I love being surrounded by my books. Bookcases filled with old school textbooks, hundreds of books on music, sheet music and scores, a whole case dedicated to poetry, a whole case dedicated to metaphysical exploration and religion, and across from those shelves is a wall of LPs (yes, LPs), many of which I’ve had since [...]
Here is the solo performance of “The Crocodile’s Xmas Ball” with lyrics by William MacDuff. Juliana Gondek is the soprano and Neal Stulberg is the pianist. The original was for chorus, solo, and wind ensemble. In that the choral world and the wind ensemble worlds rarely commingle, I think that this version for voice and [...]
“I’d rather work with a willing amateur than a bored whore.”
[Composer Mel Powell to his student, Les Thimmig in a private lesson in the Yale composition program, ca. 1968.]
[Rufus dutifully hands in the three chant assignments. Professor Berlioz offers his critique]
The melodic shape and sense of flow in your assignments are excellent. Clearly, your work was the work of a latter day monk, and not one from the 12th century. Let me illustrate a few things that your counterpart from that era would [...]
One of the great poets I discovered whom I had not known before I started this project is May Swenson. The plan in “Letters to the Future” was to involve only living poets. May had been dead for four years but for her work speaks to us clearly today and her poem “Symmetrical Companion” seemed [...]
The Ives Quartet did a second performance of my “Four Poets” last night at Le Petit Trianon Theatre in San Jose. The quartet sounded even better. The acoustics were 100 times more favorable, the audience’s enthusiasm fed three more great performances. Surrounded by two strong pieces by Ives and Mendelssohn, I think I held my [...]
Last night (May 12, 2006) my new string quartet, “Four Poets” was premiered in Palo Alto by the Ives Quartet. The audience, largely grey-haired open minded music lovers, filled half of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church to hear Charles Ives’ String Quartet No.1, my piece, intermission, and then the first Mendelssohn quartet. The group sounded terrific.
The [...]
For those of you who know about Sacred Harp music (no, not sacred heart), the bible of that tradition is now online. Well, at least a crude digitization of it is and a lame website to boot. That old favorite “Amazing Grace” can be found on page 45 (type in 44). You’ll also find “All [...]
I remember hitchhiking with Michael Shelby from Madison WI to Albuquerque NM in 1973. After going west on Interstate 80, a land that is so flat you can see a mouse scratch himself miles away, we got to a sleepy city just before all the mountains appear on the horizon: North Platte, Nebraska. What was [...]
A old friend of mine told me he had a crush on me in 1977. Shit. I had a crush on him too. I didn’t try hard enough — nor did he. He said he had a girlfriend. I believed him.
We both were taken aback speculating what MIGHT have happened had we become lovers. I [...]
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