The latest robin's blog http://goldsby.de/robin/ Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:22:54 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=1 We're still settling down after a whirlwind tour of the USA this past summer. My husband, two children, and I traveled to New York City at the end of June, where I performed a reading and concert in t ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=2 For those of you who listened to my NPR Piano Jazz show this past week, thank you for your comments and letters! I recorded the show back on May 18, at Manhattan Beach Studios in New York City. As ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=18 A perfect summer in Manhattan slipped past me so quickly that my head is still spinning from all the fun. But now I’m back in Germany, back on Mom-patrol, back on the piano bench at the castle. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=16 I’m sad about James Brown. I’m even sadder that I couldn’t go to the funeral, which, according to my friend Carol Delgado, was the uptown event of the decade. Carol bought a new hat ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=15 Usually I don’t much care for February. The clouds are the color of a cement driveway and the wind hums an endless dirge of doom and gloom. It seems like spring will never arrive. But this ye ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=13 It has been a month of strange gigs, not just for me, but for everyone I know. Intrepid Piano Girl Emilee Floor played a Salt Lake City job that involved accompanying a German speed dating contest. Wh ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=12 Every April asparagus season begins in Germany. This event—trumpeted by the shouts of delight usually reserved for firework displays on the Rhine—marks the arrival of a two month national ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=19 Songs from the Castle has been pre-nominated for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. This first round of voting by NARAS members will determine the five finalists. If we manage to make that list, we'll hav ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=20 There's something about the New York City Marathon that makes me cry. I've always been emotionally susceptible to pageants and awkward displays of pride and strength—a high school marching band, ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=21 For someone who doesn't much care for contests, I seem to be involved in a lot of them lately. After a suggestion from industry professional Kevin Becketti, a lot of nudging from my loving and enthusi ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=23 MAGNOLIA A light wind gusts through the bank of magnolia trees on the edge of the castle park, and the ripened blossoms, pale pink and white, swell with the weight of the breeze. Two children wander ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=24 "I would like to paint the way a bird sings." Claude Monet   In Giverny, France, in 1883, the artist Claude Monet dug a new pond and planted his water lilies. He waited six years, ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=25 The evening calls to me. I’ve put on my best black dress, spent twenty minutes on make-up, and blown every crinkle out of my longish hair. Jewelry or not? Not. It might get in the way. Level-two ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=26    Pittsburgh pianist William Chrystal died on Friday, August 29th. He was my teacher.     When I turned nine years old, my mother started driving me to Mr. Chrystal’s ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=27 I met Henry Steinway in 2005, shortly after my book was published. Betsy Hirsch (Steinway salesperson extraordinaire) had given him a copy of Piano Girl. As fate would have it, he was in his office th ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=28 RHYTHM: A Novel   Prologue I rock my spoon back and forth in time to the music and watch the ice cream slide around. It’s funny how the last little scoop always tastes the best&mdash ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=29 Happy New Year to all of you. Let's hope 2009 will be the year we begin to see real change in the way we treat the world. I'm still reeling from yesterday's inaugural hul-dula. What a great day for ou ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=30 Joe Bendel and Kathy Parsons filed beautiful reviews of my book RHYTHM this month. Both of them share my love for music, so it doesn't surprise me that they "got" the message of the book. Ch ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=31 Life from the Other Side of the Steinway It’s not always a Steinway. Sometimes it’s an ugly-looking, beautiful-sounding white Bösendorfer concert grand or a Yamaha conservatory gra ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=32 I just returned from Vilnius, Lithuania, where I performed for a conference of 250 American women, the American Ambassador to Lithuania, the Lithuanian Undersecretary of State, and a handful of other ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=33 The fish aren't jumpin' but the weather is high. It's hot here in Cologne Germany, but not nearly as hot as it is in Sicily, where my daughter is vacationing with her pal Ramona and Ramona's family. S ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=34 The Tattooed Bride  ©2009 Robin Meloy Goldsby   The rain stops. I jump out of my car and my feet skid in the mud. The hem of my raspberry-co ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=35 Life has little to do with music and art. But art and music have everything to do with life.   