The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Scott Elliff, Michael Slon & Christine Fairfield, And Matthias John Were Live On "Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Scott Elliff of DuCard Vineyards, Michael Slon & Christine Fairfield of The Oratorio Society of Virginia, and Matthias John of Matthias John Realty joined Michael Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Charlottesville Opera and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Music Good morning everyone and welcome to Today Manana. I'm Michael joined by Xavier. We got a great show lined up for you today. We're going to be joined shortly by, we're going to be joined shortly with Scott Elof from Ducard Vineyards and then after that we've got Michael Slahn and Christine Fairfield coming on to talk about Box Mass and B Minor. And then last but certainly not least, we've got Matisse Young from Matisse Young Realty coming on.

So we got... Like I said, yeah, we got a packed house today, which is wonderful. It's funny, when you said good morning, it came to my mind, you said good morning with like the enthusiasm. Remember that movie Good Morning Vietnam with Robin Williams? Yeah. Good morning. Yeah, we can't do a show like that.

I don't think. Well, you can say good morning. Why not? Yeah, but the rest of the show, we can say, we can do that part. It's just everything that follows after that. No, part, no, no. Yeah, we're not that good. Right.

But I don't think we could pull it off. We'll just look, you know, we never tried. Our next guest is going to be bringing wine, so we never know. We never know. After about 15 minutes, we might be dancing in the table. Exactly. How are you doing this morning, James? I'm doing fantastic.

I'm doing great. Yeah. As you know, you know, warm weather just get this blood flowing, right? I mean, in the cold weather, the blood just doesn't flow as well. Warm weather, boom. And it just gets me going. This guy really warm. I mean, it's cold weather, the blood just doesn't flow as well. In warm weather, boom. And it just gets me going. This guy really warm. I mean, it's like summer out there.

I remember going to bed at night and I'm sweating lately because it's like, woof. It's been pretty hot. Yeah, it's been hot. You know, it's been a jump. But then I think we're supposed to cool off after that. It's almost time. When are you going to start planting your plants? Mid-May.

Mid-May, that's when everything, not everything, but early May I'm going to put some of the beans in there. They go into the ground, plant ground. And then after mid-May, late May is when you put all the seedlings, all the other ones. And because you get one bad night, and they can die so quickly. It's like, I've done that been day before.

We should put a little countdown tick on the Today Mario website. Like countdown tick, David plants, plants is like 15 days and 14. Sure, so many people are really interested. Exactly. When is he putting that? Right. Keep him on there.

Tell him it's home. Is it yet? Is it yet? Three days. No wonder he's not at work today. He's planting. That's right. I don't know about you, but I think we should.

Oh, no, we should. We should. Like I said, we've got a full house, and we've got to get everybody in. And I'm standing at this wine over here. And I want to know more about it. Scott already poured some wine, and I know he's got some things to share.

I mean, we had him on, what's it, about three years ago, I think, maybe? It's been longer than I thought, actually. But we learned a lot last time, and I I'm sure you're gonna tell us what's new Yeah, so welcome Scott a lot from owner of two car vineyards. Thank you for joining. Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks No, thank you. So what's new? What's new? I was thinking about that driving driving down. I mean two answers one Everything is new because it's a new year, new challenges, new who knows what.

We've already been through the ringer a couple of times with early spring. We don't have the luxury of you to wait to plant until after the frost free day. We've got vines in the ground. We've already suffered a frost event, actually, which is pretty scary. I don't know whether the producer was able to get that picture on, but did you? Were you able to? Yeah, so there's a great picture. You see it on Facebook and we put out candles, industrial candles in the rose to heat up the air a little bit. A couple degrees makes a big difference. And so posted a shot from four in the morning of all these

candles in the vines, you know four in the morning of all these candles and the vines, you know, and the comments are all... And exactly where is your vineyard? Yeah, up in Madison County. Yeah, we have three actually, three vineyards up there. And the comments on the Facebook are, oh, it's so romantic, so beautiful. I got news for you. Four in the morning when you're putting stuff out all over the vineyard just to try to save your crop. Ain't so romantic.

But welcome to springtime. So everything is new, but nothing is new, because it's a cyclical seasonal business. We'd sort of go with the rhythms of the season, and that's what happens in the wintertime and in the spring. And then we come on to summer and fall and great events and everything. But I would say probably spring is your most dangerous time, would you say?

Because everything is once they start blooming, if you get that frost that's what you're going to do. Yeah, you lose those buds and you don't get any production that year. The irony is you have to continue to operate and keep the vines healthy, even though you know you're not going to get any crops. So that's not so fun. But every part of the season has its challenges and its rewards. We've got a lot of great stuff going on. Well the rewards are in front of us. Yeah, yeah.

What exactly is this in front of us? Well that's one of the things that we're really proud of is we've been getting a lot of awards recently. So I brought two super award-winning wines. This is a Vignes Chardonnay blend. Let's try it actually. It was what's known as a double gold medal wine in San Francisco. We enter a couple of these competitions around the country and I like to enter San Francisco because you're kind

of in the belly of the beast because that's where all the wineries are, the California wineries and everything. And this got what's known as a double gold, which means. Wow, that's very good. That's very good. Yeah, very good. Which means that all the judges gave it a gold medal score. Normally, gold medal, it's a little bit of like, if you think like the Olympic, Simone Biles, she gets nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, eight, and seven

from the Russian judge, right? But it still averages out to a gold. Double gold means everybody gave it nine.9, something like that. And so there were 5,000 wines in this contest. And 25 of them got double golds. And we were one of them. So that was pretty cool. That is very good.

It's got a little sweetness to it, but not overpoweringly so. And I'm a Chardonnay fan, so you could just taste it a little bit there, right? Yeah. But it's true, it goes down nice and smooth. I like it. Very good. Yeah. So that's fun.

And well, after- Is that last year, so this year? This is the 22, actually. Yeah, we obviously came to this year. But we still haven't made enough. No, it's a one-year delay, at least, for whites, and a two-year or more for reds. And we'll get to award-winning red after we cover some other stuff, I guess.

So, anyway. But I remember last time you mentioned, I mean, that is one of your kind of better wines, better-leading wines, right, in the sense of that's something that you always have had good fortunes with. Yeah, we have. Uh-huh. And we're fine. It's interesting. We are, this is the 25th

year of planting the vines. This is our silver jubilee, if we can get the queen to come out or something. But it's interesting because, and there's a lot of talk about this in the industry, older vines are good if you can get them to, you know, our industry is really, really young, but you know, older vines have more character, they provide potential for really exceptional fruit if they're managed well and so forth. And what we're finding is you know we've got gold medals on all the different blocks of our 25 year old vineyard now that I've kind of added it all up. So that is sort of coming true. So we're going to highlight that all season I think the 25th year.

That's fantastic. Now that's how you guys have done so you've been in business for how much now? Yeah planted in 2001 but the tasting room and the public operation opened in 2010. Okay. So we're 15 years in that way and we've expanded the tasting room three times and expanded the winery three times and now we have three different vineyards around the the county so we're we're spinning slowly out of control I guess but that's good though in a fun way yeah yeah so do you ever are you able to expand the vineyard itself or have you kind of compacted well the area the area is almost you know capacity constrained I'm always looking to buy

more land or extend the boundaries with a neighbor we We expended a boundary with one of our neighbors. Probably cost me a bunch of dollars and wine to do that, but we put in two new acres of a grape that's kind of a hot new star in Virginia called Albariño. Albariño, okay. Yeah. And it's known because it comes from a little area in somewhere in Spain, Portugal area, but where it's known for hot, humid summers. Okay, well I think that's going to match our area. So a lot of us have come around to that.

