University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble director John Cody Birdwell is taking his wife and kids along on the group's forthcoming trip to China, and said wife, Cindy Stewart-Birdwell (photo, right), is contributing to the effort by maintaining a blog about the experience.
Thus far, Stewart-Birdwell's HigherView blog has been about the stresses of prepping for the trip around the world that starts Sunday night.
But in view of recent events in China, her Monday post had the chilling note that according to an original schedule for the trip, when Monday's earthquake occurred, the Wind Ensemble would have been in Chengdu, about 60 miles from the epicenter. She writes:
"Life is fragile, this we know, so in the words of Leonard Bernstein, 'This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.'"
Click here to read Stewart-Birdwell's blog. I'll also set a link to it in the left-hand column here for the duration of the trip, May 19-29.
Over the weekend, we'll have a full report on the trip in the Herald-Leader and at LexGo.
Nice to meet you yesterday! Thanks again for covering our trip--I look forward to reading your account when we get back in the country.
Oh, and I'll try to leave more comments in the future! :P
Posted by: Beth | May 18, 2008 at 11:11 AM