Sewanee Conference, Day Two

Notes from yesterday;

7:30 Eucharist. Why am I surprised that a professor of liturgics is a good celebrant? It was a good homily, too. Fr Turrell has a good manner about him, warm and engaging but unobtrusive. I rather liked his late-morning lecture on the role of music in the renewal of liturgy, but the Conclave of Bitchy Queens with whom I ate lunch dismissed it sniffily for no reason that I could fathom. I swear, these music conferences could easily make me into a homophobe.

I took the afternoon off to do some philosophical work in the library. Sewanee actually makes its wireless internet network available to everyone, so I was able to check e-mail and read blogs whenever I needed a break from the eleventh century.

I had dinner with a much pleasanter group of guys. But my awkward socializing is really gettting to me, and I found myself this morning thinking of ways to skip meals so that I wouldn't have to try to talk with anyone. I remember now that at the last conference like this I attended, it wasn't until the next-to-last day that I finally felt comfortable with people. Great.

After dinner we all drove over to the chapel at Sewanee (a misleading name for a grand and beautiful church) for the organ recital. Bruce Neswick and Harold Pysher played both together and apart. I found Bruce's playing particularly compelling, especially the Larry King "Fanfare for the Tongues of Fire," which I would dearly love to have at my ordination (except that it was written to showcase a solo reed, and all we have is a pretty obnoxious krummhorn). The crowning glory of the recital was Bruce's improvisation on a submitted theme. The conference director, Robbie Delcamp, gave him "Urbs beata Ierusalem," and Bruce did marvels with it.

I skipped the post-recital reception. See above, under "socializing, awkward."