I’ve installed Google Analytics on this blog to see a variety of statistics. Rest assured I never know who is reading this unless you post, and only then if you’ve given my your real name.
85% of my readers go right to rogerbourland.com or redblackwindow.com (the latter forwards to the former). Following that majority, here are [...]
Composer William Kraft (Bill) and I were having lunch one day at the UCLA Faculty Center. Half way through a bite of his sandwich (teachers and composers ALWAYS talk with their mouths full) he bolted and said “Roger, I have a new mode I’ve been working with. It’s terrific, it has so many great qualities. [...]
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Rufus is writing words for a new aria at his desk in a chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. He looks up and out the window at the amazing view. So far away from New York, and London and Paris. Deep breath. But he’s stuck on a word. “What rhymes with ‘choose it’? lose it, moose [...]
[Rufus, takes a break from composing his opera, and watching Fellini's SATYRICON the screen freezes on the face of the young, brown hair, big-eyed gay boy, whose face slowly grows and fills the entire 50 inch flat screen display. Rufus bolts, knowing this is not in the movie. "Hello?" The face on the screen slowly [...]
Rufus Wainwright website.
[Ides of March, 2007; Rufus writes to Hector Berlioz begging for a different teacher.]
Cher Hector,
Please make that mongoose Charles Ives go away. He’s a jerk and really not that good of a teacher. He’s constantly popping up on my computer screen, my television, and even the GPS in my car. I can’t take it anymore. [...]
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[Rufus turns on his computer, opens his instant messaging program, and BLAMO! Charles Ives' face appears on his screen.]
CI: Hey Ralph! (Ives puts his nose up against the camera, and then squashes his face against the screen, looking rather silly.) Ain’t this new fangled technology somethin’?
RW: (Laughs in his machine gun giggle.)Yeah, uh [...]
Ralph,
I’ve been watching and listening to your recent scena and before Harmony and I go off to dinner, I need to point something out that will help it. Too much of the scene is the same dynamic. Give us a section that is breathtakingly quiet, and a section with a ear-blasting volume ol’ Berlioz would [...]
Dear Ralph,*
I have gone through the material that you sent me. I have to say I don’t understand why Hector thinks you are a composer. You seem like mostly a songwriter. I wrote some songs in my day, some good ones, and some really bad ones. You can find them in the collection called “144 [...]
[Email sent to M. Rufus Wainwright from M. Claude Debussy; 19 February 2007]
Mon cher,
Do not listen to that macho cowboy Ives about changing your name. He is an idiot.
I was assigned to oversee your work on your new opera, but told not to interfere. I have been in correspondence with Ms. Brown about my insistence [...]
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