January 29 - Bwa-Ha-Ha

So Harriet gets an email from Beth Henry (that's her above playing Widow Quin against my head-damaged Old Mahon in our opera on John Millington Synge's comedy, The Playboy of the Western World) which includes an mp3. H can't download it on her computer, so I stop what I'm doing, log on, download the sound file and it plays back a voice, menacingly,

"Bwa-ha-ha!"

That's it.

Ah, technology. What a joy... All in good fun.

And, appropriately enough, with that classic sinister sound, it's Dies Irae Day for the Music Theoreticians, so we have


but certainly not in alto clef in the third week of the course (referred to, but actually never actively utilized in first semester -- there seems like enough else to do). This will be keyboard solfege for next week.

We look at nice pieces by Joel Davis and Ira Feldman, play and talk also about Erik Satie



and the harmonic ambiguity of Gymnopedie No. 1 - are those GM7 and DM7 chords IM7 and VM7 in G or IVM7 and IM7 in D? Turns out, the latter, given key sig and ultimate goal, but initially, one can be led astray...

I am led astray, wandering over to Mimi's for lunch, grading papers in a joint w/ internet access, and even an electric outlet. What more could one want?

The world turns beautiful upon leaving -- shredded stern clouds and patches of sunshine,



crucifix lightpoles,



ruddy trees counterbalanced with the harsh metal of stadium lights and solar pannels in the DVC parking lot,



cars huddled against the cold,



a glowering Mt. Diablo across the sports field,



naked russet branches against the torn sky,



the Music Building in a surreal glow.



Inside, hours before class, the room is empty save for a double Mark;



a few students hang in the hall (composer Sebastian Najand, a new student, and tenor David Chavez);



and open lab time at the DVC Music Technology Center remains a hotbed of activity,



the latter watched over by Doug Michael.



The Music Literature class runs Medievally, from about 400 and Boethius (c. 480)



to Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377) and 1400,



with a little Kingdom of Heaven (the opening scene's evocative lyre and percussion),



plus Monty Python and the Holy Grail (the penitente-head-clobbering parallel-organum Requiem bit).



Quick quiz and it's time to head home, empty classroom again (reverse image from the reflective window glass),



fifth page of Mice and Men, Act V, Scene I C "Jus' Feel That Hair" prepared for publication and then prepare for temporary oblivion.



Check email just before retiring, and Maggie Tennenbaum



requests an mp3 of her marvelous recording of The Proposition



from Cats, Dogs, and Divas (after Harriet March Page, the CD just recently completed)



that she may post on her website -- a request I am delighted and honored to honor.

January 26 - Here We Are

Well, well, here we are on blogger. This is the alarming picture from the Halfway Mark show, last April 20, for starts.

Harriet and I are going over the Flying Out the Mouth music for tomorrow's first rehearsal at Goat Hall in anticipation of the premier Horsewomen of the Apocalypse show (The White Horse, 8pm, February 16, at St. Gregory's - 500 De Haro Street, San Francisco), so this will be brief as a beginning.


Still have to edit the Flying midi tracks a bit -- the number of repetitions does not always equate with reality, and we all know time.... so, must get to work in this regard.

What is Flying Out the Mouth?, you may well ask. Mercifully, nothing biological, at least not in this context. Apparently music by me and words by my partner, Harriet March Page, with a bit of phantasmagorical Native-American-influenced material as well.

Here's a cover....



And the first page, in which one can play postminimalist hide-and-seek with Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata Prelude...


And the CD image...















The cast of characters at tomorrow's rehearsal will be Harriet,


Kat Cornelius and Lisa McHenry (from left to right, with Robert Benda, Cynthia Weyuker, and Alexis Lane Jensen in this past August's production of my opera after John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World at Oakland Metro Opera),


Kristen Jones (with a passed-out Harriet, also in Playboy, as two drunken wenches [farmers in the original]),


Sarah Hutchison (center, with, left and right, Sandy Castleberry and Maggie Tennenbaum, in last January's Cats, Dogs, and Divas at San Francisco's Dance Mission -- with Flying, one of the four Ring of Harriet operas),


And last, but certainly not least, Suzanna Mizell (also from Cats, who has now sung leads in three of my operas -- CD&D, Camino Real, The Pied Piper of Hamelin -- and who will be singing excerpts in The White Horse from above, as well as Mice Suite No. 2 and Henry Miller in Brooklyn)


Well, this wasn't as brief as it could have been. But in truth, have returned onblog to line out the rest of the evening after meeting with Harriet. Have edited the recording of Flying Out the Mouth (I. on Cubase, II.-XIX. on GarageBand) to suit the score's and performers' needs as follows:

Op. 103 FLYING OUT THE MOUTH (December 11, 2001)
I. Hide and Seek
II. After the Movie (restored the "4xs" sections)
III. Yonder in the North
IV. When I Was Three
V. All the Dark Birds (3xs from the top of the page, with coda as marked)
VI. Prayer
VII. Flying Out the Mouth (followed directly by an additional early IX. Here I Am)
VIII. LSD
IX. Here I Am
X. Mice Skins (omitted for this performance)
XI. Wolf Song (omitted for this performance)
XII. New Jerusalem School
XIII. Ringaround
XIV. The Woman From the Sky (omitting verses 4-6 in this performance)
XV. Wind Song I (3xs section as marked)
XVI. Cross This Bridge (omitting repeat in this performance)
XVIIa. Wind Song II (3xs section as marked)
XVIIb. Then We Find Out (as recorded, without D.C.)
XVIII. Wind Song III
XIX. Yoda (no sax [we're classical],
original 80 velocity-attack down to 50 for verse 1 and 65 for verse 2,
cresc poco a poco from 3.5 to 6 in piano and -36 to -24 in percussion)

Well, that's about it. Bit of work for San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra tonight, too. Our evolving repertory for the 8pm, March 8, Old First Church (Van Ness and Sacramento Streets, SF) concert is evolving as follows:

Alexis Alrich - New Work

Michael Cooke - Sun and Moon

Philip Freihofner - The Bell Field

Martha Stoddard - A Little Trip to Outer Space

Dan Reiter - Symphony

Erling Wold - Mordake

Here are some of us from the December SFCCO Board Meeting at Erling's (Alexis, Michael, Mark, Erling, David Graves)


Guess we were having a good time. Erling always serves fine wine....

Here are Phil and Dan, from one of the rehearsals at Potrero Hill Neighborhood House of the Stream of Consciousness Old First Concert (December 7, 2007).


Ok, actually, here are Phil and Dan and a lot of other ensemble members, so let's get specific: Anne Szalba (Timpani), Bruce Salvisberg (Flute), Phil (Oboe), Jon Russell (Clarinet), Diane Ryan (French Horn), Michaels Cooke and Garvey (Bassoons), Hande Erdem (Violin II), Patrick Kroboth (Viola), Michel Taddei (Bass), Clare Twohy (Violin I)


Now it's Clare (alas, still from behind), Michel, Dan (Cello), and John Kendall Bailey (Associate Conductor).

There we are, that ought to do it for this rainy evening of further adventures in sight and sound.