Soprano, Juliana Gondek and pianist Judith Hansen, will premiere my new FOUR MARIAN SONGS, with lyrics by William MacDuff, culled from ROSARIUM on Thursday, Feb.22, 2007 at 8 pm in Schoenberg Auditorium, on the UCLA campus.
On the same concert will be the premiere of FLIGHT INTO EGYPT a 15 minute chamber opera based upon […]
Frustrated with my Western prognosis for my uncooperative K-stone, I raced to a strange man who claimed to do ancient Chinese CT-scan. It was the most peculiar device I’ve ever been or rather, floated in. Here is what came out. Tell me if I’m wrong, but it looks like an ebony ladle and a slotted […]
In case you wonder about the predecessor of the music box, or the current so-called glockenspiel used in marching bands and orchestras, BibliOdyssey unearthed this engraving of the Salzburg glockenspiel by Christoph Lederwasch from the University of Salzburg’s Special Collections.
Here is an odd music video from India. I can’t help but hear it as a THRILLER copy. The dance moves are really, really, well… creative. I bet Mr Deva (the male singer) put it in his contract that he got to be the tallest person in the video. The female singer has the highest […]
Angus and Thom came down from San Francisco to give a marvelous evening concert in our home last Saturday. Partners in life, they also love performing together: Angus plays piano, and Thom sings.
The first half include movements from some of Angus’s favorite piano music (Haydn, John Field, Poulenc) which he played with great flair. After […]
Here is a remarkable performance by the string quartet called Stringfever. All four of them play Ravel’s “Bolero” on a single five string cello. It brings a new definition to the phrase “close reading.” Great fun!
The Athanasius Kircher Society has brought to our attention a “smell organ” — no, not your nose, an instrument designed by chemist and perfumist G. W. Septimus Piesse. [Now THAT’s a name!] Convinced that music could be “translated” into scent, he designed, or didn’t design, “…a row of perfume atomizers actuated by piano keys. The […]
In my interest in “shaking things up” it occurs to me that this would be the perfect activity for getting that pesky kidney stone moving. Don’t you think?!
I spent 12 hours writhing in sheer pain on Monday from a stubborn kidney stone that refused to push into the bladder. Imagine getting kicked in the balls and sustaining that pain for long periods of time. I ended up once again in the ER, got hooked up to an IV with fluids and some […]
Many years ago, my friend Scott Hobbs took me to a house that belonged to Cameron [aka Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel]. I knew little about who she was, only that she was an artist, had occult interests, was supposedly the first actress who posed nude in a motion picture (non-porn), and was an eccentric personality. […]
From Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” illustrated by E. Mars and M. H. Squire; published by Rand McNally and Company, 1902.
After such a raw week, I need something distracting. Hmmm, let’s see. A ha! Here’s one. One of the comments on YouTube reports:
Zladko “Zlad!” Vladcik is a fictional character created by Australian comedian Santo Cilauro and is the unofficial mascot of the equally-fictional nation of Molvanîa. It’s from hella days ago and Mt Dew has […]
In my music theory class I am experimenting with a new technique as an alternative to homework. (The homework involved is college level harmony exercises.) I have divided the class into groups of four (2+2) with similar abilities and temperaments. I hand out a set of in-class exercises for the class, and the students are […]
After a lovely morning of working, playing the piano, walking the dogs, I doubled over in pain and was taken off to the emergency room. I had no idea what was happening. Was it a perforated colon? An exploded appendix? Cancer of the prostate? Kidney failure? Death? I was nearly delirious when I left but […]
Alexandre Michel Desplat was awarded a Golden Globe for best score in a motion picture. This is well deserved, and I hope that he goes on to get an Oscar as well. He is a terrific composer who incorporates elements of “pretty minimalism” from John Adams and Steve Reich but spares us the trance repetition. […]
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