Raindrops keep falling on my head

I am excited to report that I have moved on to a new job, a new country and a new culture.

I have taken the role of Science Partnerships Coordinator at the National Agricultural Postgraduate School (ENA Meknès) in Morocco. The position is funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the objective of using research to build the capacity of young African professionals in agriculture, and of promoting ENA Meknès’s excellent training and research expertise. The most exciting prospect is the strong likelihood that I will be able to blog about my work again; keep watching this blogspot!

So I am back on the African continent, but this is the first time I am based in the Arabic world and in a majority Muslim country. I have now spent my first month in Morocco and there is one stereotype I wish to debunk from the start: the sun does not always shine on the land of the setting sun. I think I have only had 6 sunny days since I have arrived in Morocco, first in the capital Rabat and now in my new home base of Meknès. To my surprise, it has been grey or raining hard nearly every day. Outside temperatures have been very cold too in January, hovering between 3 and 8°C for two weeks in a row. However, most uncomfortable is that modern buildings here are meant to stay cool during the hot season; they do not retain heat during winter. I can witness that air-conditioners set on reverse are rather inadequate heating systems. As a result, I find the temperature inside buildings is very cold. We are all wearing down jackets and woolen scarves indoors; some ladies wear a double head-veil to keep warm. My ageing joints are suffering from the cold and damp. Visits to the Turkish baths and long hot showers after sports sessions are the only ways I have found up till now to sustain body warmth.

Another surprising first impression is linked to food. While still waiting for my kitchenware to arrive, I am eating out every lunch and dinner. Restaurants are few in Meknès; snack bars and cafés plentiful. The food they serve is very repetitive and not particularly healthy. I have mainly been served chunks of delicately spiced meat, lots of starch and given plentiful choice options of fruit juices, sweet sodas, sweet dairy products, sweet snacks and cakes. Although the market stalls are rich in vegetables and fresh leaves, I have not seen them very often in my plates yet. It is likely the locals eat their greens at home and go out for big helpings of meat.

With this new phase in my life, I am keen to be active again in improving the potential of African youth in agriculture, explore my new Moroccan surroundings and culture, meet new friends and keep searching for sunshine to warm my body and fibres to balance my diet. 

Just like in the song, although raindrops keep falling on my head, it won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me. 

Raindrops keep falling on my head
B.J. Thomas

Je suis seulement de passage

I have spent the last two months in Paris in a transitory state. I had two months and one week before starting my new job next January. I had been assigned to a temporary position at the French Ministry of agriculture with some minor tasks to undertake, which kept me occupied during the daytime; I had many days of annual leave to claim before the end of the year; and I had a lot of time available over lunch breaks and in the evenings.

My priority has been to see friends and former colleagues again, some of whom I had not met since I had last left Paris more than eight years ago. It was important for me to reconnect with these old friends and colleagues; covid and my posting in far-away China had prevented me from seeing them all these years. Having a lot of free time available outside of my working hours, I spent a good four weeks with all the slots for lunches, evening drinks and dinners spent seeing old acquaintances. In total, I organised 38 get-togethers around food or drinks, taking the time to catch up and spend some quality time with individual friends or couples. Three exceptions: one large Chinese hot pot with former colleagues from my previous job in Beijing; one Chinese-style meal I cooked for six other former members from the Choeur Varenne I used to sing in when in Paris; and one invitation to share an enormous poached salmon with six other members of the Choeur Varenne. 

I was lucky to find a choir that accepted me as a temporary singer for just two months. The group was just forming and happy to get as many singers as possible to bring in new members by word of mouth and to get a choral momentum started. I have been keeping my voice trained and learning new repertoire by Vivaldi at Choeur Altā Voce. I also took the opportunity of my two months in Paris to go see various live shows: three plays, two recitals, two operas and one musical. I got to admire the interior decorations of our historic theatres and the outdoor festive lights in the streets.

