Time to tend the garden and try to make some sense of life

By Peter Alexander July 30 at 12 noon

I am writing this post to let you know that at the end of the summer I will give up my work on Sharpsandflatirons.com. My reviews of the 2025 summer season at the Santa Fe Opera are the last posts I plan to make. That is a suitable place to end, since I first attended the Santa Fe Opera in the original opera house nearly 60 years ago, while I was still an undergraduate music student. Santa Fe has remained a favorite location for experiencing, and learning, great opera for all of those years. 

Fourteen years ago I took up work as a music journalist covering classical music in “Boulder & Environs” as a way of making productive use of the extraordinary education I was fortunate enough to receive. It was also a way of giving back to the greater world of music in a small way, on the fringes of our shared musical life.

As the proprietor of the site, I got to define the environs, which certainly include Santa Fe, since it is within a one-day drive of Boulder—and the food in Santa Fe is fabulous. When there were Boulder connections, I have also reviewed operas in Minneapolis and Seattle—just coincidentally, the cities where my two oldest sons live. 

I will maintain the site for now, only adding a post if I discover something really important to report: a news event in the local music world, or an issue I feel compelled to comment on. But I don’t think that is very likely, so don’t wait for me, or for Godot.

I have enjoyed getting to know all the musicians in the Boulder area, working with all of them, and bringing their activities to the attention of potential audiences. But I am now 80, and it is better to step back while I am still doing good work, rather than letting it decline. Besides, there are so many great British TV shows still to watch, great Russian novels to read, obscure operas to track down and see, and work to be done tending my back yard and making my garden grow. 

If you see me in the lobby, say “Hi.”

And let us try,
Before we die,
To make some sense of life.
We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We’ll do the best we know.
We’ll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow…
And make our garden grow.

—Richard Wilbur
(From Candide)