Holiday wishes

Happy holidays to all!

The photo shows my son — three years old in October — in front of our Christmas tree. Speaks for itself. Though it can’t tell you how thrilled he was when he learned to hang ornaments: “I did it!” Or how, while we were decorating the tree, he’d walk away and sit facing it in a chair on the opposite side of the room. ”I looking at it!”

Or how I suggested we turn out the lights to look at the tree in the dark. And how he turned them off himself, saw the glowing lights of the tree, and just about danced.

Or how he decided that one of his toy dinosaurs lived in the tree: “That his home!” And how the dinosaur has nestled in the branches ever since.

Meanwhile, back in classical music, we had an eventful year. Turbulent. The Met, Atlanta, Minneapolis — all those ugly contract negotiations, reflecting, sometimes in very rough ways, distrust, rage, and wracking financial distress.

Though for a ray of light coming from all that, follow the Met musicians on Twitter, and see how much they love the music they play. Watch them support what the Met puts on stage, and support opera itself. Turning past troubles into present joy.

But really the bigger news in 2014 was continued classical music change, as our future — and I think it’s a bright one — forges itself right before our eyes. That’s a big subject. I’m keeping a file of ongoing change. Or trying to! There’s a lot to keep track of. One happy task for early in the new year: Some blog posts about what I’m seeing.

And now something lovely for Christmas, even belatedly: Advent calendars, created as iPad apps, by Jacquie Lawson, the queen of e-cards. There are two of them, one called Village Advent, showing Christmas in a small bucolic town, and the other a London calendar, with Xmas scenes in London. Like a cat and dog, seen in the distance, running through a park, the cat chasing birds. Then they’re on the Millennium Wheel, with the cat still chasing the birds, though the birds are flying by outside, which the cat doesn’t get.

Night falls, and, far below, Big Ben lights up. “Where the clock?” Rafa always asks — he loves these calendars — just as the scene is getting dark. And then, every time, “What the clock called?”

I always tell him we’ll go to London sometime, and see Big Ben for real. These calendars — with, on each of them, a new scene available each day — were being sold as a bundle for the bargain price of $2.99 U.S. If you love Christmas, you’ll love having both. Of course by now most of scenes are unlocked, so you can indulge in an Advent calendar orgy, which is what we’ve been doing every day, as Rafa goes back to find his favorites. Like the elf cleaning out chimneys for Santa, getting soot all over him (”He dirty!”), and ending his work with a giant sneeze.

And the music! Some of the best digital musicmaking I’ve ever heard, much of it rich traditional Xmas fare, expertly, lovingly done. But there’s whimsy, too. Like day nine in London, which starts with a London bus slowly passing by, showing an ad for a tropical getaway. We hear “Silent Night,” richly scored. And then the scene cuts to a Hawaii beach, with a sand snowman, and a new bounce in the music, complete with Hawaiian guitar. Great fun. The musician responsible is Mike Hughes-Chamberlain, who seems to work mostly for Jaquie Lawson, and for this kind of thing is as good as it gets.

A Christmas shout-out to him. And to all my readers, all my commenters, all my colleagues and friends, online and off. A happy holiday wish once more, and whatever your role in classical music — or anything else — I hope it’s joyful.