I also travelled out of town for long week-ends. I went twice to see my parents in their country house in Southwest France. I went to Montpellier to meet many partners for my future posting, while also seeing more old friends and colleagues. I crossed the Channel for a day in busy London and two restful days in the Kent countryside. I also flew to Barcelona where I discovered a city with a stunning view on the Mediterranean Sea, a love of good food (this grill-restaurant I went to did not advertise its menu but had a glass view from the street showing the interior of its fridge), and more outstanding music inside the magnificent concert hall of the city's Palace of Music.

I have managed to fit in many activities in these past two transitory months. I am now with my parents eating a lot of delicious and very rich food for the end-of-year holidays. 'Tis the season to bake all kinds of Christmas log cakes.

De passage
Graeme Allwright, Leonard Cohen

Nun lässest du deinen Diener in Frieden fahren

My last month in China has been a period of many transitions. While dealing with all the uncertainties of this stressful relocation period, I was trying to keep inner peace and focus on one aim: I would leave China on 19 October.

On Sunday 21 September I produced my last musical service for the Evangelical German-speaking church in Beijing. Having spent close to four years organising the music for these church mini-projects of the Deutsche Kantorei Peking, the pastor and I were both very satisfied by our collaboration to prepare meaningful music for one service every month. In particular, I found it really interesting to look for choral or solo vocal pieces, which would provide a musical illustration of the day's theme or reading, all along the Christian calendar year. Rather self-satisfied by this part of my life in Beijing, I ended this last service with a song aimed at myself: the comforting motet by Mendelssohn on the words "LORD, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace". Some members of the congregation later said they had cried when hearing us sing. For me, that was a sign of success: we had touched our audience with our musical spirituality.

I woke up on my birthday on Tuesday 23 September with sad news: my cousin in France had left me a message overnight announcing the passing of my grand-aunt Odette Laulom at the age of 97. Aunty Odette was the last person still alive from the generation of my grand-parents. Her last two years were painful for her family because she had dementia. On my last visit to see her at the old person's house in the Summer of 2024, she did not recognise me. Upon reflexion, I thought the motet I had just sung two days before on "LORD, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace" was also a fitting musical send off for Aunty Odette. She had spent a lot of time of her married life in the kitchen preparing delicious traditional French food; my grand-uncle insisted on eating a full meal of 10 courses at every lunch and dinner. He would only eat a bite here and there but there had to be soup, fish entrée, meat entrée, fish main course, meat main course, a dish of vegetables, tossed green salad, cheese, cake and fruit at each meal! When I was younger and went to my grand-uncle and grand-aunt's house for lunch, I did not yet realise the amount of work needed to prepare all those dishes and be able to serve a variety of dishes at each meal. We would just stuff ourselves with the delicious food. My brother would take two helpings of soup and already be full. I woud start feeling uncomfortable at the meat main but still insisted on trying out all the cheeses served on the platter, and the cake too! I now realise my grand-uncle's passing in 1998 was actually a liberation for his wife. She could at last have the time to do what she wanted and would only serve the full course of 10 dishes on large family celebrations. Dear Aunty Odette now eventually rests in peace.

During the Chinese national day holiday from 30 September to 4 October I joined a group from Hikers Family to trek in the Tibetan mountains in Danba district of Sichuan province. This being a national holiday in China, there were tourists everywhere. We encountered mass tourism at 4200m altitude and did not like it. A good half of the tourists we encountered on our 2nd day's hike would pay for a motorbike service to take them up the mountain to the photogenic viewpoint and back down again. The problem was that the motorbikes were using the same path as all the hikers, and honking all along so hikers would make way for the speeding and smoke-belching machines. All we wanted was some peace and quiet while walking in nature but that day's trek was ruined by those motorbikes. On the next day, we persuaded the guides to take us on a path that did not lead to a photogenic viewpoint but that was free of motorbikes. We were delighted to walk in peace to our heart's content.

On Thursday 16 October I gave my farewell party with colleagues and friends joining me at Fugue bar in the Zhongguancun university-and-hightech district of Beijing to celebrate five years of work as an agricultural counsellor at the French embassy in Beijing. I served canapés of duck pâtés and foie gras from my home region of Southwest France; we drank 24 bottles of champagne I had slowly stocked over the preceding year for this occasion. I sang a programme of songs on the themes of food and longing due to parting. I started singing a solo and invited other singing friends to join me one by one for a duet, trio, quartet, etc. up to an octet with eight different voices. I was glad so many of my friends from my time in Beijing could come to party with me before I left with the sensation of a job well done to keep French-Chinese cooperation on agriculture going despite the current difficult geopolitical and trade context. 

