Alexandra Gardner | Book of Days Archive 2005

Alexandra Gardner
:: composer

book of days archive 2005

11.11.05 - on the radio today
WAMU radio producer Stephanie Kaye came over this week and we had a chat. You can listen in here.

10.24.05 - tourmaline in appleton
Over the summer I received an email from Lawrence University saxophone student Jesse Dochnahl, who was interested in playing my soprano sax and electronics piece Tourmaline. I sent him the materials, and lo and behold, he actually ended up performing it for the whole school, plus a large portion of Appleton, Wisconsin at the Lawrence University convocation!

I just finished listening to the recording, and boy did he do a fabulous job! Mastering the timing between the sax and the electronics is, well, a hellacious lot of work, and he really nailed it. Phrasing, articulation, dynamic range - all excellent. I particularly liked his big wide vibratos and edgy fluttertongues. He made the music his own.

This is what is so fun about having a composition performed by different musicians....hearing what they do with the dots on the paper!

10.20.05 - feliz cumpleaños
I always forget that Charles Ives and I share the same birthday. I'm just really glad I don't sell insurance to pay the bills!

10.9.05 - addendum to a genius for baltimore
Adding to the previous post..... Alsop's appointment to the Baltimore Symphony has not been without a struggle - the orchestra musicians are QUITE opposed to this new Musical Director (they question her musical abilities), and they have been making quite a stink indeed.

Would this controversy be happening at all if she were male? Hmmmm.....

9.26.05 - a genius for baltimore
Guess how many women are currently leading (or have ever led) major orchestras in the US? Let's see....that would be.....er.....none. Not one. Not ever.

Until now, that is. Congratulations to Marin Alsop on her appointment as Music Director for the Baltimore Symphony, and also on being the first conductor ever to receive a 2005 MacArthur (the infamous "genius grant") Fellowship. These are two giant steps forward for women in music. Huge, I tell you - huge!

9.20.05 - i am smitten...
....by my new 15" G4 Powerbook. So sleek, so speedy, and it does so many lovely things all by itself, like recognize my ancient printer, figure out what updates I do and don't need, and even install them where they are supposed to go. All this and more, without the wrestling matches to which I have become accustomed through the years....OS X is a Happy Thing. :)

9.5.05 - piano mangling
Having fun playing with some piano recordings I made last week, with the help of Rob Byers and his new Royer ribbon mic. Nothing like a Steinway grand in a nice room, captured by a great microphone! Now I am sorting through what we recorded and running bits and pieces through an array of plugins and software programs to see what emerges....finding some happy suprises! I think this piece is going to be far more gritty than the previous tuneful works - just feeling that way lately.

Don't let this post make you think that I can actually PLAY the piano...

8.26.05 - let's go dutch
Just received word from The Netherland-America Foundation that they are funding a composition for Duo Levent, the Amsterdam-based bass clarinet and organ team of Harry Sparnaay and Silvia Castillo. Yahoo! It's really quite nice when one gets paid to do this stuff. Thank you NAF!

Organ??! How did THIS happen? Good thing I'm already in keyboard mode with this current work for piano...

8.18.05 - a nearly perfect day at work
Today at NPR I listened to classical music all day in a stupendous monitoring environment, and afterwards there was ice cream. Not bad!

7.26.05 - stuff & things
A recording of Coyote is now available on the sound page....it is taken from a video recording of the first performance, so please excuse the low fidelity. Dates are being set for the premiere of my evolving piano and electronics piece, and for a forthcoming work for bass clarinet and organ....yes, organ. Exciting! Also be sure to check out the Periferia web site, where you can purchase and download many interesting contemporary music scores, including my pieces Crows and Earthmoves, and the Activ-Analog web site, where you can hear a little nod to the world of dance music, Luna.

7.16.05 - current pleasures
listening:
Frederico Mompou, Musica Callada - beautiful piano music by an underestimated contemporary composer.
Jennifer Higdon, Concerto for Orchestra - not only is Jennifer one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, but she can make an orchestra groove. The recording quality is absolutely delicious.
Lizz Wright, dreaming wide awake - infectious, haunting voice. Can't get enough of the original songs.

reading:
Malcolm Gladwell, blink - very, very interesting....about trusting (and sometimes mistrusting) our hunches and instincts. Then I had to read his book The Tipping Point, and it was just as difficult to put that one down!
Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder - this recent book of essays has a more scientific bent than previous works.
Ranier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet - the classic I should have read years ago!

6.13.05 - a little horn tootin'
Fabulous composer and good friend Ramon Humet just alerted me to this glowing review of Tourmaline in the magazine Revista Musical Catalana:

La compositora Alexandra Gardner, demostrando un auténtico y profundo conocimiento de los medios electrónicos, con Tourmaline plantea un verdadero contraste entre los dos medios sonoros que enmarca magníficamente dentro de una forma bien trabada, en que tiempo y sonido se amalgaman en un ágil discurso y unidad.

