

Flowers of Progress

Charter Members

Other Donations

(How shall I express the all-absorbing gratitude - )

Whatever category suits you - please send your Renewal Form to NEGASS Membership Chair Janice Dallas, 63 Everett St., Arlington, MA 02474-6921 with what dispatch ye may! -- mlc

NEGASS COMPANY PROMOTER SEEKS APPRENTICE: Linda Silverstein inquires whether anyone is interested in doing publicity for upcoming NEGASS meetings. This usually involves sending press releases via email to several newspapers. The job also involves placing and coordinating payment for NEGASS ads printed in programs. Linda can provided guidance, if necessary. Contact her at: (781) 828-6361 or linda@negass.org.

CHICAGO SINGOUT? No, that fell through - the organizers found everything except a location. We’ll keep hoping...

TWO LIMITED-REPERTOIRE SING-INS: MAINE AND PENNSYLVANIA Check the Calendar for sing-ins planned for September (in Maine) and October (in Philadelphia).

PAN-ATLANTIC G&S An exhibition "Gilbert and Sullivan: From London to America" featuring items from the collection of Dr. Harold Kanthor, will be on exhibit at the University of Rochester Library (Rochester, NY) from October 2, 2004 - March 15, 2005. It will focus on the original London productions and their transfer to New York and other American cities. For further information see the University of Rochester web site: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/rbk/Exhibit3.stm.

-- J. DONALD SMITH

G&S TRIVIA ON THE WEB: Tom Dawkins informs us of a highly entertaining G&S Trivia Quiz Site at http://home.pacific.net.au/~scuttaj/savoyoperas/

He writes: “There are twenty levels of increasing difficulty, with lots of Bab illustrations. You have to know quite a lot about the dialogue in these operas to get terribly far; difficult for listeners to the old D’OC recordings that don't include it!

Naturally, as a NEGASSer, I made it to and passed level twenty. :)”

-- TOM DAWKINS

G&S SCORE DONATION Thank you, Pamela Rudd, a native of Toronto, who just donated a full set of piano-vocal scores to NEGASS before retiring to her home town.

NEWS OF MRS. SHEPHERD (OLD MEMORIES CROWD AROUND ME) Many NEGASSers remember fondly our annual picnic meetings at the lovely sea-side estate of Mrs. Shepherd. Her daughter writes:

Dear NEGASS, My name is Holly Fulton and my mother, Mrs. Mary Howe Shepherd, used to host NEGASS parties at our house in Bristol, Rhode Island. I think the last one was in the mid-nineties and we sang YEOMEN and you gave my mom a lovely plaque. It was a wonderful get-together.

She is now in a nursing home with Alzheimer's and I visit her every day when I come home to visit. I live in Denver, CO now and just finished singing in the chorus of RUDDIGORE with the Empire Lyric Players. They are THE G&S group of Denver. It's a great group. My husband sang in it too and he has turned into a G&S fiend. YES!!! He even had a line in the ghost scene with Roderick Murgatroyd. I had missed G&S and now am back into the G&S swing of things.

Is Warren Colson still with NEGASS? I came upon his incredibly enormous concordance while going thru my mother's G&S collection. Could you please give him my email address and tell him to email me and bring me up to date on NEGASS and how he is? {We forwarded Holly’s email to Warren’s widow, Ruth, who is still an active NEGASSer - Warren, as every NEGASS member knows, was our founder!]

I will join NEGASS when my husband and I move back to New England which should be in a few years. When I visit my mom now I take a BIG ole G&S book with me (Martyn Green's collection) and sing songs for her and some of them she remembers and she hums the tunes and says some of the words. It's precious given she has had Alzheimer's for 10 years!!

Thank you for forwarding this to Warren if possible.

-- HOLLY FULTON [Thank you, Holly, for your news!]

Looking for the reviews in this issue? Visit our new review page.

IN-PROGRESS PDF BRAY ARCHIVE We've been posting PDF versions of recent Brays on the web. What does this mean? It means that if you have a (free and easily accessible) copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer, you can print out a copy of the issue you want, looking pretty much the same as the copy you received in the mail - in case you lost your old copy, or want to give a copy to someone else. Ultimately, We hope to create a more nearly complete archive of old Brays in PDF format.

NEW! INDEX TO RECENT ON-LINE BRAYS There are no links yet to the out-of-date calendar pages - but the articles are now available. Enjoy! - mlc

Note: Very old issues of The Trumpet Bray are still available in The G & S Archives.

ABOUT CONTRIBUTING TO THE TRUMPET BRAY:

All contributions are welcome, of course - but, strictly speaking, only activities and articles relating to G&S ought to be published. (…although an occasional Yes We Know It's Not slips by when the subject relates to a promising activity presented by long-standing and active member of NEGASS.)

1. E-mail is the best way to send things! - editor@negass.org will get to Us. So will owlsnest99@yahoo.com - the Bray Apprentice's address. (So will nearly anything else @negass.org, eventually...)

2. The US Postal Service (aka "snail mail") is fine, too - send letters, preferably typed, or hand-written very clearly so that We can read and correctly reproduce names, dates, etc. - to NEGASS, PO Box 367, Arlington, MA 02476-0004.

3. The Telephone is a very last choice. We do have an answering machine, but spellings of names and specifics of dates are awfully hard to be sure of when delivered by Word of Mouth (Oricular or otherwise), and We rarely have time to phone people back to check details. Besides - Now there are two numbers to keep track of: mlc's or tsw's (see the Board page for details.) Please use the phone only if you have no other choice!

-- mlc

Visit http://leedscarroll.com/GSEnsembles.html for a list of G&S ensembles suitable for excerpt programs.

Visit http://negass.org/Pages/Ads.html for a NEGASS business card image suitable for using as a program ad, or leaving someplace strategic where interested folks might find it.