Now of course you plant it, but you don't get any grapes until three years, harvestable grapes and really a full production until five or six years. So none of this stuff is immediate reward and it's, you know, lots of challenges along the way of course too. How do you state the core, Scott? Because that would be extremely challenging from my perspective of having to start a vineyard and plant the grapes. It's like I'm not really going to reap the benefits until five, six years. How do you kind of mentally stay into that? Yeah, you got to be ready for that from the get go. When I talk to people that are interested

in starting a vineyard and a winery and so forth, that's kind of the first thing. If you're looking for a quick, easy, I'm going to start up an internet business and it's going to scale and I'm going to be a billionaire right away. No, that doesn't work. So you've got to have a lot of patience. It's been good for me probably in terms of being more connected with the seasons and the timeline and all that kind of stuff. Maybe it's made me a little more humble or something, I don't know.

So yeah, you have to do that and then you're excited for the rewards when they come. The way I did it was I just built it as we went along. There are some of these new operations that are the billionaire guys and they're building a massive tasting room and buying grapes from somebody and contracting to have the wines made and stuff. We're just the opposite. We started small, grew our own grapes, made our wine on site, had a little tasting room, folding tables, that kind of thing. And then as it got successful, we've added more and

more assets to the business. And now we're sort of full scale. How many acres do you have? We've got 22 acres. So we harvest about 70 tons of grapes a year. Which by the way, you know, it's small even for Virginia. We're definitely in the boutique authentic sort of category. There are guys who are ten times bigger than us. But even all of us in Virginia are tiny compared to California. I mean if you go into the grocery store and there's some brand name that you know, you

know a lot of brand names people know and you pick those off because of the brand. There are probably quarter million, half a million cases, maybe more of an individual wine. This wine was 200 cases and the next one we had was 200 cases. So we're a two-minute supply and it's a different product because it's all done by hand and tender loving care and that sort of you know massive agriculture agriculture stuff so but to your credit you don't win gold medals by quantity you win it by quality yeah that's right that's right sometimes the more important thing especially you know here in Virginia you know you won't be looking for just I mean if you want cheap generic wine there's always gonna be thousand

California wines you could buy but if you're really quality wine yeah you put the effort like you have that's how you end up with this delicious wine. I'm glad you say that. I didn't even need to give you an index card note. No, you slipped the $10 bill before the show. Yeah, okay. No, thanks for that. So yeah. Yeah. So. But what else is new? We have we've got a lot of new events too. So we've got new wines, lots of awards, et cetera. But we're also doing some new fun stuff here. We've started doing wine education classes.

People want education, they want experience. And so we're doing several times a year where we have one of our expert staff people comes in and like in two weeks we're doing one that's rosés from around the world. Oh. Rosés from around the world. Rosés from five or six different grapes, from five or six different countries. There are three methods for making rosé. We sort of put them all out and explain the process and we sip them all. It's a compare and contrast kind of thing. You go away with a nice buzz

but also getting a general flavor for what's rosé and how is it made and what am I tasting and what's the differences and stuff like that so. Do you have classes for the process of how you make your wines there or not? Yeah we are there is a group through Piedmont Virginia Community College that has a whole set of programs and we participate in those for people who are new growers or we've learned from each other or whatever but we're pretty heads down in terms of making our own wines. So we don't really do that. We don't really have classes in that ourselves. Just not enough

time for it. And I also noticed on your website you also have like music events that you kind of have at your one place. Oh yeah, gosh, we... Musicians like to get paid with a check when they leave. They don't want to be billing or anything. So I write more checks to musicians than you write all year. Because we have music every Saturday all year round, Friday in the summer times, and a lot of Sundays when we're not doing these other special events. So, you know, I'm ordering paper checks from Fidelity and they're wondering who is this guy. Nobody these paper checks. So we've become sort of a music company. It's almost all Charlottesville singer-songwriters,

local guys and stuff. It's really fun to support that. Has the Friday Summer Series started yet? Just now. Just now. Got it. OK. Yeah.

And second Saturdays, we stay open late for music as well, so people come out for that. Oh, that's fantastic. Friday night, stay open late now that it's in season. And beautiful to hang out in late afternoon, sunset watch and that kind of thing. So we board of the Shenandoah National Park and the little stream runs through the property and the whole thing it's like quainter than it can possibly be. So it's a nice place to get away. It's a little bit out of town but you know I think it's worth it. We're also doing some interesting

event coming up that's for a fundraiser actually for the Friends of Rappahannock, which is one of the great environmental groups around that works on the Rappahannock River. If you drive around and you see all those places where people have planted trees on their property, trees with those little green tree shelters, that's pretty much them because that's great for the environment, it's great for the watershed and everything. They're getting hit with all these funding cuts cuts so they're in a tough way. And so we're gonna do a fundraiser specifically for them.

Later, end of May actually, it's on the website and everything. It's a ticketed and all the proceeds go to as a fundraiser for them. We've got Sentimental Journey as the band that day. A lot of people listening to this will know them. That's a 17- piece brass band and they play They play, you know Sinatra and Jimmy Dorsey and you know all that kind of stuff It's really gonna be a great sound all throughout So it's a it's a day long afternoon long kind of events

So so we try to give back that way that way too. So that's fantastic. That's wonderful That's wonderful. How many different kinds of wines do you grow? Well we've got eight different varieties and it turns into probably 15 different wines or so. A little something for everybody, you know. And everybody says what's your favorite? Well it's kind of all my children. So it's all of them.

Actually if you're drinking up here, we'll try the second one too. Sure. And this one is a Cabernet Franc reserve. Cab Franc is a really important grape for Virginia. It matches our climate really well, and I think we're really getting known for that, even nationally, actually, as good producers of Cab Franc. So this one, we have a great contest, actually, a very tough competition in Virginia, very rigorous in everything, called the Governor's Cup, and the award gold medals, etc. But then the top lines, the top of the top lines are in the Governor's case, which is the top 12 wines in Virginia. And this is one of them. So out of 700 wines, we're one in the top 12. So it's kind of summa cum laude, just

like you guys in school, right? So we're really happy on that. I wouldn't know what that means. Yeah, drink it anyway. So yeah. So. And you're going to find it's fairly intense and flavorful. And that's what we're looking for in red in particular. And it's too heavy for some people, but it's got to go with the right foods and stuff. That's my kind of wine. Yeah, there you go. And there's something for everybody.

Robasta boiled wine. Nice steak with this. This is great. Yeah, beautiful with a steak or something. But it's kind of counterintuitive because the best years for us are years where there's no rain at all. We want hot and dry. We're like the only agriculture guys, you know. The wheat guys are hating it when there's a drought.

We just sort of keep our heads down because it's great for us. It makes the grape roots go deeper, more intensity in small berries and that type of thing. So, a lot of things you have to live, not just that it's a long timeline, but, you know, this is a very different kind of agriculture. Every year is different. Every year is different. Yeah. Yeah.

