Dark Price

We are officially one week away from the premiers of 6 (count them 6!!!!) new opera scenes from some great composers.  

I have had a blast working with the singers for my scene.  They have all been such pros and have offered exactly the kinds of feedback and collaborative energy I was hoping for going into this project.  They have broken down my long-standing aversion and really helped me realize the difference between vocal writing and instrumental writing.   Plus which, I got some great composition and technology lessons out of the whole writing process.  Now I know how to make piano music look like piano music!!  Its really kind of embarrassing how much of a revelation the piano lesson was.  

Anyway, dear readers.  Please do yourself a favor, come out and support BRAND SPANKING NEW MUSIC here in KC.  Let's put a dent in the cultural map that people won't want to buff out.  

Buy tickets here!

Boston

This is one of those non-music ones.

All I can say is wow.  The swiftness, the voracious velocity with which this stream of events has unfolded through our lives is breathtaking.  Even more so than 9/11 the bombings on Monday seem to have places a mark on the permanent record that is both indelible and already evolving across multiple platforms of thought and experience.

My heart goes out to all the people affected by this senseless act of hate.  I cannot begin to imagine what life will be like for you from now on.  The first responders, the immense focus brought to bear on those two young men, thank you.  The man in the cowboy hat; the "only his first name, Jeff" that victims have wanted to say the most heartfelt of thanks to; all of the countless hundred you can see on videos running towards the danger make me weep for humanity is more good than evil.  It tells me that being cynical is really a waste of your precious time and energy.  Sure, you can cause destruction so much faster than you can create and build, but to what end?

There has been for sometime in this world a spiritual imbalance.  So many of us are simply turned off to the idea that there is something beyond being a sensual hedonist in contemporary existence.  I think I might even have been turned off at certain point in my life.  While watching the people running towards though, it comforts me to know that yes.  There is something much greater and more precious than the  vaunted individual and its biological imperatives.  And I should pay more attention.

I also again see instances of just how deranged a human thought process can become.  These two young men, (at the time of this writing I guess just one now, if they take him alive) have obviously developed some very not-like-mine thought process and rationalization for their behavior.  The brain is such a plastic thing, and with a little practice you can turn it into a marvelous thing.  But if you practice the wrong way though, you get results like Monday's tragedy.

Can we all just take a moment to breathe in the bad, transform it within ourselves, and exhale the good.

Editing

Hours and hours of sweat and concentration.  I still have 80 measures or so left to transcribe vocal rhythms into.  Thankfully I am not in the act of creating permanent pitch content just yet, as the singers have been requested to come up with their own vocal lines based on the harmonies the band provides and their own experiences from past operas and roles they have filled.

Last sunday we had a read through with the singers doing their level best and I couldn't have been more pleased.  I am looking forward to the anticipation that will start to creep in as the performance date draws nearer and nearer.  Here's a shoutout to Alison Heryer who is going to be designing the costumes for all of our scenes.  She has some very great ideas on how to use the space.

I have dallied too long, I must complete these parts.   So I leave you with this, because I've been listening to more and more of his music lately.

Despite this piece's elegiac reputation, I find it to be some of the most significant counterpoint I have ever listened to in terms of influencing how I work out my ideas.  You should also check out his Essay for Orchestra Nos. 1 and 2.

Soma Athenaton

I made something with a friend of mine a week ago.  It was a powerful sonic experience for all involved.  To be there in the Medieval Cloister at the Nelson-Atkins, it was wonderful.  Such great overtones and reverberations.  We reveled in our patience.

Please enjoy. 

Mnemosyne will do more performances in the future.   Please stay tuned.

Evidence

Here is video footage of our performance at the Nelson Atkins Museum a few weeks ago.

Enjoy.

Chaconne for the Death of Love




























If you are wondering about what Plastic Sax is talking about, please Click here   or  here

Full Rehearsal the First

Yesterday/s rehearsal was a blast.  Seeing the singers stand up and do their thing was much fun to experience.  I can feel the long standing "insitutionalized aversion" I was educated to have regarding singers starting to melt away.   There really is something to this opera stuff.  Everyone participating, everyone working together.

I stayed up until 2 last night working on edits I got from the read through yesterday.    Probably I will be doing the same thing tonight.   Such is life.  

Post-mortem

Black House Collective's Ancient Inspiration concert at the Nelson-Atkins in collaboration with their Innovation Lab was a success.  Through its duration there were well over 200 people who meandered through or stopped to listen to the whole concert.

All of the composers this time around need congratulations for their stellar work.  Each piece was sounding it's best.  I was pleasantly surprised with how the room, a daunting hard-angled hard-surface box of stone with a barrel vault for a ceiling, actually helped each of the individual parts be heard.  3 and a 1/2 seconds of reverb can be a tricky thing, but all the human bodies in there helped soak it up and make for a nice, lush sound.

I am also excited because the Nelson had professional videographers taking shots of the whole event.  That will be a nice takeaway to use in all of our portfolios.

If you missed the concert, you get ONE MORE CHANCE to come and see all of this amazing work happen.  Here's the event.  This one has free beer if that is a good motivator for you.

Look forward to seeing you all there.