So I was in Nashville not too long ago, and before meeting our parents for dinner, my brother Dave suggested we stop by McKay Used Books. After rooting around the DVD section I had a prize find: an un-authorized tell-all of the real story behind American Idol. Score!  50 cents and it was mine.

But not so fast…since dad didn’t pick up the first time Dave called to confirm 6:30 pm instead of 7:00 pm, Dave suggested we take another 15 minutes to look around.

Dave: “Have you checked out the musical instruments section?”

Stephan: “There’s a musical instruments section?”

Dave: “They don’t usually have a lot of instruments, but it’s fun to look.”

So I looked–and I was shocked to find a cello-shaped viola case identical to the red one I use to carry A Roadkill Opera sheet music and gear for playing the opera at exhibits. Except this one was gray.

Since I was exhibiting at the Gaithersburg Book Festival in about a week, I thought the case would be perfect for my table.

Just one problem–the case had a viola in it. What should I do with it? Was it worth anything? I wanted to know. Fortunately, I knew a guy: Mike. Like me,  Mike has a day job, and he also has a passion for  bluegrass music. But Mike is not like me in respect to this: he’s got chops, and plays guitar, mandolin, and fiddle, among other things. And though he lives in West Virginia, Mike was in Nashville that day and agreed to take a look at my mystery viola.

Mike concluded that the viola was in pretty good shape and had a good tone. He also noticed that the back of the instrument had been marked with a permanent marker.

Once home in Maryland, I looked on the internet and found Charlie Daniels has a signature that looks similar. Since Mike said it was a decent instrument and maybe it had been signed by Charlie Daniels, I figured it would make sense to ask the pros from Dover–that is, Jen and Alicia, the master luthiers at Lashof Violins.  When they agreed to take a look at it, they said to leave it for a week, and they placed the instrument in one of their humidy-controlled cases.

That would allow me to use the gray cello-shaped fiberglass viola case for a tabletop display and the red cello-shaped fiberglass viola case for more visual impact in front of my table. The red really pops in the sun!

When I came back to Lashof Violins to see what they had found out, there were some real surprises…which I will reveal in my next post.

Coming to the 2014 Gaithersburg Book Festival (http://gaithersburgbookfestival.org) on May 17? Some of the most frequently asked questions last year were:

When will the studio album be available?

The studio recording of A Roadkill Opera was released on July 4, 2013, on Amazon.com and subsequently on  CD Baby, AmazonMP3, and iTunes. It is now available worldwide on nearly all platforms. This comic opera with music in the style of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is recommended for fans of PDQ Bach, Tom Lehrer, and The Rutles–but only if you like classical music with infectious hooks.

How hard it is to sing or play the parts in A Roadkill Opera?

Most parts are suitable for college level. The vocal parts are described below in order of appearance in the score.

If you are a soprano in the market for opera audition pieces, you will be pleasantly surprised to hear the lovely arias composed by Ferdinando Paer. He intended them to be sung by his soprano wife in public concerts and by the Austro-Hungarian Empress Marie Therese in her private concerts.

Holly: Needs to be able to sing a high E flat. Slightly less difficult than Debby, but still requires a legit soprano.

Debby: Virtuoso soprano. Runs galore.

Stephan: Higher end of the baritone range. Needs to have glorious high Fs.

Eddie: Pretty straight-forward baritone role.

Dave: Tenor, needs a high B flat. Not too difficult a role, but needs breath control.

Violin 1: Virtuoso part.

Cello: One very difficult number, but the rest straight-forward.

Bass: All notes are within the playing range of cello.

As to Harrison Ford, you can read all about him  at http://gaithersburgbookfestival.org/exhibiting-author-stephan-alexander-parker-roadkill-opera/. 

Speaking of the Gaithersburg Book Festival, the official bookseller Politics & Prose is now showing If You See Roadkill, Think Opera for sale on their website.