So, and you can have two or three good years and then a year where you, you know, you barely make it through. So, it's not a just-in-time business where there's no inventory either. So, you know, you're holding your wine and letting it age. How have the past three years been for you? So 2024 was, well 2023 was great. Probably the best year ever. And that in 2010. And we remember it fondly. We remember every year, basically. And then 2024 had the promise

of the same and then we got some late rain. So we kind of cleared the deal. Yeah 2022 was okay. 2021 was really good. So we're on we're all pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah We do not want to talk about 2020 or 2018. Okay, so It's one year where we didn't make any reds. They just didn't get ripe enough. So I'm not gonna put out a product That's not good. So we we actually use it all for rosé and rosé is a very underappreciated grape, and it was beautiful for wine. It was beautiful for that. I was going to ask you that because you know you're having that rosé kind of you know taste. It's one of your wines, the rosé also. Do you grow it? Do you have a rosé every

year? Yeah, yeah we do a rosé every year, yeah. And we release it, we're releasing it this week actually so it's kind of fun. And then next week we're releasing two wines that are fundraisers for the Shenandoah National Park. We border it, so yeah, so there's a white, kind of a sweet white called Shenandoah, ironically, with a picture, a drawing of White Oak Canyon on the front. And there's a companion red that's black bear, which is the apex predator, of course, out here.

And so that's sort of a matched pair. And we work with the Shenandoah National Park Trust and donate proceeds to them and do special events with them and that kind of thing. So you know, part of doing business in my opinion. Yeah, of course. This is kind of a, I'm not supposed to say it, but it's a hobby going wild, I guess. You know, it wasn't really my business. We're just trying to have a good time

and learn something as a late adult and so forth and have fun with it. So donating proceeds is a good thing to do. Is it possible, like during a particular year, is it possible that the white wine has a better year than the red wine? Yeah. And we have three different vineyards.

And they're all five or 10 miles apart. But the terroir, that's the French word for it, is different in each case. The soil, the amount of rain, the sun angle, all that stuff. So we can have the same grape on two or three different sites, and it will perform completely differently in the same year. So part of the art of it is to figure out what grapes, what lots blend together, how to showcase the best of what nature gives you and everything, as opposed to just piling it all together into one thing. We don't do that. That keeps you on your toes at least. And then you've got all the macro trends where every other day there's a report coming

out that wine is bad for you. I only read the article that says wine is good for you. Funny thing, three days later a new study comes out that says wine is good for you. There's some big California winery that's fun to net stuff I suspect. I remember when I was growing up, my early early, my early 20s, they said that olive oil was terrible for you, right? And now it's like olive oil is like, that's the best thing for you. Is that right?

They said it was bad back then? Yeah. It's like back then, it's like, oh, it's no good, cholesterol, this and that. I remember they tried to get rid of butter too. Yeah, butter's no good, cholesterol. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah.

So, yeah. I don't pay attention to that. I just look at Europe and say, wait a minute, Europe said, since the Roman times, I mean before that, they had red wine. It's got to be good for you. Oh, and they, yeah, the French paradox, they talk about how they eat all those rich foods and their lifespan is really long. So drink up, you'll be okay. That's the way I look at it.

You eat all this fatty food, you just need red wine. Exactly. Get it right out of your system, no problem. And enjoy the ride, a lot of ways. And when it's good like this, it's even better because you have two glasses. That's what happens out at our place. We're definitely at the end of the road. We call it a psychological and winological getaway from the real world.

You're off the grid, you're looking at the mountains in the stream, you're sipping some wine. It's dog friendly, family friendly, picnic friendly, friendly, friendly, whatever. So it's a kind of a respite for the real world and having some nice wine is a good way to go. So that's fine. We don't care about those studies too much. The wine industry is down generally, nationally quite a bit actually. Really? Yeah, and in Virginia too. Well, I think young people are drinking whatever the stuff is they're drinking. Oh yeah, there are too. Really? Yeah, and in Virginia too. Well, I think it's young people are drinking whatever the stuff is they're drinking. Oh, yeah, there are some, like white claws and stuff.

Yeah, stuff like that. Can cocktails and stuff. That doesn't really matter too much to us, because it's not really our market. The market for us is people that get to be of a certain age, and they appreciate experience, and they want quality. We do very kind of a personalized service. Our wines delivered to you in flights in crystal glassware at your table by an experienced person. You know it's not

just a fast food assembly line drive-through or something like that. So we wait until those 20-somethings become 40-somethings and they and then they begin to appreciate a little money. They appreciate it. They want good stuff and they got a little money, they appreciate it, they want good stuff and they appreciate experiences as opposed to. Yeah. I think people in the younger ages just, they drink that so because they want to get drunk fast.

Let's be real. If you want to get drunk fast, your first choice is not going to be water. I went to college too. So, yeah. So Scott, before we let you go, where can people find you? What's the physical location? Thanks. Yeah, well it's DucardVineyards.com and we're on social media, etc. as well.

And you just go up, if you're a Charlottesville-based, most of the readership listeners probably are, you just go up 29 to the town of Madison, turn left and continue on the signs. You can GPS-able too. And when the road ends, basically that's about where we are. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah, so we're open every day, noon to five, noon to six now on the weekends and some nights until Saturday nights until nine occasionally. So no reservations. You can make a reservation, but you don't have to. And we're a chill kind of place. So we'd love to have anybody that wants to come out.

Absolutely. Try these wines. And take your blood pressure down and chill out at our place. So I love doing this with you guys. Thank you. Thank you so much, Scott, for sharing the delicious wine. You're finishing your glasses pretty darn quick. OK.

Yeah, that was good. Yeah, that was delicious. All right. Those are great wines. Congratulations. Good. Thank you, guys. Our pleasure. Thank you guys. Our pleasure.

Thank you so much, Scott. So as we kind of rotate guests now, that's incredible. We always love when we get to have vineyard people and Scott do cards. Was it one gold medal and the other one was a governor's? Governor's Cup. Governor's case and a double gold medal. So say that three times a double gold medal. So say that three times. Double gold medal. You could have before I drank it. I'm testing you. Good stuff. Thanks, guys.

Thank you, Scott. Appreciate it. Xavier and I are wine people. Definitely. It's my favorite thing to do right after a long day is go home, have a wonderful meal, and my two glasses of wine. Yeah, hopefully Scott didn't pour too, too much for you because then you'll fall asleep like you do every night. That's different. That's because I've been working all day.

Yeah. This is the morning. I mean, you know, I don't do that in the morning. I know, I know. I know. It's now, it's always great having fantastic guests. And now we're transitioned to two other fantastic guests. That's right.

We're a little Bach information. I know, a little Bach. Michael's got this Bach book. He's got to read the whole book during his next 20 minutes. Exactly, he's got to catch up on the homework. But we're very happy to be joined now by, with Michael Slahn and Christine Fairfield from the Oratorio Society. Michael, Christine, thank you so much for joining us.

It's been a long time since I've been able to attend when you come. I've always been busy. Is that right? I am so happy that I'm finally here. Michael's always complaining, like, where's Xavier? I don't want this other Michael here. I want Xavier. I didn't want this other Michael here. I want Xavier.

I didn't say that. But we're always happy to have you. Thank you. We're always happy to have you too. We're always glad to come. So I know, I might as well jump right into it. I know you guys got a big event. It was on May 11th. Yes. Box Mass and Bebop.

It is. You can treat all your moms. You can take them to brunch and then bring them to our concert at 330 Old Cabell Hall. And if they're far away, you can get them to live stream. Because it's going to be live streamed as well. Live streamed? Wow. Is that something new? We've done that a while. We've been doing it since the pandemic. Basically. The Christmas concert and the May concert,

we've now been pretty much every year for the last three years, offering a live stream as well. Is it the entire Bach mass? It is. The first time, actually it's the only time that I saw this live, Carnegie Hall. I was just there on Saturday. Right? You might go on to share a story about Carnegie Hall.

