December 7 - Bright Reflections

Second-to-last-day of pre-exam-week Theory, last regular Music History Class, and where does the semester and, for that matter, life, go?... blazing down the freeway in the blaring glare of welcome

late-season sun, for

Week 2, Day 3 of Student Teaching.  Homeward for the afternoon, there's time to stop of at the library for further video enrichment, now all opera, including

Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1687),

Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio (1814),

Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville (1816) and

La Cenerentola (1817),

Gaetano Donizetti's The Elixir of Love (1839) and

La Favorita (1840),

Richard Wagner's Lohengrin (1850),

Guiseppe Verdi's Otello (1887) and

Falstaff (1893),

Arthur Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance (1879, in William Leach's ahistorical, clangorous, obtrusive, over-the-top, suspect 1980 orchestration -- heavy on brass, guitar, synthesizer, glockenspiel, and xylophone)

Arthur Sullivan's The Mikado (1885, in a 1987 production featuring Eric Idle's operatic debut),

a typical double bill of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana (1890) and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci (1892),

Kurt Weill's Der Kuhhandel (1935),

Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), and the

John Adams Dr. Atomic (2005).

Grade a lot of papers over the afternoon,

but still not nearly enough -- Harriet heading out, and soon following suit for the evening's last hurrahs, with music astoundingly from Leonard Bernstein's Candide through serialists, minimalists, and rockers to Mark Alburger's Psalm 6: 1-5 and San Fernando Hub: I. Fresno, the latter as classroom participation, and a postlude on Camino Real: Block 9.

Home in shadow and smoke for more night music (pdf of page 5 Street Songs [second of II. At a Photo Shop] and 13th measure composed for Psalm 81).

November 27 - Back and What? Not!

A day mostly at home with Harriet, catching up and debriefing, including re-reading Robert J. Carson's Where the Great River Bends, plus the typical array of composerly activities: beginning the pdf of Op. 29 Street Songs (I. All My Relations) and continuing the composition of The Cop and the Anthem (page 57, beginning VII. Cigar Store) and Psalm 81 (M3).  Out on errands late.

Playlist all day is Dmitri Shostakovich...

Symphony No. 1
The Nose
The Age of Gold
Piano Concerto No. 1
Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 6
Symphony No. 8
Symphony No. 9
Violin Concerto
Symphony No. 10
Piano Concerto No. 2
Symphony No. 11
Violin Sonata
Symphony No. 15

July 1 - The Ring of the Bay

Up again early,

but not quite so much as earlier in the week,

to the

appointed round with Crystal -- but where is she?

Not at the Crestwood Open Space or at

home... turns out she's at another trailhead, thinking that it's some other day, so we'll try again next week.  Beyond local errands, pick up the January 2006 back issues of 21st-Century Music in Berkeley and

zip through the

Coast

Range

to

Diablo

Valley College to record,

in the lab,

All the BBC Sound Files (Op. 192)
XLIII. Construction
XLIV. Cats
XLV. Emergency

100 Sound Effects (Op. 193)
IV

and

Psalm 62 (part of Op. 189).

Over the Bay Bridge (with a 5th Street detour) to Potrero Hill, there's time to grade half of the Music History Quiz 6's outside at

Connecticut Yankee before heading to the

War Memorial for San Francisco Opera's production of

Richard

Wagner's 

Siegfried,

as part of their 2011 Ring of the Nibelungs.

Counting intermissions, a 5-hour experience, just for a quarter of this Cycle -- reporting soon for Commuter Times and here.

What can we say in the meantime, briefly?

That nothing of Wagner is done briefly, certainly...

Pdf of seventh Embedded Invention (Op. 20),
Ninth movement of The Little Prince video edited,
Page 8 of Psalm 64 composed, and
Page 43 of The Countess Cathleen orchestrated.

Also finish re-reading Edward Abbey's Beyond the Wall (1984).

June 17 - The Panorama

Way early, as all week, but earlier still, to the Friday appointment with

Crystal in the Sleepy Hollow /

Terra Linda

Divide

Open

Space, then

Berkeley to pick up the belated February 2011 issue of 21st-Century Music,

and

Diablo Valley College,

recording

All the BBC Sound Files (Op. 192)
XXXVI. Farm Machinery
XXXVII. Horses
XXXVIII. Horses and Dogs
XXXIX. Children and Crowds
XL. Spain

100 Sound Effects (Op. 193)
III

and

Psalm, Book II (Op. 187)
Psalm 61.

Homeward

thereafter, featuring a library-video run for Harriet (including

The Spirit of St. Louis [Charles Lindbergh 1953 / 1957],

State of the Union [Howard Lindsay, 1946 / 1948],

Stella Dallas [Olive Higgins Prouty, 1923 / 1937]), and

The St. Louis Bank Robbery [1959, after the 1953 event]), a pool/spa adventure, and typical tasks, such as

IX. At the Club from Henry Miller in Brooklyn edited as its own video,
Page 2 of Psalm 63 composed,
29 for The Countess Cathleen orchestrated, and
pdf of Some Stuff: VII (Op. 16) prepared.