Beautiful weekend of music
The service at St. Stan's went well...not perfectly by a long shot, but nothing broke down, and a few things approached the condition of real music. Afterwards we (boir and priests) had cassata and just enough wine, and I tumbled into bed at midnight.
Sunday was the Fretwork concert, and the Composers Guild.
Fretwork reminded me what a good composer Thomas Lupo really was, and presented a marvelous new work by Orlando Gough, Birds on Fire. I'm not generally fond of new pieces for viols, or Holocaust pieces (it's a narrow path between "Never again!" and "Get over it!") But this went over well, both with me and the rest of the audience. Imagine Shostakovich taking up minimalism, and writing the score with a quill on parchment, and you'll have some vague idea of the piece. Of course, Chapel Court and Countryside had to add a propaganda piece for the Soak the Bums for Art tax (issue 18) to the program bundle, so we couldn't even escape electioneering by diving into the 17th century.
Afterwards, I thought there was an Indian restaurant on Coventry, but I'm behind the times, so I ended up at the Japanese place on the corner. Among other things, I had a natto roll. Natto is fermented soybeans, and since they are controversial and supposedly quite healthy, I had to try them. Well, it was just as nasty as you might imagine, but I ate it all; there was a biggish glob of wasabi on the plate, and given enough wasabi one could even eat poodle poo sushi...the bright light in your head would obliterate all thoughts of disgust.
The Composer's Guild concert was glorious. I had been very pleased with the dress on Saturday, but this was twice as good. I couldn't stop grinning all through the piece. It was a full, if small house. All the pieces were worth hearing. And, most shockingly, Bill Bolcom and Joan Morris were in attendence (brought by Loris Chobanian, who had them in at Baldwin-Wallace for a week's residency). Bill remembered me, and liked my piece. I got fan raves, particularly from Cleve Svetlik, our recording guy, who has some of my choral music on his Ipod for when he does his cardio workout. It's hard for me to imagine doing a workout to that music (unless he's preparing his soul for the risk of keeling over), but if it works for him, I am more than happy about it. I want my music to be useful to people.
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