As planned, I left Beijing on 19 October with a one-way ticket to Paris on the Air France flight. I have started a new temporary job at the French ministry of agriculture's Directorate-General for education and research before heading off to another more permanent and exciting posting in January 2026.

Herr, nun lässest du deinen Diener in Frieden fahren
Felix Mendelssohn, Three motets op. 69 no. 1

Beat, beat of a song, song, go buzzing in my head, head

In the summer of 2023 I chanced upon a podcast episode on Indonesian gamelan music from "Mazette ! Quelle musique !" (all in French), a weekly show on France Musique. I have been mesmerised ever since by these exotic sounds and have been listening to the podcast of that show several times since. It is still on my phone to listen to when I feel like floating on a soft carpet of chiming harmonies.

The episode tried to answer the esoteric question: "Can gamelan music be dissolved?" It wove a meandering path criss-crossing between traditional Indonesian gamelan music - with its orchestra of gongs, xylophones, drums, voices, solo string and flute - and Western classical music from medieval times to the present. It was fascinating to discover the similarities one can hear between music composed on two different sides of the world at very different periods. The witty show producer Jean-Yves Larrouturou also implied that traditional gamelan music was slowly disappearing from the modern Indonesian cultural scene.

With one week of leave to spend in mid-August and an objective of leaving Beijing's muggy heat, I took a flight to Java. I had a very loose plan of staying on the cool heights of the volcano chain, which runs through the center of the island, while also keeping my ears open to chance encounters with local gamelan music and examine whether gamelan music can still be dissolved into modern Javanese daily life.

When I asked the very helpful Rumah Lereng Bandung hotel staff if there were any traditional gamelan music shows running in Bandung, the answer was no. So I went to see the Angklung musical show in Bandung instead, featuring an orchestra of adorable children, each one playing an individual note of the scale on a portable bamboo chime. Luckily, the introduction to the children's show was a 15-minute preview of the art of Indonesian puppets accompanied by a gamelan orchestra. So I did get to hear a live rendition of gamelan music and observe how the different orchestra players watched each other for the cue to all go into repeated tempo-changing percussive beats, layered their playing to create harmony, or staggered their playing with one another to play a fluid melody between several instruments.  

The Sundanese (West Java) version of gamelan music involves a small ensemble of gongs and a solo flute playing an airy melody. I did hear it twice in public spaces during my trip. At the lobby and restaurant of the modern Hotel Santika in Tasikmalaya, instead of the usual soft repetitive pop music one usually hears in international hotel chains nowadays, the sound system was playing the traditional Sundanese gamelan degung with its airy magic flute. It was a perfect background to sample the impressive breakfast buffet showcasing all the delicious variety of a Sundanese street market.

Sundanese gamelan was also being broadcast on the sound system when I visited the outdoor hot springs of Ciater, North of Bandung. So I could hear the fluid melody of this gamelan music while soaking in the hot thermal pools. A fitting background music dissolving its sounds from the air into the mineral-rich water.

While travelling on the high plateau of Central Java, I let my taxi driver choose our music. To my delight, some tracks of local Javanese dangdut pop music have clear reminiscences of traditional gamelan music. The orchestras accompanying artists like Happy Asmara and Denny Caknan feature at least 2 guitars, 3 keyboards, a modern drum set, a traditional Indonesian drum set and a solo saxophone or electric guitar. These instruments choose their electronic settings to layer different tones of sounds, the solo instruments will weave an intricate melody with the singer's simpler tune, all instruments will sometimes break the tempo with a series of repeated beats introducing the bridge or the return of the main tune. All these musical processes are hallmarks of traditional gamelan music! 