So you had a perfect transition. Did you know that was a good transition? Yeah, I had no idea. I just remember. Well, before we talk about Bach, which I should just say to your listeners, if they don't know the B Minor Mass, that's fine, but I will tell them that many people in our field agree that this is the greatest music ever written, the

B Minor Mass. And I agree with that. I think it's just extraordinary. Not just of Bach's output, which is prolific, but of classical music. Carl Zelter Golding, probably the greatest musical work of art the world has ever seen. Really? Yeah. I mean, I know I love it, but- You did Beethoven's Night has ever seen. Really? Yeah. I mean, I love it, but- You did Beethoven's night last year. That's amazing.

You did Beethoven's night last year. Beethoven himself might agree with us. It's true. Bach's last work name means brook, and Beethoven famously said, no, not a brook, an ocean, about Bach. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Wow. So, anyways, about Carnegie Hall, a beautiful place. So maybe you'll recall in 2018 we were celebrating our 50th anniversary with the Oratory Society. We commissioned a piece from the composer Adolphus Hellstork on a poem of Rita Dove's, right, our wonderful Pulitzer Prize-winning poet at UVA. The poem that I had suggested commissioning is the one they painted on the graduate hotel, right down on the corner here by UVA, a testimonial.

And it says, the world called, and I answered. And we commissioned that piece. We gave the world premiere in 2018. It was just done Saturday night at Carnegie Hall and I was there, Rita Dove was there, Hale Stork, we were all there. In fact, that was the first time that Hale Stork and Rita had had a chance to meet because I think she was in Europe when we gave the world premiere. So it's exciting. You create something here in Charlottesville and then the next thing you know there it is on stage at Carnegie Hall. Wow. Wow.

It went beautifully. That's amazing. It was nice. That's fantastic. Yeah. That is fantastic. So a little extra story about a few things for the Oratory Society that were happening. It was nice.

That's great. Wow. So tell us, I mean. Yeah. So I mean. Nick told me beforehand, he's a master piece. Oh, he's a master piece. Hold on. He's got a question. Let's ask Nick's question.

If I start asking a lot of questions and you don't ask Nick's question, I'm going to go back to the office and my head is going to be on a plow. Nick told me the question because it's very music oriented and Nick is very smart when it comes to music. I was just like, right there. He's very smart with music. That's a subjective opinion. Lay it on us.

You read it. Nick says box mass and B minor uses a lot of counterpoint and layered melodies. As a conductor, how do you handle voicing or box writing without the music either becoming muddled? Yeah, that is a great question. In fact, we were just talking about this the other night at rehearsal. So, right, just to explain to listeners a little lesson in kind of styles, right? So sometimes you could have something like melody and then harmony. And a lot of the songs that you would hear, you know, shorter pop songs and so on on the radio, that's the format, right? You have something that's melodic and then you have harmony as

a background to that. Or you could have something in choral music which we would call homophonic and it means everybody basically has the same rhythm and the same text at the same time. So it's very easy. Little more like a hymn. Four parts but straight up and down. Exactly right. Christine's exactly right. I think I have Christine here to explain. Yeah, she can translate. So counterpoint that your brother is referring to is something that really reached a height in the Renaissance, but Bach was very familiar with this and probably better than almost anyone at writing four or more independent voices.

So that's what we have in some places in the B minor mass, what we would call a contrapuntal texture, meaning rather than everybody at the same time, everybody has an individual line that interlock but all have their own horizontal logic. Okay. Different. Okay. So now the question is, how do you make that intelligible to a listener, right? If all of us talk at the same time, it's very hard for it to understand.

Right. But in music, that's the miracle of music. Four people can talk at the same time, and you can still understand it. And so the way that that would work is, in the voicing of it, we try to decide, OK, at this moment, this is the foreground of the painting, and all these other things are the background of the painting.

So it becomes clear to the listener. I'm making a visual analogy. And you have to voice it. Your brother uses the right word, vo listener. I'm making a visual analogy. And you have to voice it. Your brother uses the right word, voicing. It's like a pianist. You have four things going on, but I'm going to bring out this thing. So that idea we were talking about in that creative room, I listened to a bunch of recordings just because I was curious. And a lot of people just play all the parts. But there's a way, I think, and hopefully we'll achieve this with our singers in the Oratory Society,

is to voice it so that at this moment you hear the theme, then it passes to this part, then it passes to this part. Okay. And that theme, which is consistent in certain ways, is then very recognizable after the second or third part. It's unifying in the overall world. In the architecture. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So that's the answer to your brother's question. OK. So just to take a step back, so I think that's a beautiful thing about music in the sense that when you say four people are talking, just talking, right? Yeah.

It's very difficult to listen to all four at the same time, because you're trying to understand what they're saying. The difference is in the music, you don't have to, in other words, I'm not paying attention to the words, to be honest with you, all I'm paying attention is to the music, and how that music interlocks with each other or conforms whatever you guys term it out to you use. And that's the beauty of it, my ear is listening to that

and it's enjoying it, right? So that's the difference. I think it's just, to a certain respect, it's just a lot easier for the listener, right? I'm not saying it's easy for you, but easy for the listener when the full voices may be all different. But I don't care what they're saying,

it's just the music that I'm interested in. And there's two things. So one, the text will come through on that theme, right? But you're right. Xavier, and the beauty of harmony is that four things can happen and they make one whole. And in a lot of cases in this, it's five. And then some other times it's eight. He wrote this, and I'll talk about this in a minute. We can talk about why he ever wrote a piece that was so impractical, right? He was a practical church musician. He could have never performed this in his church. It was much too big and long. And he, in a sense, wrote it over 30 years and compiled it in the last few years of his life.

Wow. So Christine's right. There are many different orchestrations, and you go from four voices to five to six and even to eight in the one spot. And that's because it wasn't all written at one time. He was compiling from different eras of his life. I was singing, you know, we were on the wrong segment. We missed the wine. We didn't get any of the wine. But imagine, you know, when you taste the wine, you taste one at a time.

Imagine you could in a coherent, taste four wines at once. That's kind of what Bach is doing. And it's obviously, like that, it's of the highest quality and vintage. OK, so my question would be, because sometimes when I am, for example, I've seen when you kind of do choral work, sometimes you have the male voices singing, and then the female voices singing,

and they kind of play off each other. So when you sing, there's like five, eight different voices, are you talking about like male and female together or just kind of eight separate? No, like in the fugues, it's definitely where there are, there's an entrance for the first sopranos, then there's an entrance for the altos, then the second sopranos, then the basses,

then the tenors or some other combination. We're not all coming in at the same time and we have related but different lines. Which requires a lot of rehearsal time. Yes, it does. A lot of sight reading. How do you even blend that out as a singer or conductor? We rehearsed a lot. We practice a lot. This one has definitely required more practice by all of the singers on their own outside

of rehearsal time because so many of the, especially the pretty exposed lines where only one part is singing. If you're that one singer that doesn't quite have it nailed down, you got yourself a little solo. Imagine you're climbing up a mountain and it's wooded. So you're climbing and climbing, you can't see the view. This is what it's like a little bit working on the buck. You can see the beauty, but it's like those last two weeks of rehearsal, you start to

get near the top and the trees disappear and all of a sudden you can see the most extraordinary view you've ever seen and that's about hopefully where we're getting with the singers. You know people when this this piece was not performed for a hundred years after it was completed, partly the score just wasn't widely known and also people thought it was impossible and so it's amazing to think now that a high level community chorus can do the B minor mass. But it is a mountain climber, to Christine's point. So you're one of the people in the choir, right? Because I always felt that you are singing at a particular, I don't know what they call

it, but you're singing to a tune that's yours, right? But at the same time, everybody else is singing to a different tune. How hard is it for that singer to like, oh, something switched because he's being pulled or she's being pulled by something else? Does that happen? Is that hard? It is initially when we're reading it that definitely comes into play, but our singers are very strong at sight reading. And being independent singers. And a part of that skill of singing in an ensemble like this is being able to hear the

other parts and know how your line fits in with the harmonies that are crossing constantly and be able to keep yourself oriented to where you need to be. But in fact, there are some places where we are intentionally told by our maestro here to switch lines because he needs a certain line to come out more. So there are some places where some first sopranos might pop down to the second soprano line and vice versa. So it's an interesting question, right? And I think when you're a kid, like let's say you sing in high school choir, I think that's when you first encounter that experience. You're like, whoa, there's parts around me, and if I'm not careful, I'm going to gravitate to one of them.

