February 24 - Flying Luck

After very late night and driving rain, we take a flying run down to Berkeley Chamber Arts (would that the day were as pleasant as the picture) for our second rehearsal there and first shot at music for the next two Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse shows: April 19 The Red Horse and May 9 Black Horse / Gray Horse at St. Gregory of Nyssa's SF again (a bit of info at markalburgerevents.blogspot.com and more to come).


Harriet, Kat, and I go over San Rafael News and


some Kurt Weill Threepenny Opera (Polly's Lied, First Threepenny Finale, Jealosy Duet).

Record some Flying Out the Mouth excerpts, including

XIV. The Woman from the Sky



and III. Yonder in the North with Kat there, and V. All the Dark Birds and

VII. Flying Out the Mouth



with Harriet at home. Will also post at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com soon, plus mixes utilizing the original Native American songs.


The latter versions constitute part of a new piece, as of today:

Op. 155 FLYING MIXES (February 24, 2008)
I. Yonder in the North (Northern Plains Rabbit Dance)
II. All the Dark Birds (Navajo Ribbon Dance)
III. Flying Out the Mouth (Yurok Women's Brush Dance)
IV. The Woman From the Sky (Creek Gar Dance)
XV. Wind Song I-III (Seneca Alligator Dance)

February 17 - Honk If You Love Your Life

What was this all about in Napa today? Well, one supposes if it's really all that bad, there is always this option.


The walk today, still north on the main drag on the outskirts of Napa, passes a cemetary with standing cypresses,


and standing Jesus.


Beyond that a golf course,


an industrial concern,


wizzened oaks in the sun,


and mountains, always mountains....


Yes, slightly better outdoor pictures today (except maybe the last, but there gotta be mountains, right?), because of walking, not driving, or at least not being in the car, or at least not being in the car and trying to take a picture through a windshield, etc.

Lunch with Harriet at Joe's in Napa; we sit in the bar, rather than the restaurant, so a Tantric India Pale Ale seems appropriate; or it did at the time.

Rolling home and we begin recording Flying Out the Mouth vocals. Here's at least a temporary first, with a suspicious Helium Voice covering the opening bit.

February 16 - There! Done It!

One moment! (He jerks the rope.) Stool! (He points with his whip. Lucky moves the stool.) More! There! (He sits down. Lucky goes back to his place.) Done it!

Four weeks, and somehow we put on a show (not Godot, with Janet Lohr as Pozzo in Act I, above, which was last summer, with more pics and some music at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com).

So tonight, it was Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse: The White Horse


on a dark San Francisco night (what other kinds of night are there?)


at St. Gregory of Nyssa


with Harriet doing the curtain speech (even though, as with most places in which we've performed, there's no curtain -- but what dancing-saints mural in this case? ),


Suzanna doing Mice Suite No. 2 (first time in full [albeit faux] orchestration) and the syncretist White Horse Suite (nothing more than three excerpts respectively from Henry Miller in Brooklyn; Camino Real; and Cats, Dogs, and Divas),


and Harriet, Sarah, and Kat in the premiere of Flying Out the Mouth.


Also on the program, Cynthia Weyuker's voice-and-musical saw magic,


and Marilyn Pratt's high-flying Mozart.


We'll be recording Flying, beginning this week, and Mice Suite No. 2 in May. Meanwhile, here's Interlude: Bozos and Ozone from L.A. Stories,



[Bozos and Ozone
Mr. Bush zone and Ozone
Mr. Bush there you go a-
Gain Jack Kennedy
You're no Jack Kennedy
My dog Millie knows about more
Economics than these two
Bozos and Ozone (Man)
Mr. Bush zone and Ozone (Man)]

which will finally be premiered in its entirety on March 10 at Elliott and Marcus's performance space, on a program with two poets.

Great to see tonight, among above, Sharon Walters, Brian Rosen, Cecilia Chung and friend, Cynthia's flame, Music History students, and other friendly folks from here and there.

January 27 - There We Are

Prepared the second and third pages of Mice and Men: Act V C, "Jus' feel that hair" for publication, then sped off to Kinko's to print up copies of Flying Out the Mouth. Rendezvous with Harriet, and we fly down the freeway, moderately in moderate rain, for rehearsal in SF.

No, that wasn't exactly how Lynch Canyon, in the Sulfur Springs Mountains, looked as we passed it in the glowering gloom, but we can dream, can't we?

The weather was more like this...


...but that was last weekend, along Route 29 in Napa, part of a personal Bay Area Ridge Trail, and we can be non-linear, n'est-ce pas?