Thus, from this very short trip on Java, I have gathered some insights of how traditional gamelan music can not only be dissolved into Javanese modern life, but how it can also sometimes fuse into modern Javanese pop music. I will now let qualified musicologists study the dissolution potential of gamelan music.

In the end, the very helpful staff at the Villa Sumbing Indah in Magelan assured me I could listen to a live gamelan orchestra at the Borobodur temple complex. However, the building was mesmerising enough by itself to capture all my attention for the one-hour fixed duration of my guided tour without the need for any background music.

King Kong Five
Mano Negra

E la mensa prepariamo con ricchezza e nobiltà

Five years after singing Mariage of Figaro with Opéra des Landes in 2018, the timing of my summer holiday this year allowed me to take part once more in the choruses of the Opéra des Landes for another of Mozart's Italian operas on a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte: Cosi fan tutte. 

Just like in Figaro, the chorus only makes three short appearances on stage and one backstage. I had already sung the piece with Bangkok Opera in 2006, and the chorus was in desperate need of tenors. So I negotiated with the chorus master to let me sing the production with my joining only two rehearsals before the dress rehearsal. It worked! This is a recollection of what happened back- and off-stage.

This production had already been given in other cities and five of the six soloists had already worked with each other and the conductor. On the other hand, the lead tenor and the chorus were discovering the staging and we only had three days to learn our roles and actions on stage. On the day of the dress rehearsal, the props for the stage were still being set up by the stage technicians while the artists were rehearsing on stage.

The trickiest part for everyone was that in the small theatre of Soustons there is no orchestra pit. Therefore, the small ensemble of musicians is always put on one side of the stage and the conductor is also on the far-side. This was problematic for many of us because the stage setting in this production involved an inner central box into which all people on stage had to turn their gaze. When deep inside the box, or on its outside, it was difficult or even impossible to see the conductor. Thus, many of us had to sing by ear and sometimes get off-time, or turn our head towards the conductor but then we would be told off by the stage directors for not looking into the central box! To help out, the stage technicians installed a loudspeaker hidden behind a curtain on the opposite side of the stage from the musicians so that singers on that outer side could hear the music more clearly and in time.

At the dress rehearsal the last change of costume for the two men soloists inevitably did not work out as planned: they failed to metamorphose themselves back from Albanians to Italians in the only two minutes they had backstage. So they cheated by wearing their Western trousers and shirt under their Oriental embroidered livery and turban. They also kept their Oriental shoes on for the final scene. However, given that the whole costume colour scheme was off-white, the audience probably did not spot these details.

All in all, we all had lots of fun and the two shows were close to sold out with a total of 800 people coming to see us and enjoy the show. You can read a French musical critic's viewpoint and see photos of all of us on stage here, and see some film footage of the dress rehearsal taken by the local TV channel here.

Cosi fan tutte
Wolfgang A. Mozart, Chamber orchestra of Europe, Sir Georg Solti, Decca

On England's pleasant pastures seen

I used to take regular trips to the UK at least once a year. I enjoy its green countryside and usually cheerful folk in small cities and rural areas. Going through my previous articles in this blog, I realise my last trip to the UK was in April 2019. Covid put a stop to my international travelling for several years.

Now that it is again possible to travel easily in and out of China, I took a summer holiday to Europe and went for a nine-day, three-Nations tour of England, Wales and Scotland. I had announced my trip to all the friends whose email address I had and who were based or had a connection with the UK, giving them the choice of meeting place in either London, Monmouth (Wales), Manchester or Edinburgh when I was passing by. Unfortunately, the dates of my trip also coincided with summer holidays in the UK so many of my friends were away too. I only got to meet two of my friends and their spouse. I thus spent the rest of my time visiting new places, trekking or running along well-signed footpaths, enjoying the new British gastro-scene and shopping for new clothes and textile items.

In the past I had always driven around the UK as a car is the easiest way to reach out-of-the-way rural areas of outstanding beauty. This time I chose to take trains throughout my trip despite the threat of widespread industrial action. There was no disruption in the end. I only had a tight change of platform in Birmingham on my way to Manchester because of the late arrival of my first train from Gloucester. For once, all the photos in the article are selfies in different places along my tour.