But then you get used to that, what it's like to listen to other people and sing your own part. And there's a huge excitement in that, you discover when you're young. And you also develop that skill, where I can sing my part and listen a bit to others, but not suddenly sing their part instead. So by the time, hopefully, except maybe

of our few high school singers that we have in there who are good, by the time we get to Oratorio Society, they've gotten pretty good at that skill. It should be second nature. Yeah, I would think so. I just remember when you're a little kid, you sing, you know, Mary had a little land, somebody starts later, starts later, before you know it, it's like,

I'm singing somebody else's lines, like, oh like this thing so I didn't do my job so but I guess yeah I mean there's just a lot of training that goes on and so by the time they get to where you are when you ever hear a kind of an adult orchestra or chorus there's probably hundreds of years of experience, oh, and maybe thousands of study and practice represented on that stage at any moment. Yeah. Yeah. And as a conductor, how does,

because I know obviously when you're conducting, you sometimes, I think, give cues to people to kind of like, okay, this is your section. If there's so much switching, how often can you give the cues, like, okay, you're going, now you're going, is it constant or do you have to really hope that everyone remembers?

No, it's constant. It's constant, yeah. That's why as a conductor, you don't start with the B minor math. Okay. Okay. Okay. You should conduct for a lot of years before.

Well, and to be honest, also, I've been with the Oratory Society now almost 15 years. This is the first time I programmed the piece. I would not have, you know, you've got to make sure your choir is ready for it and you're ready for it and so on because it deserves a lot of respect and it's incredible music. And the choir is ready for it. It's going to be beautiful. Is the conductor ready for it?

Yes. I have one advantage. I should be more humble and say you're never really fully ready. You got to keep studying. I have conducted it before. I conducted it at University of Virginia with the UVA University Singers in 2010. And that was the first performance at UVA ever of the B minor mass. So I was very proud of that one. And we took it to Washington back then, so we did it twice. So, oratorios done it a couple times through their history. But before you.

All before my time, yeah. So this is the first time I've done it with this. This is my fourth time singing it. Oh wow. Yeah, so you can imagine for some of us, I've played continual organ on it once. I've sung it at least once. I've conducted at least once. So this is at least my fourth too. But for a lot of our singers, right, Christine?

For a lot of the singers, it's definitely the first time they've done it. Definitely the first time. And I'm thrilled about that, because they should have a chance in their life if they're good to experience this piece. And the great thing is then the audience doesn't have to have any training to experience

this incredible music. You just come and enjoy and it is... Speaking of the audience, the center orchestra sections are sold out. There are no seats left in the center. So just sides, loge, balcony. But there's still good seats, Christine. There's still lots of seats. There's still lots of seats, but just a testament to the popularity of this piece, that that already two weeks out, and there's just the... A lot of the prime seats have already been spoken for.

Although, and this is an old Cabell, right? Correct. And we go there all the time, and I'll be honest with you, to me, and you know, I don't have the best ears in the world, I'm gonna have to be honest with you, but I don't care where I sit, it just seems to me I enjoy it all the time. And there's something to be said about experiencing life, you know, a piece would be a symphony or an oratory or whatever, huge difference versus no matter how good that CD can be or comes through the other methods you get today,

nothing like it. Because you know you just, all of a sudden you're paying attention it's like, oh wait a minute, he's playing that and the sound is coming from there and the sound is coming from there and then when the drums go in some cases like you just hear, I mean it's just a whole different experience. 100%. There's no replacement for live. Exactly you're no matter how good your speakers are and it might be more perfect on a CD but it's not live it's there's no yeah the way the sound can surround you and you're right Xavier it's a beautiful hall to hear music and particularly for 850 seat hall. Absolutely.

Yeah. I remember last year when I wanted to go see Beethoven's night when all the voices are going, I mean, you could almost even feel your chair shaking just from the voices. It's incredible. It almost feels. Yeah, vibrations. Yeah. Of the universe.

There will be some moments like that. I bet. I have another question too. So there's an orchestral symbol as well. How do you balance? I have another question too. So there's an orchestral symbol as well. How do you balance? Because there's a lot of voices sometimes. How do you figure out how to try to make sure the instruments shine through and not get

overshadowed by the voices? Or is that the intention of the piece, the voices to overshadow the instruments? Well, okay. So in rehearsals, I've been blessed. I've conducted a lot of different choral orchestral works, but pretty much my favorite thing to do. Singing with orchestra is just about my favorite medium. And we'll have solos, five very talented solos coming from around the country for this as

well. Balance is always a challenge. But when you do bigger works, usually the orchestra is favored, it is winning the balance war, and you have to bring the orchestra down a little and let the chorus come through in terms of diction, because they're needing to express two languages, the text and the music. In this case, it should work pretty well, because the orchestra is a smaller size orchestra, more fitting for a Baroque piece. And the chorus is fairly large. We're almost too big to do this piece. We are. I mean, I think everybody should do

it. But it's a big choir. You could do this piece with 32 singers. So I think hopefully there actually won't be too many balance problems. And your point is good, Michael. We will have to make sure that certain orchestra lines shine through. Because for example, in some of those five-part coral fugues, it's actually not just a five-part fugue. There are more parts in the orchestra, those lines your brother was talking about, that you want to have come out of the texture. So we'll have to make sure they come out in the orchestra as well.

It's going to be a busy week next year. You have not too many, about 10 days left, right? Yeah. I assume this is gonna be a lot of practices. Correct. We have a few, yes. Correct. At least we have one pro here, right, that has done this before us for singing. Yeah, it's great to have people like Christine, who in a sense is a, you know, along with

a few others in She's a Soprano in the soprano section, are leaders in the section because they have strong voices, they have strong musical ability, and strong musical knowledge and experience. So that can help. And you know, we still have to become all on the same page as a team, so we have to be on the same page musically, but that helps a lot. Tremendous life.

And it's also, you were saying this about the Beethoven a minute ago, it was like a spiritual experience. I hope for our listeners that that part comes through too. I mean, they don't have to be believers of some kind, but I know you guys are spiritual folks, and Bach intended it that way. Like, you know, he wrote on the last page of every score, SDG, soli deo gloria, which means to the glory of God, and that was something he believed deeply. Yeah. So,

comes through in the beauty of the music, which will come through no matter what your beliefs are. It's extraordinary. Wow. Well, this is great. I mean, looking forward, I mean, unfortunately, we won't be here. Yeah, that's why I'm getting a little somber. Where are you going? We're already in New York that weekend.