The dimples in a child's closed fist inspire a lullaby; the ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=36 On October 20 I  had the great pleasure of performing for the AWC Duesseldorf. It was an early (for me) show—10:00 AM—but all of us were awake enough to have a good time. Here is a lo ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=37   Sisters in life, sisters in death, that's what the movie trailer said. I was one of the seven lead actresses in the 1983 Film Venture ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=38 Some of you may be familiar with the choking priest story in Piano Girl. The chapter, called “Playback 1979,” recounts one of my gigs at the piano bar of the Redwood Motor Inn on Ba ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=39 Piano Girl: A Memoir Reprinted with the permission of Backbeat Books ©2005 Robin Meloy Goldsby The Almond Tree L’essential est invisible pour les yeux. (The essential is invisible ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=40 Valentine's Day Dinner at the castle was dreamy. Twenty-four people, twelve tables of two surrounding the grand, candles and roses and nice people listening and being romantic, and, well, it ga ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=41 I liked the Greek Guys. If you were one of the fifty billion people tuning into the Eurovision Song Contest, you know what I’m talking about. The Greek Guys wore tight white jump suits and da ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=43 Guilty as charged. I've received several complaints from readers (who knew there so many of you!) about my lack of recent blog activity. Corey Holter, if you're reading this, this one's ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=44 Piano Girl: A Review Peta Andersen reviews Piano Girl by Robin Goldsby © 2010 Santa Fe Writers Project Although I’m not generally a non-fiction reader, Robin Meloy Goldsby&r ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=46 Quick fashion report from Schloss Lerbach, where I play the piano: Saturday's bride was just about perfect. She was in her fifties and wore a strapless sparkling white and silver chiffon creati ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=47 Wishing all of you a very happy holiday. Peace, light, family time, and excellent wine.  At the Goldsby homestead I'm snowed in for the weekend with the kids. I had to cancel my piano ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=48 Yesterday: Played two gigs at the castle, each of them two hours long, one at lunch, the other at cocktail hour. The lunch gig featured very cute dancing children and several very elderly folks who ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=49  I have a long history of New Year's Eve jobs. For seven years I had to fight my way through the Times Square crowds to get home from the Marriott. I always got out of there at 9 or 10, wh ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=50 Exciting times here at the Goldsby home. As many of you know, I’ve been working hard on my next book, Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl. The English lang ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=51 So listen, my husband is playing in a, uh, bordello this Wednesday. Need I be concerned? This place, a well known, and completely legal cathouse called Pascha, is presenting a cultural program, hop ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=52 Ho-Haus Concert Report: Just to refresh your memories, I attended (last week) my husband's jazz concert at a bordello in Cologne that has recently instituted an ARTS PROGRAM. Not that any ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=53 Saturday, the 16th of April , 2011, was a fine day to be married. I played for two weddings and they were both quite lovely. The first, a civil ceremony in the official wedding room of a nearby cas ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=54 This is an article I wrote about the week I recently spent in Marrakech, Morocco, taking part in the annual FAWCO conference. FAWCO is the Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas, and is ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=55 The Toe:  I broke it going up the steps in the lobby of IKEA. It was two weeks before my book launch and Day One of my fitness program and I was determined to take the steps instead of the e ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=56 Humorous and poignant look at life and music, April 28, 2011 Monica J. Kern (Lexington, KY United States) – The theme of this book can be captured in one of the many beautiful lin ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=57 Many thanks to Nancy Williams for this lovely review of Piano Girl. If you're an adult piano student you might want to check out her website: www.nancywilliams.com   Summer Read ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=58 This is from the summer issue of International Piano, the issue with Lang Lang on the cover. Many thanks to reviewer Jessica Duchen for her lovely writing—  International Piano ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=59   Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl Robin Meloy Goldsby. Bass Lion Publishing, $14 trade paper (278p) ISBN 978-1-4564-7754-7 Goldsby's wi ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=60 Jim Fariss and his wife Sandy (they are two of the American members of the  Piano World Forum members who visited Germany along with Frank Baxter back in June) showed up at Schlosshotel Lerbac ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.goldsby.de/robin/news_details.php?item_id=61 Big scare here. The day started innocently enough—with a Saturday morning sleepy ride to the stable where my daughter, Julia, rides. If you’ve read any of my books you know that horses ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0100