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book of days archive 2004
12.24.04 - white christmas
Here I am in Galveston,
Texas. It is late on Christmas Eve, and it is snowing. Let me
rephrase that - it is dumping gigantic butterfly-sized snowflakes
onto amazed children and parents and dogs, all of whom are standing
mouth-up to the sky catching flakes on their tongues. It almost
never snows here - certainly not during the holidays, and never
this much (already there are almost 2 inches on the ground).
If this keeps up, it will be the biggest snowfall in 50 years.
Yeehah!
I should call
my parents in Maine - they'll be sooooo jealous.....
12.18.04 - wouldn't
trade it for anything
Last
week's concert in Barcelona was one of those glorious reminders
of why I do this crazy composing thing:
- to work with
talented musicians who rock
- to work with talented
musicians who rock and actually put their personalities into
the music
- to hear a new piece of music come
to life sounding even better than you imagined it
-
to hear an older composition come back to life in the hands of
those talented musicians who rock
- to walk into
a concert hall and see that it is jam-packed with friends, colleagues,
and quite possibly even better, lots of people you have never
seen before!
- to see an audience member - or
maybe more than one - forget the pressures of the day and leave
with a smile on her/his face.
Although the
recording was botched, I am hopeful about the video, and await
photos to share!
Muchísimas
gracias to Percussions de Barcelona: Robert, Ramon, Sebastiá
and Ignasi, and also to clarinetist Xavier Castillo. For the
stupendous care and feeding of this music, and for reminding
me that all the work is absolutely, positively worth it.
12.6.04 - muy ocupada
Who I am kidding??
I'm never going to do regular updates....
Back in the
US. At first I was stunned into silence by culture shock....and
then by the elections, which made for more culture shock.....
Two more pieces
from my stay in Barcelona are finished - Tourmaline, for
soprano saxophone and processed sounds, and Coyote, for
percussion quartet. Actually Coyote is an arrangement
of the string quartet Coyote Turns. I couldn't resist
the opportunity to have Percussions de Barcelona play this work
on marimbas and vibraphones. And you thought it was rhythmic
before!
Tomorrow on
a plane back to Barcelona for the PdB concert. Olives, anyone?
8.23.04 - superstition
I know, I haven't been
writing much about music lately.... seems the harder I work,
the less I want to talk about it. Must admit that superstition
plays a role - to discuss a composition in progress can drain
away it's energy, imho. So, better to keep quiet.
But I can tell
you this - after muchas horas in the recording studio over the
past 2 months, you can now find brand spankin' new recordings
of Ayehli and Snapdragon on the sound page. Check 'em out! Thanks to Robert
Armengol and Carlos Gil Ferrer for their fabulous performances!
8.16.04 - cobla sant
jordi
Over
the weekend I attended a cobla concert, in a tiny pueblo
called Vilanova d'Escornalbou. Cobla is an instrumental ensemble
that plays sardanas, the traditional dance music of Catalunya.
The group is comprised of several brass instruments, contrabass,
and a variety of wind instruments that exist only in Catalunya,
such as the tenora and flabiol. Winds play the
melodies, while the trumpets, trombones and contrabass play accompaniment.
The sound of the group is most unusual - nasal and piercing,
due to the large number of double reed instruments. Apparently
Stravinsky was captivated by the sound of this music, and wrote
several works for cobla.
8.6.04 - si fuera
rica, me compraría un descapotable
I simply have GOT to get a handle on
the subjunctive. Joder!
Part of the
problem is that forms of the subjunctive in the past are
accompanied sometimes by the conditional tense, which under normal
non-subjunctive circumstances are used to express things in the
future. This never fails to tie my brain in knots.
8.5.04 - one of those
days
You
know those days, when you work hard all day, but in the end you're
not exactly sure what you accomplished?? Yeah, it's like that.
Gotta start
writing these things down....
7.24.04 - coffee rituals
Folks are very particular
about certain things here. Like coffee. When it happens and in
what form it happens are Very Important Issues.
During the
course of a meal, coffee comes after dessert and before an after-dinner
chupito (shot) of liquor. Coffee can replace dessert,
but to have coffee before, or (gasp) with dessert? Unthinkable.
And it better not be a cafe con leche (coffee with milk),
because those are for breakfast or morning breaks. After a meal
it's gotta be a cafe solo (espresso) or cortado (espresso
with a splash of milk).
As a devout
fan of the cortado, which works at any time of day or night,
I don't believe I have ever committed any coffee boo-boos. But
then there are so many other options for cultural screw-ups....more
on that later....
7.16.04 - short stories
from Andalusia
On
a recent trip to Granda I picked up a copy of Washington Irving's
Tales of the Alhambra....I had no idea he was such and
international guy! Lots more going on there than just The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Completely understandable that he
stayed as long as he did in Granda - it is a beautiful, inspiring,
magical place.
5.2.04 - something
for those who think George Bush is such a Good Guy
President Jimmy Carter
attended ceremonies for troops killed in Pakistan, Egypt and
the failed hostage rescue mission in Iran.
President
Ronald Reagan participated in many memorable ceremonies, including
a service at Camp Lejeune in 1983 for 241 Marines killed in Beirut.