Oh, bad timing. Maybe we can get you in a dresser or something. I don't want to. Three hours, we'll talk after the show. Maybe we can get you an address rehearsal. For our listeners who still want to buy tickets, where can they go? When is the show? Head to our website, www.oratoriosociety.org. Or arts box office with UVA. The tickets are being sold online yet this week because it's exams now for UVA. The box office phone line is offline, but the online is still online through Friday the 9th at 11 a.m. and then that will be closed as well and any remaining seats will be sold at the door. And the performance is?

May 11th. May 11th, Sunday, May 11th at 3.30 p.m. in Old Cabell Hall. Okay, wow. See, because take mom to brunch or dinner and this in the middle. In the middle. No, that's fantastic. Yeah, no, it's worthwhile. I mean, it is a beautiful piece. And this in the middle. In the middle. That's fantastic. Yeah. It's worthwhile.

I mean, it is a beautiful piece. I have to admit. I mean, it's a great memory that I have. That's great. You heard it in Carnegie. Who performed it when you were at Carnegie? I don't remember. OK.

Sorry. Well, at least you experienced it. I was just literally in just my first or second year in college. And I happened to see it. And I literally went by myself. I said, well, let me just go. And I went there.

And it's like, whoa, this is good. Exactly. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for having us back again. It's always a pleasure. The best to you both and good luck. I know it will be a success.

Thanks. Thanks as always. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. The best to you both and good luck. I know it will be a success. Thanks. Thank you so much. They really hyped that up, Michael and Christine. Especially I was like, Michael's like, it's one of the greatest works of Beethoven's Night. They did Beethoven's Night, he's like, no, no, no, it's better. Like, he did Beethoven's Night last year. You know, I went with, I think it was like Alex

or something like that, I was like, Beethoven's Night. He's like, no, it's better. I'm like, oh my goodness. I know, I know. But from one great guest now, we're joined by last but not least, our good friend, Matthias Young from Matthias Young Realty, Matthias. Sometimes they say he leaves the best for last.

I was the last, right? It doesn't always work that way. Only seven minutes left. No, we extend for you. I'm trying to put everything in the seven minutes. Very useful information. No small talk today. No, I'm kidding.

No, no. We extend the show. That's the nice thing about podcast, you go in the next five minutes, until Jerry just comes over here and just says, hey, you guys, you guys, you guys. Exactly, yeah. There we go.

Exactly. I know. No, I'm glad to be back. Always, always a pleasure. Always fun to have you, always fun to have you. And I was happy to see returning guests before me, Michael and Christine. You said it right.

I didn't say it right. But also someone new, at least to me. We had had Scott on maybe like two, three years ago. So you did already? Yeah. Yes. I mean, Xavier had done that show. So the first time I was meeting Scott. But OK. Yeah. I mean, Xavier had done that show, so the first time

I was being Scott. But yeah. You know, Xavier was like, have we had that? He goes, I think we had him like really early on. I said, the problem is you've been doing the show for four years now. So if, you know what I'm saying? Like in fact, Bradley, recent, two years ago,

would still feel like a long time. They show me the website, and it showed me him. And I said, yeah, I remember him. I didn't remember his name, of course. And sitting here waiting for my turn, listening to guests before me, sometimes can be a little humbling, you know, because they either have great cultural skills or ways to contribute to the cultural horizon or agricultural like Scott with his vineyard and then I sit down here and folks let's talk about the market and real estate. It's just a different kind of conversation important

to have and obviously something I'm passionate about but very different too. Well that's the key I mean we all all have, listen, we all have our quote unquote specialties, right? We all have our passions, right? And sometimes you think, it's like, I look at people that sometimes paint or even just construction, home construction, it's like wow, how do they do that, right?

How do you do that? But then people say, well I don't know what you do, I don't know how you do it, and so, that's how do they do that? How do you do that? But then people say, well, I don't know what you do. I don't know how you do it. And so that's the difference. We all have our gifts from the good Lord. I guess I'm allowed to say that. Some of us are still looking for them. What does that mean, Michael?

Is that alluded to me? I don't know. It's an open-ended rhetorical question. No, Michael, I know exactly what you're trying to do. It shall apply to whoever feels. Exactly. In a good way, bad way, anyway. Alright, so I know you have some thoughts on the market and I mean, given, I mean, let's be honest. I mean, this 2025 kind of started with a bang across different sectors.

And I know even in our, you know, in the financial markets, there's been a lot of uncertainty causing a lot of angst amongst investors and, you know, markets up, markets down, markets up, markets down, different markets up, different markets down. So maybe you can tell us a little bit, if you can, a little bit, how has this impacted at all the real estate market? I think what we all have in common is that we don't have an answer to how

things are going to look like next week or next month. Even tomorrow. Even today. That unites us all. And that pretty much describes the situation we are in. Whether it's us professionals or the people we work for and with. We're all sitting in the same boat. We just have certain different levels of information access, I like to say.

And what I thought would be fun for today is look at a few really sensational headlines that I found over the last few days. And while they give me a smile or a grin when I read them, because some of them are fear-mongering, others are just to get attention, but those are the same quotes that my clients read. And they, some of them, many of them, have a reaction to it. And I think that describes quite well how consumers feel in the US right now. And here in our area as well as as stable as we always think

Charlesville market is and I think it will remain stable to a certain degree it does something you know it's psychology and anyway so those those headlines are March home sales were the slowest since 2009. Wow. That's a long time ago. That's a long time ago. And during the market, we all know it was not a fund market. Yeah. Was that still considered part of the recession?

Sure. Yeah. Oh, here from Politico, home sales fall to lowest levels since the financial crisis. So those are quite the buzzwords, right? What does that do to someone who is trying to move his family here to Charlottesville, trying to buy a house? Versus what does it do to someone who's just trying to find a better living situation in

Charlottesville, maybe has less pressure to relocate? Those are the things that I talk to people about because everyone's circumstances are different. Another headline, housing market stalls as homeowners struggle to sell. Quote, we are really bleeding. March home sales slowed in a lethargic opening to the spring buying season. And others. Wall Street Journal as well talks about how home sales fell. And that's all data looking at March. It's too soon to have magazines and newspapers talking about April due to a lack of numbers.

Today is May 1st. I think it's a good time to look at the last few weeks and months and how things have changed. And we have seen, as you said, Xavier, we had things go up and down on a weekly, sometimes on a daily basis. And how do you make big, live decisions based on what you experience, right? What does it do to a homebuyer that really wants to purchase this house for his family but then in the evening he looks at his retirement account and sees a big drop, you know, what does it do to his confidence or maybe to his ability to qualify for a loan?

Those are big questions and observations right now. And I understand why some people struggle to make this decision, whether it's because they all of a sudden don't have the funds or the eligibility for this mortgage that they're looking at, or just because they don't have the confidence. And so, at the same time, dealing with those headlines can be challenging for us because they might not necessarily apply to our local economy, to our local market. Every time I'm here, we talk about Charlottesville and how

it might be unique in that regard because we have big economic drivers here in the area, whether it's UVA or tourism or the proximity to DC or other big employers in the area. After all, the area is growing. It's not just UVA, right? So in that context where we say we are better off here than other parts of the country, but the numbers show or tell a different story all of a sudden. And that's interesting and a little humbling for us real estate professionals the state professionals in the area, because all of a sudden, open houses that we hold are less frequented, we have less interested parties for one house. We all remember in the last four, five, six years, we had bidding wars on homes within the city or in the surrounding county.

