Hi all,
So people have started asking questions. (Yes, the idea that some people will miss me onstage does give me a warm feeling.) So let me take a few minutes to clarify why this year’s Pennsic concert (War Tuesday, 9-10 pm, Performing Arts tent in Pennsic U) is subtitled “Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow”.
First off, let me be clear. I am not abandoning the bardic arts, the Society for Creative Anachronism, or this mortal coil. If you were worried, that’s not what this is about.
I have loved doing a concert set at Pennsic. It has bounced around the War Week schedule year to year, but an hour of singing my songs and collaborating with some of my favorite performer friends has been such an amazing outlet. (Between that and recording my music, I’ve also become much easier to tolerate at events because I don’t have to fight the constant itch to ask if people want to hear me to perform, because I know the itch will be scratched.) Achievement unlocked.
As it is, I always saw this as an endeavor with an expiration date that wasn’t all that far off. For life reasons, I was in my early forties by the time I finally stepped into serious bardic and regular SCA involvement (for some value of “regular”). That was about 13 years ago.
I’m now 56. (I know. It’s the hair. And thank you.) The pandemic cost us two Pennsics, and fear about Covid risk meant I left the first Pennsic back at the end of Peace Week and didn’t do a concert. As it is, my wife caught Covid just as we were leaving Pennsic last year. (How I remain a Novid is still a mystery. I guess the Faerie Queen’s enchantment is still upon me.)
I am not a touring musician. As I’ve posted a number of times recently, I’m a dabbler with delusions of grandeur and a perfectionist streak. The annual concert has become a growing challenge. I have to put a lot of energy into readying my set list, and for every guest performer I add to a concert, the amount of prep work goes up significantly, and that has to happen at Pennsic during Peace Week.
And Pennsic and our relationship to it have been changing, as happens to so many aging Scadians. Pennsic gets hotter and hotter year over year, like the planet around it. As much as we love connecting with people we don’t get to see much (or at all) outside it, the heat and the Covid risk have made it a greater source of anxiety that threatens to outweigh the joy. Our son stopped going a couple years ago.
My commitment to do a concert each year, in the interest of connecting with and bringing enjoyment to an audience I adore, has started to feel a little like “hostage bardic”. For us.
Last year I came to a decision. I knew that I’d be releasing Hold the Door Open in 2025 in time for Pennsic [EDIT: apparently some people missed my announcements, it is out now for streaming and/or purchase, check the above link], and for a musician to release an album and not give a concert to share and celebrate it felt like malpractice. So, I would do two more Pennsic concerts, and then step down from that commitment.
People have said to me how much they hated missing my concerts on years they weren’t at Pennsic or able to attend. I felt I owed them the courtesy of an announcement about this decision, so they would know: their opportunity to see my Pennsic concert was now limited to these last two. (If that happened to goose attendance a little, well…I guess I’d find a way to cope.)
Last year’s concert, when I got one final chance to open for Marian or Heatherdale, was an absolute delight, and a memory I will cherish forever.
This year, I finally get a 9-10 pm slot. Performing after dark at Pennsic is prime time. As with last year, I’m going to keep this one stripped down and straightforward. It’ll be me, you, and my voice. (I would love to do a lute piece, but I haven’t had the motivation to keep that skill up at the level it requires since the pandemic, and as a result my performance anxiety about playing in front of a crowd has returned. I did record myself playing two lute pieces for the album, but I’m gonna have to see, after this war is over, what it will take to get me back into playing again, if I have it in me.)
So that’s it. This is about freeing up flexibility about future Pennsics (whether, and for how long, to go), and recognizing that I have other competing interests that have waited long enough to get priority, such as my men’s work (I just became a Leader in Training in the Mankind Project, and promoting healthy masculinity is more important to me, and I think the world, than it has ever been).
Hope to see you at Pennsic. Hope to see you at the concert. Regardless, I look forward to the next time our paths cross.
Drake Oranwood 