December 17 - Timelines

After uploading all the Glass, set to retire, but return to Facebook, and become curious about the upcoming of the heralded Timeline redesign, which, seemingly in the spirit of past revamps of YouTube, etc., seems to be on the horizon for everyone, for better or worse.  Visit Steven Clark's and David Weigelt's redone sites, and, lo, the new new approach and look seems a definite improvement.  So, contrary to some past practices, jump on early, and get carried away in enthusiasm most of the night.  Have always been a fan of timelines, after all.

After a few hours of morning repose, up again, doing pdf and audio for first part of Symphony No. 3: II, plus the days updates of Street Songs and Psalm 82 (pdf 15 / comp 7).  Also return to two boxes of photos, kindly sent by Carolyn a number of years back, and begin scanning some of same into computer for use on Facebook, here, etc.

In the evening, off again with Harriet, down the 80 corridor, looping through electrically-bedecked palms in Emeryville, over the Bridge, south on 101 to the vicinity of

Paul Avenue, for dinner and conversation with Michelle, Andy, Jonathan, and Vera -- a very pleasant time, touching on Business As Usual, Camino Real, Firesign Theater, geography, opera, traffic, and weather -- among other matters.  Home late, but evidently there are more enthusiasms ahead...

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).

October 29 - Arrangements in Colors

The weather report has suggested early snow, and it is looking to be the case,

building up enough in the stroll to breakfast and

back,

that an early departure to Swarthmore seems appropriate, over

Baltimore Pike, the

Media

By-Pass, and the Blue Route

to

set up and

practice the

percussion again

and

prepare

for

the

afternoon

lecture-

demonstration.

At the appointed hour (or thereabouts) -- with Debby How and Jerry Levinson --

composition students and others gather, with

Elizabeth Hoffman and I sequentially holding forth, re music for two violins, Irish pipes, and electronics; plus allusions to Psalm 6 and Suite ("Sol[ar]") and performances of The Twelve Fingers: I (live), San Fernando Hub: I (featuring audience participation), and Camino Real: Block 9 (the video produced over the summer), as the wind blows and the

snow continues to fall.

More practice thereafter (a bit of Eastern cabin fever setting in, but beats walking across campus in the snow for dinner), including one with Debby and Tom for The Inner Circles, and another for Peter Schikele's canons Dona Nobis Pacem and Swing, Swing, Swing.

At last the concert,

with

all

going

impressively

well --

warm comments all around, and particular congrats to Debby for putting all together, this the second annual event.  Many express interest in next year: in particular, thinking of excerpts from Ecclesiastes, Op. 3... keeping this sequential numbering conceit... perhaps 199+ concerts over as many years?  No doubt, we shall not see or hear, but an amusing idea. 

Great to take in the concert with Tom, Lisa, Bette, and George -- wrapping up the evening with a lovely reception

and an adventurous drive back (comparing merits of Baltimore vs Blue 'n' By-Pass)

to

warm-in-the-cold

accomodations.