And while those still happen, the numbers are clearly different. So that's a new experience. And that also means, interrupt me. I'm rambling along. No, no, no. I have some thoughts. Go ahead.

Finish your thoughts. It also means that buyers of a home might be in a much better decision all of a sudden. And that's very interesting because every time there is a financial crisis, there are some people that clearly benefit from it, whether it is because they have a sense for it or because they look at the numbers each day. But there are always opportunities, right? So if you're selling a house right now, you are probably looking at longer time on the market, possibly having a conversation about reducing the price if it doesn't sell, which is an interesting phenomenon in a city like Charlottesville.

We haven't seen this in a long time, and all of a sudden it is a topic we have to talk. But then, also I believe, and I want to be careful here because real estate professionals, just like mortgage lenders, they often say, it's always a good time to buy a house, right? And it's not always genuine, but I understand why we sometimes say that or often say that because our income is based on sales, right? And so you don't hear me

ever say this is a good time to buy because that's a very general statement and it's not specific to the person wanting to buy. But I'm wondering if right now might actually be a good time to purchase a home at a lower price. And that's a big deal in Charlottesville. We have very high home values here and maybe right now is the time where things normalize a little bit. We always talk about it's a seller's market. And while it's still not a buyer's market, things are coming a little bit together right now. And so the position a buyer is in is different

and can be more beneficial. So there was a long way of saying lots of news, lots of headlines, right? And I find it challenging but also an important task to see how they apply to us. Sometimes they don't, but some of those clearly do. I think you two working in the financial advisory world, you deal with the same headlines right now.

You probably have people calling you every day. Xavier, how does this news relate to my savings account? What my, you know, what's the projection? Can you tell me? And I'm curious what you say because you could probably not tell him what's gonna happen tomorrow. No one can. You know, this is very interesting because, you know, without any doubt I say over the last, since really right after COVID, right, where interest rates dropped so low, and people were able to get very low mortgages, right, it has caused a whole different, you know, phenomenon in the real estate market that we never had before, right.

And we do see that sometimes with even clients where it's like, you know, they'd love to downsize, but they realize if they downsize, if they sell what they have and downsize, they may be paying more or the same for a smaller home because their mortgage are so low, right? So it forces them to stay where they are because they say, you know, this doesn't make any sense to us why I would downsize and pay more, right? So, and second of all, I mean, without any doubt, and I see those statistics all the time, nationwide hears the number, and you sit there and you go, if there's anything where nationwide doesn't apply, is real estate, because real estate is truly a very local, you know, phenomena, right? You know, what is happening in Charlottesville is different than what's happening in the middle of Oklahoma, for example, right? So, you know, events of that sort, right, what happens is, you're right, it's just the psychology. People come back and say, oh my Lord, look what's happened. It's like, well, yeah, what does that mean? That means that

people that own their home right now are sitting there and going, I can't find anything. I mean, here in Charlottesville, let's be honest, I mean, it's like, if I own a 3,000 square foot home and I want a 2,000 square foot home, well, good luck because there's just, it's not like there's an abundance of them, right? And so you finally see one, you go,

well, that's pretty expensive. And now I have to, let me see, either I pay cash or if I have to get a mortgage, I'm paying the same amount. So those are challenges that you're seeing here. But without any doubt, I think what has happened this year is that the news with regard to just about everything has been, boom, almost somewhat kind of fear mongering. In other words, tariffs, oh, my Lord, we're not going to have toys for Christmas. Tariffs, oh, my Lord, cars are going to be like 50% more expensive. So everything they come out with is somewhat creating uncertainty and angst amongst the consumer, right? And you sit back and you go, yeah, without any doubt, these are all issues that may occur, right?

But the probability of them actually, you know, occurring are very small. But you have to talk to your client and like you said, yeah, you're just going to get a lot of phone calls and you have to sit back and say, all right, let's take a step back. And in your case, like, why are we buying a home at this point in time? And go through the process, okay, here's the pros, here's the cons that you went through. What has changed? And if anything has shift from, you know, pros to cons, that makes a huge difference, okay, you might want to wait. But if it hasn't, it's like, then nothing's changed, right? If anything, maybe the market's a little bit more in your favor, right? So,

it's just, it's challenging because, as you mentioned, it's just people read a piece of information and right off the bat bat it's like the behavioral science says, oh my lord, it's the end of the world, right, because they read it. And you just have to kind of sit down with the client and take a step back and say, first of all, at least in our end, we're not investing for the next three months, we're investing for the next 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, depending on the age of the client, right? And that's what's important, saying, listen, we've had these number of good years, we've always said sooner or later, there's going to be down years. It happens every single three, four, five years. There's down years. This may be one

of them, right? Your portfolio can survive that, you can survive that, and we move forward. Making rash decisions based on an article that I read would be the worst decision to make. So it's tough, but I would say you're right. The real estate market in particular is going through, you know, and I call it a phenomenon in the sense that, you know, you have so many homes, so many owners of homes with low interest rates that it is a challenge for them to say, yeah, I like to, you know, yeah, I live in a small house, I want a bigger house.

But boy, I got a 2 and 3 quarter percent interest rate on here. If I get a bigger house today, I'm paying 7 percent on more money because I got to borrow. That's a huge ticket. Right? So is it the right time to do it? Can I do it today? May I interject with a question for you? Sure, of course. You think it's possible the interest rates could come down? All things considered, what's happening based on yesterday's news and the general overall feeling? So economically speaking, that could suddenly boost the housing market? I remember late last year, the prognosis was that we will see a 5%, sometime end of 2025. 5% in the 10 year?

Yes. And I'm curious if that still applies, or if those people that were so optimistic about that are actually revising that statement now. Yeah. So you had, obviously we had a quote unquote negative GDP, right? Now, I think the markets kind of washed out away by the fact that vitamin consumer spending was good, business spending was up, government spending was down, which were all agreement, I think. It's like,

I don't want the government spending, I want public spending, right? Imports were huge, right? Because everybody's worried about tariffs, and imports, you just subtract imports from your economy, and that's what's costed, right? So I think the markets, after looking at the numbers, said, yeah, this is a one-time event, right? So I think the Fed is going to be on hold for a little longer and see what the impact of these tariffs are on our economy. So I don't think they're in any rush to cut interest rates, but if the tariff situation, you know, if you get some deals

and the tariff situation is such that, you know, increases, let's say inflation by half a percent to one percent, you know, I think even then they might go ahead and say, yeah, we can cut this by a half a percent or whatever. It's the long-term rates that impact mortgage rates. So it's the market perception as to whether or not we're going to see higher inflation. That's the key. And that's a whole different story. But listen, we had rates drop at the beginning of the year, right? And in April is when we had the real bounce back,

right, and they're coming down a little bit. So I think by the end of the year, there is, unless there's major surprises in inflation, I think rates may be lower than they are today. Yeah, well that would be good news. That would be good news, yeah, absolutely, especially for the state. But speaking of good news, yeah, absolutely, especially for the state. But speaking of good news, as I said earlier, I think it's also a time for opportunities.

I think a lot of people could really benefit from this. You know, I asked this quote, and it's not mine. I'm not sure who said it, but in a changing market, yesterday's price is not today's value. True. In a changing market, yesterday's price is not today's value. True. In a changing market, yesterday's price is not today's value. If you combine this with the situation of a higher inventory, which we have, interesting

to say in Charlestown, but we have more houses on the market, we have more to choose from, we have less buyers looking at one specific home listing, and so the sellers are facing the question, do we lower the price in order to sell the property? And I think that has an impact. I'm not going to sit here and say, home values will decrease in Charlottesville. That's not a good statement to do. But I think in some cases, we will see that,

or at least a stagnation for a while. And I think that opens up the field for those that have struggled in the past to find a home here. Well, you made a very good point before and I think this is a critical point for you, right? And that is, you know, over the last three, four years, unfortunately, if you're a buyer, what you had was extreme competition where, you know, if a house, and I'm just gonna throw this number out, right, just make it simple, if a house was set for a million, then you had a bidding war.