And digress, over the Carquinez Bridge


to the Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Tunnel

arriving in plenty of time (we try to allow for two hours for the hour-trip-when-there's-no-traffic) to San Francisco

specifically, Potrero Hill, just south of the city (Thick House Theater -- where my operas on Tennessee Williams's Camino Real and Robert Browning's The Pied Piper of Hamelin were premiered, along with selections from San Rafael News and Waiting for Godot [after Samuel Beckett] -- is on the bottom floor of the high-rise in the valley to the right).


Lunch at Jay's Deli, formerly Klein's, with this view north to town...



Then, at last, it's off to rehearsal at Goat Hall, undergoing serious renovations, where we are admitted by Douglas Mandell.

The place is a mess and unheated, as we were warned, due to construction, but we are deeply grateful for our accustomed central location, and all goes well.

There we are -- Harriet, Sarah (with new longer locks), Kat, and Suzanna.


With notes on the music as follows:

FLYING OUT THE MOUTH
I. Hide and Seek (adding Charles Ivesian bitonal, birhythmic collage of "A Tisket")
II. After the Movie
III. Yonder in the North (two voices to this Northern Plains Rabbit Dance / Sweetheart)
IV. When I Was Three (Sarah singing)
V. All the Dark Birds (Sarah and Kat - 8va? - on Navajo Ribbon Dance)
VI. Prayer (Sarah vocalise while Kat and Harriet offer contrapuntal children's prayers)
VII. Flying Out the Mouth (Sarah and Kat on Yurok Women's Brush Dance)
VIII. LSD
IX. Here I Am (restored, unrepeated with hilarious, idealistic 3-part overlaps)
X. Mice Skins (still out, although Kat tempted by the twisted overtones!)
XI. Wolf Song (still out)
XII. New Jerusalem School (in, but skipped for now, given previous performances)
XIII. Ringaround (Ivesian nursery-rhyme overlay)
XIV. The Woman From the Sky (Kat, w/Mark call-and-response in this Creek Gar Dance)
XV. Wind Song I (Sarah and Kat duo on fragmentary Seneca Alligator Dance, echo below)
XVI. Cross This Bridge
XVIIa. Wind Song II (Sarah and Kat duo)
XVIIb. Then We Find Out
XVIII. Wind Song III (Sarah and Kat solos, possible need for less eliptic accompaniment)
XIX. Yoda (Harriet verse 1, Sarah and Kat verse 2)

Suzanna is game for all, as we read two Little Prince (after Antoine de St. Exupery) excerpts

(originally premiered by Deirdre Lobo [Flower] and Heather Gavin [Le Petit Prince]),














and Mice Suite No. 2 (after John Steinbeck) -- first given by Deborah Kavasch















at the Newport, Oregon, Performing Arts Center,













as part of the Ernest Bloch Music Festival



Directed by Greg Steinke.



Suzanna and I also go over some oldies from Halfway Mark and before, including "June's Song" from Henry Miller in Brooklyn (after Mel Clay) -- first performed by Jennifer Ashworth

and later by Leticia C. Page (here with Elaine Romanelli, Jeanne [top], and Ric Richetta, Henry) --


and "Block Twelve" from Camino Real (after Tennessee Williams)

for the recording of which we are all indebted to Karl Coryat.

And, yes, we'll do "Brunnhilde" from Cats, Dogs, and Divas (after Harriet March Page) again, this time as a solo (visual from the January 2007 Women on the Way Festival at Dance Mission, SF -- the pole dance on Valkyrie spears routine).


So, that was about it. Stopped at Erling's



to get updates on the repertory for the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra March 8 concert at Old First Church



and here they are, still evolving:

Alexis Alrich -- Fragile Forests: II Cambodia (8:00)
1111 1100 3Perc 11111

Michael Cooke - Sun and Moon (15:00)
2113 1100 Pf 3Perc 11111

Philip Freihofner - The Bell Field (5:00)
0100 0000 Tape 00000

Martha Stoddard - A Little Trip to Outer Space (12:00)
2112 1100 Pf2Perc 11111

Dan Reiter -- Toccata and Fugue (15:00)
3124 2000 11131

Erling Wold- Mordake (15:oo)
2113 1100 Pf3Perc 1111

Run into Lisa Scola Prosek, who just happens to be passing by.



Still kind of rainy, so we don't head to The Connecticut Yankee,



but instead take the great leap home, avoiding all faults, almost to Lake Berryessa.



Harriet watches ice skating



and we take in a little of the new version of Jane Austen(1775-1817)'s
Mansfield Park (1814)



with one eye on



Just uploaded The Wind God: II I've a Crick (after Harriet March Page) to myspace.com/markalburger



So will check email and dreams, with good fortune, better than Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare, below



which, by the way, was the image for this year's Christmas card, with the sheet music to The Nativity: VII. "And Being Warned by God in A Dream," right up there with the most inappropriate pictures for holiday greetings ever....