I started off with a night and half-day in London where it was as busy as ever although I tried to stay away from the major tourist attractions. By 2pm it was really starting to get unpleasantly busy with tourists, so I took a train down to Kent. As none of my friends had expressed interest to meet me in London, I accepted the invitation of my friends Hannah and Tim to stay a few days with them in the smaller town of Otford. We enjoyed delicious food together. I went on a long and sunny five-hour walk along the North Downs Way and had to take two trains to find my way back to Otford.

I moved across the country from Kent to Wales for a few days with my former food marketing Professor David Hughes and his wife Susan. The weather started deteriorating but we still enjoyed delicious local meats and the vegetables Susan produced herself in her allotment. I got very cosy with their old cat Spartacus. I got baffled trying to read signs in Welsh.

From Wales, I made a stopover in Manchester, where I had never been before. The architecture of the city is very surprising: there is no consistent heighbourhood housing style. Each individual house has a style spanning from the 15th to the 21st century, whatever the style of its neighbouring houses. This creates a disconcerting kaleidoscope of a city. I took a long walk along a canal heading North of town; with all the locks they had to pass, I was walking faster than the long boats. 

I was thrilled to take a Trans-Pennine Express service North from Manchester to Edinburgh. We passed through beautiful countryside. The Scottish weather was unwelcoming for tourists: showers and sunny spells throughout my day in Edinburgh. I shopped my way along the Royal Mile for woolen textiles and souvenirs. I went to listen to evensong at Saint Mary's Cathedral. The choristers were sadly on summer holiday too; the music was artfully sung by a visiting choir from Texas. I got to taste Scottish tapas. It seems to be the latest food trend in fashionable urban centres: sharing several small portions of food set on the table for all. Rather than ordering a main dish each, the diners order several small dishes to share. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this trip back in the UK and hope to go back more regularly, choosing a base point to enjoy more of the local scene and greenery.

Jerusalem
Hubert Parry, Royal Choral Society

Summer days drifting away to those summer nights

My last week of June has been very busy getting all my work done before my summer vacation. I've also been very busy outside of work.

For the dragon boat festival long week-end, I travelled to Lanzhou for a few days of hiking along the Yellow River with Beijing Hikers. My highlight from this trip was the many colours and forms that the river took depending on the topography it flowed through. Despite its name, the Yellow River turned to blue in a lake created by a dam along its course. I was accompanied on this trip by the smiling handicapped mascot of the 2024 Paris Olympic games, a phryge. It looks like a red smurf hat and is a symbol of liberty. We shot lots of photos together as part of a promotional campaign to introduce the values of next year's Paris Olympic games to the Chinese netizens through a series of short stories on the Chinese Twitter-like Weibo platform of the mascots visiting various emblematic Chinese sites.

On Thursday 29 June I gave a solo recital of French Romantic melodies together with pianist Cheng Tong. After a trial recital last year which only attracted 8 people because of covid-phobia, this time I sang a full-length programme of 12 pieces in front of 44 people. For the first time, I realised the difficulty of singing live, solo and for a long time: one needs to deal with voice quality but also interact with the audience, say a few words of introduction before singing, keep going although the pianist and I realise to our horror we are no longer in synch... It was an exhausting learning experience. The audience nonetheless seemed to enjoy the show. I was fortunate to have lots of singing friends come to listen to me: I already have a group of fans in Beijing.

Finally, just before leaving China for France, I travelled to Taiyuan in Shanxi province to take part in the wedding ceremony of my French cousin Henri who had met and got married to a Chinese lady in France. This was the Chinese side of the wedding and I was the only representative from the French side. The ceremony was very colourful and well choreographed to maximise photo opportunities. The music was loud; the lights multicoloured and very bright; but the banquet was a delicious assortment of local Chinese delicacies.

It has been a tiring week, made all the more exhausting by the scorching temperatures reaching 40°C during the day over the last month. I am now glad to have left the heat of Northern China for the more temperate European weather for my three weeks of summer vacation. 

Summer nights
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, original soundtrack from the motion picture Grease, 

Recital photos: Autumn and Katia Wistoff