In a new paragraph, if not chapter, of my life, I am now working with a touring agency located in Sydney, Australia. They specialize in tours with intense cultural, historical, and scientific content. As you might guess, I’m excited!
A bit of back story. I was connected with this Australian company by a person some of you know from Unit 9 of our Discovering Music course—Tom Abbott, an American scholar long working in Berlin who stood with me in the freezing cold at the Goethe Park in Weimar and talked about Romanticism, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and the Sublime. It is one of my favorite sequences of the course, partly because of how cold the weather was when we filmed it.
Life is full of glorious circles, and this ongoing friendship with Abbott is one of them! I now find myself set to lead two art-intensive tours for them, the first starting in late May of 2025 that is chocked full of museums and top-notch performances of ballets, operas, and concerts in Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna. The second will be in 2026, when I, with my Australian travelers, will attend a full cycle of Wagner’s Ring in Berlin. All I can say is “Whoopee!”
The travelers and fans of this company apparently gobble up lectures. Consequently, Academy Travel engages their specialists to create talks on the most interesting topics, from art and architecture to sciences, history, and more (my favorite current example: “The History of Indigo”—how cool is that?).
Thus, I’ve created two talks for them so far, this being the second one. It’s available now on YouTube and I thought you might enjoy it.
Congratulations! Maybe one day we can join you for this exciting tour.
This sounds amazing! Congratulations! I’m so happy for you to get to do that!
Hello~ I am so glad to see another e-mail from y’all ~ I have missed the weekly posts! Hope y’all are enjoying some lovely spring weather (we’re having 40-50 mph winds today, but at least it’s sunny)… I’m going to finish the video above now (I’m always learning from y’all), but I decided to stop and comment before I got busy and forgot. ~ Kay
Dear Carol, I know no one who can better convey the riches of human cultural history. Your warmth, intelligence, humor, and ability to meaningfully connect the disparate elements of our shared heritage are unmatched in my direct experience. Academy Travel has been fortunate in building this relationship with you, but even more importantly, here’s hoping that the world of your lucky viewers and listeners expands exponentially. We need what you have to offer. Much love and congratulations, Jim and Randy Weiss
Thank you for the “sublime” video. The folks on your art-intensive tours are in for a splendid treat. Best wishes!
Very interesting. Thank you. Our community string orchestra played an arrangement of the 9th just last December. The first movement was the hardest ( and closest to the original…except only strings..) a few years ago we started reading a 500 page book about Wagner,but haven’t been able to finish it( yet..) I will look for Wagner’s book on Beethoven. Your presentation was very interesting and inspiring, Carol, thanks so much. Interesting about his relationship with Nietzsche. his reputation is” God is dead” so was their friendship before he believed that? How was Wagner’s relationship to God? I hope we can eventually finish his bio. I remember his difficult relationship with his wife,but also some of his plays so far and his political issues…