I'll pay a million and 50, and then I'll make a million, 100. And before you knew it, you're paying a million, 250 for a house that you felt was only really worth a million, but you have too much competition. In today's market, maybe that one million is, yeah, that's the price. And so it's not going to go higher than that. So from a buyer's perspective, maybe there may not be much room to lower it, but you're not in a bidding war like you were before. And I'm not a real estate guy, but just from that perspective,

maybe that's what's going to happen. Yeah, I think that the power dynamic shifts a little bit. As a home buyer, you might not be forced to wave the home inspection anymore, which is not a good idea in the first place, or compete with many others for the same home. It just puts you in a much better position. That's what I mean with we're not turning away

from a sales market, but we are approaching a more balanced dynamic maybe. And I think that would be good for everyone in the market. And I think time has shown, or history has shown, that the economy can be resilient. And I think the economy will bounce back. I think we are all just trying to find out when that will be right now. And as a result, consumer confidence will come back as well. And what will that mean for demand

for housing? Prices will go up again, right? So maybe right now is actually a good window of opportunity for those looking. Does that mean that we will see an increase in second home market in Nelson County? Probably not, right? But specific to Charlottesville, where it has historically been so challenging, I think now is actually a good time. So I'm excited about the opportunities. As tough the situation may be for others affected by import regulations,

the trade wars, higher tariffs and so on. But speaking of real estate here, I use the word it's humbling a little bit, especially for sellers, but exciting times in that regard. So it's a little bit of a positive spin while we are reading a lot of negative headlines currently and maybe we leave the show exactly at that. To your point, Matisse, we see this a lot of times in finance too, when people are panicking, there's always someone who sees an opportunity. And that's sometimes how people, you hear these stories about whatever,

great finance guy on Wall Street, a lot of times if they made money, it was because of that, because people were panicking and things were going bad, so they start selling and they're reacting and someone's like, no, no, no, I see an opportunity. So even in real estate, I think that's always a possibility that's like where possibility that people might

not see that there's actually opportunity throughout this kind of uncertainty and chaos. Right. And I would just like to see not only investors taking advantage of that situation and that vacuum of consumer confidence, but also individuals like you and me, understanding that they can seize the situation and finally get that home for the family that they always wanted in Charlesville and not just a big investment group or developer. Yeah, I would say that that's what's important. I agree 100% there. I think what we've seen a lot is the investment role going in and absorbing, buying a lot

of tranches of homes or lots. And yeah, I like to see a little less than that. I mean, it is, listen, it's opportunity. It's what capital does. Capital flows to certain areas. But unfortunately, sometimes it pushes the little guy out more than it should. It will be interesting to see when I'm here in a month,

sometime in, I guess in June, it will be, how things have developed between now and then. Well, change is the only constant. Yes. This is good. The only thing I was going to say is that there's advantages and disadvantages of the world we live in, in the sense that we get so much information. I mean, you take this little thing here, which when I grew up, didn't even exist, right? There are just so much constant flow of news, boom, boom, boom, from everywhere, right? And most of the time, people don't read the article.

They read the headline or maybe the first sentence. And that's what they focus on, right? And I just think it's an overwhelming amount of information that people get and sometimes they just begin to panic, right? Yeah, and it leads to this overwhelming sense of uncertainty. Yes. And uncertainty is the enemy of action. Exactly.

Especially in real estate, especially in your world as well. That's what's going through people's mind right now. It's kind of a paralyzing impact. I always tell the story. My wife watches sometimes things. And every once in a while she'll call me. She goes, I just heard this guy says

the market's going to crash. Are you prepared for this? And I said, for every person you tell me the market's going to crash, I'm going to send you an article by somebody who says that the market's ready to take off. You know, so it's like you can't look at it that way. You can't focus on one person and assume that he's a PhD. Who cares?

I don't give him a PhD in anything. It doesn't matter. They don't know, you know. You just have to take a step back and say, what's your goals? What are your needs? Does this fit you? Yes or no? Let's move forward. Like I said, sometimes you just have to be a psychologist. Psychiatrist, psychiatrist, whatever. Psychiatrist. We do therapy. Psychiatrist. Yeah, psychiatrist. We do therapy in our... Therapy. Yeah, therapist. Family therapist.

Well, yeah, I guess when we have you back in a month, Matthias, we'll kind of get the update. But I like what you said, though. Uncertainty is the enemy of action. I got to write that down and keep that one. Borrow it. I feel it, too. Hard to make a decision if you don't, if you feel like you don't have all the facts.

Yeah. We could have all the facts, but as you said, we're being bombarded with, with headlines that get attention. Those headlines are almost never really in depth. Yeah. Right. It just scratched the surface. That's what they want to do. That's what they want to do. Yes. Yeah. almost never really in depth, right? It just scratched the surface.

That's what they're meant to do. Yes. Well, thanks for having me again. Thanks for coming on, it's always fun, it's always enjoyable. Thank you so much. Hope the family's doing well. Little baby. How's the baby now? 16 months, a little over 16 months.

She is a troublemaker. Well that's good, that's what they're supposed to be. That's great. An exciting time for your family too. They're not troublemakers yet, I mean, not in the same way you see them. They're barely wiggling at this point. The trouble is not sleeping and pooping. You said the poop word on the radio, Michael.

It's the other word you can't say. Newborn's poop. Well, send my regards to Alex and to Nick. I will. Thank you. You will see him in the office. And it was a pleasure to be here with you. Same here. We'll see you in June. Yeah, in June. Alright, well that was a full one, wasn't it? That was good though. It's always good to end with BTS. It's quite a wisdom. He's a German Buddha. He had a good quote today. He did. Uncertainty is the enemy of action. I gotta write that way. He's a German Buddha. He had a good quote today.

He did. Uncertainty is the enemy of action. I've got to write that down because I'm like a lumberjack. It's not mine. I'll write it somewhere. That's okay. You don't have to say that. I'm going to say this is what my tears told me.

Exactly. That's why I heard it. I don't care who said it first. It's copyright infringement. It was great having you on the show, Pops. Thank you for being here with me. Yeah, thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it. And always big thank you to our sponsors, Emergent Financial Services, Meticion, Realty, Schultzville Opera,

Faba, Foward Adelante, the premier Latino networking group. I don't know if Alex still says that one. I don't remember anymore. Not as much. Not as much. But as always, a big thank you to all our viewers. Thank you for watching. I know, unfortunately, Xavier and I don't look at the comments.

We don't really. I didn't get any. You didn't get any. You don't even know how to even log in to your Facebook, probably. But we always do appreciate you watching the show, liking and commenting, subscribing. We wouldn't have any show without you. It's always wonderful to hear from the viewers.

After the show ends. Send me an email. Yeah, who looked the show up? Thank you. But of course a big thank you always always to Bad Love's Evil Studio for having us, Judah behind the camera. He was busy today. He had a lot of guests. He had to kind of... Yeah, I know. ...match. He made it work like magic. But yeah, we look forward to seeing you all next time, but until then,

Maasa Manjaro. Hasta mañana.