rare air...

...bookclub buddy R records audio books for the Blind Association and her monitor/producer E not only has a fine ear for language she has a very, very beautiful voice.
Once a year or so, E and hubby N host a soirée and this year R invited me along.

E was a soprano with the Rotterdam Opera and N not only is a classically trained clarinetist, he's a jazz musician. He played with the likes of Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald and at the tender age of 14 had a jazz combo!
(He told me a story of how during the day the combo's drummer was his form teacher at school and in the evening, roles were reversed on stage with N as band leader.)

A smorgasbord of Berlioz, Offenbach, Schubert, Mozart and Dvořák spiced up with Loewe and Lerner and Duke Ellington...and all this tucked away in a music studio in suburban Lesmurdie.
Such a treat.

I would love to have taken a photo of E and N in full swing but it just didn't seem appropriate at the time. Perhaps next year.
So I snaffled a suitably themed napkin which accompanied  very fine soirée nibbles.