In 1998,
Clinton went to Andrews to see the coffins of Americans killed
in the terrorist bombing in Nairobi.
A White
House spokesman said Bush has not attended any memorials or funerals
for soldiers killed in action during his presidency as his predecessors
had done...
Will you be
voting for this again in November?
4.23.04 - La Diada
de Sant Jordi
Today
is the Catalan equivalent of Valentine's Day - La Díada
de San Jordi, quite a lovely celebration if I do say so. St.
George slayed a dragon that was about to devour a beautiful princess,
and there has developed a tradition that men give women a single
rose, and women give men a book (yes girls, I have thoughts about
this issue too, since I would by far prefer a book - we'll talk).
All over the city, and especially up and down Las Ramblas, booksellers
and florists set up tables and people stroll by browsing through
the selections or choosing the perfect rose. Although most offices
and stores are open, an awful lot of folks manage to play hookey
and spend the afternoon outside celebrating....
By the end
of the day the streets are covered with rose petals and little
yellow ribbons that say t'estimo, which means I Love You,
in Catalan. Kinda nice, huh?
4.16.04 - a new president
Place soap box on ground.
Stand on soap box. Place hands on hips in righteous indignance.
Now that Zapatero
is officially the new President of Spain, I really must have
a rant.
The way the
US and UK media have portrayed the elections here is ridiculous.
The PSOE did not win just because of the Madrid bombings. Nor
have the Spanish people acquiesced to terrorism, as Bush would
have us think. Folks were already completely over Aznar. 90 percent
of Spain opposed the war in Iraq, and Aznar joined in anyway.
The bombings simply pushed them over the edge. It was not about
fear. It was about anger. If there is one thing I have learned
about Spaniards, it is that they are very quick to act when they
are pissed off! Good for them.
The US could
most certainly learn a thing or two from these events. What if
Americans had taken to the streets this way after 9/11?
3.28.04 - nothin'
like a diva
Yesterday
I had the opportunity to record an interview with Romanian opera
singer Angela Gheorghiu. She has a reputation for being incredibly
difficult to work with, and for being an all around, er, I believe
the word was witch. Having never really dealt with a Diva of
this power before, I was looking quite forward to the interview!
Turns out, she was actually very pleasant and gracious. No temper
tantrums on tape. Ah well.....
The best part
was her response to the question, when did you discover that
you were a singer? The reply: I didn't discover anything.
I AM a singer.
Now that, my
friends, is a Diva!
3.7.04 - language
and whatnot
Current
Favorite Phrase: sentar cabeza. Translation: to come to one's
senses.
I also believe that
"Joder" is the perfect swear word. It rolls off the
tongue so nicely. Joder!
2.28.04 - just an
observation
Spaniards
and silence. Oil and water. Not a mix. Spaniards (and Catalans)
LOVE to talk, and do so at great length. About anything, and/or
nothing. If there is nobody in the immediate vicinity to talk
to, they will happily glue themselves to a mobile phone. You
know the people in your life that cannot handle more than a few
seconds of silence in a conversation? Imagine an entire country
of those people!
As you know,
I am a quiet person by most standards. Combine this with the
fact that I live in a foreign country and do not speak the language
fluently. This makes me a quiet person with a limited vocabulary,
which makes me a REALLY quiet person. Fitting a comment into
a conversation requires extreme and ambitious effort, but happily
I'm getting a lot better, having finally adjusted to the idea
that here, interrupting people is not at all considered rude.
As my Spanish teacher says, "how else will people know you
have something to say?".
2.26.04 - completion
Finished! Coyote
Turns for string quartet. Four sections - I won't call them
movements because the transitions involve very short breaks -
in 12 minutes. Experimented with many ideas in this one, including
a method for generating musical material that is very different
than my usual process. I found the results quite exciting, not
to mention that the piece developed more quickly than normal.
This one is ALL about rhythm. Some parts flash through a series
of rhythmic blocks, while other parts travel through a slow building
up or tearing down of a rhythmic phrase. It's not easy, but I
think it will be fun and challenging to play.
1.30.04 - ain't it
the truth
A
little something from Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart
(it's not nearly as depressing as the title suggests):
We don't
experience the world fully unless we are willing to give something
away.... this means not holding anything back, not preparing
our escape route, not looking for alternatives, not thinking
that there is ample time to do things later.
1.26.04 - things that
make you go yikes
Check
out George
Bush's resume
1.6.04 -
back in bcn
Feliz Año Nuevo! Just returned from a
3-week trip back to the US. 2 weeks in DC on either side of one
week in Maine. Wonderful to catch up with friends and family!
The culture shock I thought I might experience didn't really
happen, although it did seem odd at first to hear so much English
spoken, and also to drive everywhere... Enjoyed plentiful grass
and trees - things I miss living in the city - not to mention
wide open spaces! Relatively speaking, since we are talking about
the East Coast. The current politics, well, are too frustrating
to even begin to discuss. Oy.
My computer
was in the shop for the entire trip, and to be without it was
exactly what I needed. Now I return with "pilas cargadas",
rested and ready to work. First stop, string quartet!
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