OK, so my compositional career basically began in Sulzberger Parlor, the venerable Barnard College meeting room that is also one of the main musical performance spaces on campus because of the presence of a reasonably nice piano, in about 1997. The last time I had a concert there was in December 2001, in an epic airing of three of my Notes from the Subway.

Tomorrow, Nissim Schaul’s music returns to Sulzberger Parlor, as part of a Worldmuse concert, being sung by people who mostly were in middle school in 2001. (Or were they in elementary school? Oh my god?!). I’m trying not to be too reflective about it, and somewhat fortunate that I can’t be there, since I won’t be hit over the head with my lost youth or something.

However, you should go, because the program is incredible. There’ll be the world premiere of possibly the entirety of Rising, or at least the New York premiere of the first section. There’ll also be premieres of pieces by Joseph Rubinstein and Ursula Kwong-Brown, Indonesian, Indian, and Philippine dancing, and “an improvised soundscape by composers Jeff Yang and Sarah Wald.” I don’t know what the last part means exactly, but that makes me even more upset that I’m going to miss it.

So, first a reminder:

* March 26, 2009, noon: Nuevos Misterios (slightly truncated), performed by Flying Forms, at the Schubert Club Courtroom concerts in St. Paul, Minnesota. That’s in Courtroom 317 of the Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul, 75 West 5th Street.
* March 29, 2009, 4pm: Nuevos Misterios, performed by Flying Forms, at House of Hope Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. House of Hope is at 797 Summit Avenue. map!

Rehearsals are going nicely, and the electronics are coming along…

Second, Marc, Tami, and I will be on the radio on Friday! We’ve been asked on Minnesota Public Radio Classical’s afternoon show with Steve Staruch. We’ll be on sometime between 3 and 5 pm.

If you’re in the great state of MN, you can find the station to listen to here. If you’re not, you can listen online.

Do motives that gain their power from a tonal context work in a mostly-atonal setting?

I’m onto the second straight piece in which I have to confront that question.

The opening bars of Omie Speaks go like this:

(listen here)

See that A-sharp in the first chord and that A-natural in a different voice in the second? (a voice is defined by its left-to-right motion and how high it is) That’s called a cross-relation. (more…)

Marc won!

and when you click on the violins, he comes right up front.

who knows what happens next…

I should have put this up earlier: my friend Marc (violinist, Brahms, that’s him in the red sweater) is a finalist for the YouTube Symphony, so go vote for him. Today, because today is the last day. (Watch out for the incredibly cheesy video that starts up, and go straight to the Vote button, and search for his instrument, name, and/or composer, and hit the green thumbs-up button)

Beyond just looking out for my friends, I do think he’s the best performer amongst the Brahms choices. He has the clearest, most consistent interpretation, the cleanest sound, and the most rhythmic precision (and for what it’s worth, the best reverb, which sort of points out the problem of this whole thing: it’s pretty hard to compare the dude playing in the hall of his conservatory with the cello section playing scales behind him with the girl in her dorm room…)

But we have what we have. I was checking out the violas, and was really astonished that they all sounded horrible. But it’s the repertoire that was picked for them. The orchestral excerpts, like the development from the finale of Mozart’s 40th Symphony (starting on page 41), are all representative. But because of that, they’re not particularly showcases for the instrument. The viola’s problem, always, has been one of size: it’s too small to make the notes it’s tuned for, and as a result, it not only has a nasal sound, but it’s also very quiet (only the double bass has a worse problem in the string section).

The Mozart and Brahms excerpts, and even more the Rossini, and also the Beethoven’s Fifth to a lesser extent, show how composers have dealt with the problem when they need the viola to sound out. (more…)

[This post will stay at the top until February 13, 2009. Scroll down for other stuff]

UPDATE (Feb 11):

Radio producer Sarah Elzas has produced a piece for Network Europe about the Saxophones en fête festival, featuring an interview with me

On February 13, Omie Speaks will be premiered, along with other works for classical saxophone and electronic means. It’s a very varied concert: my classmates Pierre Berndt and Marie Reynauld will sing some popier stuff - Pierre has an epic rock tune and Marie some chanson francaise, but there’s also a bunch of “contemporary classical” music, from my piece to an In C inspired score by Jonathan Pontier, political music by Jean-Luc Degioanni, and also pieces by Jean-Yves Bernhard and Gregoire Lorieux. The performers are students of Ronan Baudry.

Omie Speaks is for saxophone quartet and quadraphonic tape. The tape part is based on the voice of my great-grandmother, as recorded by my cousin in the midlate-70’s*. She’s talking about her (our) family history, and I’ve taken three location words from the tape, disguised them, and turned them into the bed for a 10-minute sax quartet. I’m hoping to take some more of her voice and make a whole “Omie Suite” for several ensembles and tape, but that’s not for a while.

The concert will be on Friday, February 13, 2009, at l’Espace Renaudie, 30 rue Lopez et Jules Martin in Aubervilliers, at 8pm. It’s near the Fort d’Aubervilliers Metro station. Here’s a map:

View Larger Map

The concert is part of the 3rd edition of Saxophones en fete, a classical saxophone festival throughout the Paris region run by the incomparable Nicolas Prost.

The show costs 10 euros / 5 euros reduced

—-
*thanks for cousinly correction on this…

Yesterday, my English student asked me a question. I’m very excited when he asks questions, because it’s not quite his strong suit… But he pulled out a doozy. I quote:

“Do you prefer music or petting a cat?”*

Well, first, I’m proud of how impeccable this question is grammatically.

But, what to say?! I said I prefer petting the cat. Because music is hard, and petting the cat is easy - and soft.

OK fellow composers and artists of all stripes: am I a terrible person for preferring the cat to my art?

To add a complication, I answered as though I were being given a momentary choice; do this or do that right now. What if my student meant to ask, permanently, would you always prefer music or petting a cat? Or: you will lose one of these things, music or the cat. Which could you not live without? Probably I’d chose music over the cat if we’re talking forever. (Pet owners! Does this make me a terrible person?!) Or: was he talking about composing music or listening? Listening to music isn’t as hard as composing it, and can be just as pleasurable as petting a cat. Does that change my answer?

Oi!

——
*Get your mind out of the gutter - that’s not what he meant!

“Imperfection is the mother of style.”

From My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk.

See also last month’s post and this one, too, for context.

a fried hard-drive at the server farm later, and my posts since Nov. 1 are gone. I found the three I’d posted on happy Google-cache, so I’m about to repost them. But the Doctor Atomic discourses are missing, probably for good. I’ll try to get an abbreviated version done soon.

So, lesson: write everything on my own computer. Do not trust the server. Not learned.

your friends’ art.

(Thanks, Seth)