Such a happy suprise - I had no idea any press had come that concert in Barcelona last April!

6.1.05 - call me fickle
In direct contrast to the previous post.... Last night I went to hear Kraftwerk at the 9:30 Club (the ultimate "pure computer music" of the pop world), and they rocked! They're just so, so.....Germanic. :)

Had a blast, square waves and all. So sue me.

5.30.05 - a square wave is a square wave is a....
I recently had the opportunity to inquire what the music selection committee of a certain a certain Eminent Computer Music Festival is looking for in the musical works they receive. The response was that they are interested in "pure computer music". That is, sounds generated only from computers - no samples, nothing resembling an acoustic instrument or any other "unplugged" sound in the electronic portion of a composition. Hmm.

While I can understand this aesthetic given the nature of the festival, it still strikes me as narrow. There are two primary reasons why I use sounds from acoustic instruments and from the world around us as source material in my electroacoustic work. First, the sounds form a connection to and create a context for the sonic world of the live acoustic instrument. Second, these sounds are more complex than computer-generated sounds, and yield far more interesting results (to my ears, anyway) when processed and manipulated. In fact, all of that mangling takes place within the computer, and one could argue that when all is said and done, the end result is indeed "computer music". Although there are an infinite number of interesting things one can do with the basic building blocks of computer-generated sound - square wave, since wave, triangle wave - including the creation of instrument models that closely resemble real acoustic instruments (how does that process fit in here??), the final product often just leaves me cold.

But again, I suppose the music jury of the Eminent Computer Music Festival is entitled to it's viewpoint. If I want to participate I had better quit adding subtitles to my compositions like, "...for instrument and sampled sounds". Oops!

4.18.05 - need wind? call valencia
Just returned from a 10-day trip to barcelona - it was soooo nice to have a fix, despite the fact that the weather was actually better in DC! Xelo Giner performed Tourmaline for soprano sax and electronics at Metronom (the infamous performance space with a 5-second reverb!), and the next day she and I went into the studio to make a spiffy recording of the work. Both concert and recording were excellent - Xelo played all of the works with enthusiasm and depth for a large and approving audience, and we blew through the recording in one morning.

This experience further confirms my opinion that one of the the best places to find wind and brass players is Valencia, Spain. There is a huge wind band culture there, and kids grow up playing in their neighborhood group. Watch out for those who take to contemporary music!

3.8.05 - website update
Loaded up a bunch of changes to the website today.... in addition to a few little aesthetic changes (it was time for a new look), there are now program notes and other details available for many compositions. More on the way, but for now this should keep you busy!

3.7.05 - it's the small stuff...
Oh, what I would do to change the size of paper used in the US to A4, the format used by the rest of the world! For the past few weeks I have been reformatting the scores of all the music I wrote in Spain to fit US 8.5 x 11 paper. Scores, parts, the whole deal. Major project - whew!

2.28.05 - fun things
Life at NPR is going okay. I enjoy working the room called "Record Central 3", which provides a fairly high level of human contact and brings in a wide variety of material. A couple of quite interesting and fun discoveries:

The 50's film composer Bebe Baron. She and husband Louis created the soundtrack for the movie Forbidden Planet, as well as music for several experimental films. This is pre-synthesizer electronic music - all made with reel-to-reel tape recorders. Bebe is in her 80s now, and it was lovely to hear her talk about her life (which has been quite difficult) with openness and optimism.

A film about the life of the Carpenter family created entirely with Barbie Dolls. Apparently I missed this little gem while I was in Europe. It's a hoot!

1.16.05 - public radio bootcamp
Just finished week 2 of a new job as a sound engineer at National Public Radio. To begin, I am working in the studio where all the news reporters call in to record their newscasts. Within 30 minutes one could be recording breaking news from Baghdad to Sri Lanka to Ohio to just down the street at the House of Representatives. Much new technology to learn, and quickly, so as to be able to perform serious multi-tasking as soon as possible. I feel as if my brain has changed from a tranquil 2-way country road into a bustling 8-lane highway in a major city.

Highly entertaining - placing faces with the voices we hear on the radio every day.....and, as one might imagine, NPR is chock full of eccentric (understatement) personalities. Oh, the stories.....

I can only imagine what this Thursday, Inauguration Day, will bring over the ISDN lines. Yikes!

1.8.05 - good stuff
Scissor Sisters. Their self-titled CD is delicious. Can't help but bounce around the apartment the whole darn time. Go see them live. Trust me.

Alex Ross music blog The Rest is Noise.

Composer John Luther Adams' book Winter Music.

archive 2005

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