Sound Bites

Here are some clips from my recital. Enjoy! (note that these are .m4a files. Please download iTunes now, and you can hear them. It won't take but a second!)

Selections from Dominick Argento's Six Elizabethan Songs

Sleep.m4a


Winter.m4a


Dirge.m4a



Selections from Hugo Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch


O war dein Haus.m4a


Ich hab' in Penna.m4a

Selections by Reynaldo Hahn

Le Rossignol de Lilas.m4a


L'Enamouree.m4a


Selections from Fernando Obradors' Canciones Clasicas Espanolas


La mi sola.m4a


Al Amor.m4a


Corazon, porque pasais?.m4a


El majo celoso.m4a


Con amores, la mi madre.m4a


Dos cantares populares.m4a


Coplas de curro dulce.m4a



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District President's Meeting

I went to the District 9750 President's meeting a few nights ago. My two friends (and fellow Ambassadorial Scholars) are wrapping up their time in AU and gave some amazing speeches. It blows my mind how gifted some people are. And how SMART. Geeze. They are both focusing their studies on human/social rights (sorry I can't recall the exact titles), and their perspectives on justice is inspiring. Who doesn't love a person who's out to make the world a better place?

Some observations I made during the meeting were:

1) I find it ironic to speak about social justice over a fancy meal.

2) Australian humor is quite dry. Someone told me "If someone keeps making fun of you, feel honored. That means they like you." The District Governor, Glenn Wran, was really poking fun at the scholars before they came up to speak. Like, a lot. But I know he really admires them and supports them. I think showing affection through playful banter is also ironic, in a way...

3) I have often felt overwhelmed by a sense of "Does ANYone else in this world care about anyone else but themselves!?!" But I see individuals' passion for peace and love in the world spark up every now and again, especially at meetings such as these. You can see it in someone's eyes, when they truly want to make a difference, versus just wanting to gain recognition for how many good deeds they're doing. We can't allow the voices of truth to be drowned out by the world's excuses. Period.

Below is a picture of the Scholar group. Left to right: Me, Cathrine (Scholar from Europe), Elizabeth Michard (Scholar Committee Chair), Frank (Scholar from Germany), Frank Lowe (Scholar Committee Chair), Seye (Scholar from Nigeria) and Rosi (Scholar from South Africa).

My Recital Program

It's good to know that you guys are interested in my recital!! :D

Here's the program info. If you're REALLY keen, I can send you the entire program via email! But only if you reaaally want it ;)

Technical 2

For those who are confused and/or irritated with technology, I've tried to make it simple by writing out the following steps.

If you wish to leave a comment on my blog, simply:

Go to my blog site. At the bottom of each entry it says "posted by Josmery Ramirez / time / # comments" Click on the link that says # comments. You will see a white box. That's where you type.  On the option "comment as" choose Name/URL. You'll have to fill in a security thing, the instructions will pop up. Click submit, and that's it! 

Also, if you would like to be notified via email that I've posted a new blog, you can subscribe to my blog by entering your email at the top left of the main page. You should see a box that says "Subscribe via email." This will allow you to be notified of when I post a new blog! You'll only get emails when there's a new blog...pretty sweet!

Hope that helps everyone. And please, do leave comments! :)

Rolling Along

So much has been happening here in Sydney! Most pressing, however, is my recital, which will be Tuesday, November 10 at 4:10pm. (Do the math to calculate when that is for your time zone!)

Let's see...where do I begin? Well, last Saturday evening was the Rotaract Club of Sydney City's International Dinner, hosted at the D'Alessandri residence. Honestly, I thought it was going to be boring. Just speaking truly! But I am SO, so happy I was a part of it. We had about twelve different countries represented, and each attendee brought a dish from their homeland. The food was beautiful, but the company was definitely the highlight of the evening! Such amazing, interesting people! We decorated the house with streamers (which have yet to be taken down, although I like the Casa-Ole-look myself) and printed off people's national flags and had them color them in. We also had a fun trivia game with questions about various countries. My team didn't win that part, and I still think Frank Lowe, who won first prize, cheated (he's on the Ambassadorial Scholar committee! Of course he knows facts about various countries!!) =D

Then on Sunday I visited a church with a friend and met some really great people. I hadn't been to a morning service since I left the States, and it was really great to worship in a congregation again. The church reminds me somewhat of Lamar Baptist back in Beaumont, but it's not the church's actual building. See, the church used to meet in a school, but the school now has a new principal and she immediately stated she didn't want the church to meet in her school on Sundays anymore. It's quite sad, since the church also contributed to children's educational programs and such. However, I'm reminded that "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12)

Sounds very Lord-of-the-Rings-ish, doesn't it? But it's so true. We often get irritated or angered, hurt and embittered against people, but we forget that there are influences invisible to the naked eye that influence us. Asking the Lord for the ability to see others as God sees them helps correct our myopia, and it's amazing how one can love the unlovable when seeing them through the eyes of Christ.

Speaking of seeing through different lenses, I was treated to an afternoon at Sculptures by the Sea in Bondi. It's a showcase of artwork on the shores of the ocean, and it was very neat! I'll post pictures later, but I highly suggest you visit the link and check out some of the works!

It was interesting to me, however, that hundreds of people walked along the shores gazing at the works fashioned by the hands of men, while God's beautiful creation surrounded it all. Of course, I think most people appreciate the beauty of nature, but the work of man was augmented above that of God's in this particular show. I dunno...it was just an interesting point to me. :)

Oookay. I'm off to complete my program notes. I hope. I had on my Facebook status that Josmery Ramirez should win first place in the Procrastination Contest...but she'd probably arrive too late to enter it. HA!