Contractor Recommendation

We had an excellent experience remodeling our master bath with Renovation Studio last year.  Contractor Jodi Longo was creative, reasonably priced, and responsive to our input. Her team’s work ethic was very good, and there were very few glitches (most were supplier problems, not contractor issues). The workers cleaned up daily and fixed up any little marks beautifully when the job was over. We have lived in several houses and done lots of projects. Renovation Studio’s remodel was one of our best experiences.  We would be happy to discuss it with neighbors.--Dorothy Schoening, 4818

Nextdoor.com for Downtown Bethesda

I have just entered our neighborhood as "Downtown Bethesda" with nextdoor.com to facilitate flow of information about goods, services, and events nearby.  There will be a private section just for members of the City Homes HOA.  Please consider joining the website and adding your two cents. To join the blog, just click this link and follow the simple directions.  We currently need three more members for Downtown Bethesda to become active.

New English Conversation Groups at Language ETC in Georgetown this Summer

Language ETC, a highly rated nonprofit center for adult learners of English, has summer openings for people who enjoy learning and teaching!  LETC has just started a cooperative ESL program with the Georgetown Public Library, at 3620 R Street, NW.  According to yesterday's email to LETC volunteers, the new collaboration in Georgetown will begin with informal conversation groups rather than more structured, textbook-based classes. LETC is "seeking volunteers to lead from 10am-12pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, July 15-August 26. It’s a fun, informal way to stay involved and to meet new people."

All Language ETC teachers are volunteers.  LETC offers a variety of very low-priced services, classes and tutoring in English at all levels to adult speakers of other languages to habituate them to life in the United States.  For a more detailed account describing the experience of leading conversation groups, see my recent blog entry.

Batting .333 at Redwood, Bethesda, No Chops

I was looking forward to lunch with a friend Saturday.  It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the umbrella-shaded tables were inviting, but what followed was not good.  To start, the cold pea soup with crabmeat had a vinegary and indeterminate flavor, neither pea nor crab.  My chopped salad was DIY, under an unappealing and undercooked slab of chicken breast.  Feh.  Responsible for the 333 rating, my friend's tuna niçoise however did look appealing.

A little summertime music in air-conditioned splendor at Clarice Smith Center, University of Maryland

Summer offers unusual opportunities to hear classical music at low prices -- or even for free. We are more than lucky that the US Service Bands give free concerts on the West Steps of the US Capitol on Thursday and Friday evenings, with the Smithsonian sponsoring additional jazz concerts at the National Sculpture Garden on Fridays.

Not feeling like traipsing downtown porting your cooler?  Based on my experience last night hearing young performers of The National Orchestra Institute under youngish Israeli conductor and brilliant pianist Ascher Fisch, a $20-ticket and the 20-minute drive to the University of Maryland  performs in a beautiful hall, with impeccable acoustics and welcoming lobby space, with free parking thrown in is comfortable bargain.  It was nifty to see a reduced orchestra accompany Fisch in Mozart's Piano Concerto # 17.  What a great exercise to perform nearly without a conductor, as Fisch bobbed his head with rhythmic intensity to the orchestra all the while making the piano warble gracefully.  And both the soloist and accompanists sparkled their way through the piece whose humor recall the contemporaneous Marriage of Figaro.

Mahler's "Tragic" 6th Symphony was another much more compendious story.  For over an hour the stage was filled to capacity with enormous choirs of brass, woodwinds, percussion, strings, percussion and even two harps, the last mostly for decoration.  Listening to this ungainly and disorganized work reminded me of being inside someone's stomach watching large mainly undigested familiar fragments trample by.  The performers of course were enthusiastic, as was the audience, for some of what we heard was familiar from John Williams' shameless borrowings for the score of the first Star Wars film.

Based on my enjoyment at seeing and hearing these future professionals from all over the world, many of whom, like the first violinist, have already reached the mark, I have no problem recommending the NOI's next program, Saturday, June 29, 2013. 8PM: 
Conductor Alan Pierson leads the National Festival Orchestra in a performance of:

• Maurice Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe, Suite No. 2

• Arnold Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9b (version for full orchestra)

• John Adams: Harmonielehre

This is your blog! Starting with Theater

Please join the Sherlock email list for updates and send me your notices, reviews, recommendations and requests to get our blog going.  Since the email list is incomplete, feel free to invite new people to join our blog.

Now, for something completely different, DC's somewhat edgy theater scene.  My favorite source for learning about what is going on in the greater DC area and then obtaining discount tickets to plays, concerts, and plain fun is Goldstar.  I have tickets for the matinees of Becky Shaw at the Roundhouse, Sunday, June 23, at 3 pm, and for Caesar and Dada, at the Hartke Theatre, Catholic University, 2 pm, Sunday, July 7.  Allyson Currin, the creator of Caesar claims that the idea of her play came to her in a dream.  Any takers?

This is the last weekend for Stupid Bird at the Woolly Mammoth, which Barbara McConagha and I were raving about at lunch.  The fabulous cast constantly breaks the fourth wall while re-hashing Hamlet, the Seagull, and 6 Characters in Search of an Author.  I grew so attached to the characters, especially Kimberly Gilbert as Mash singing her horrible poetry to her own ukelele accompaniment, that I cried when the stage went black at the end.