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).

December 3 - Threepenny Recordings

Acquire the original 1954 off-Broadway recording of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera -- a welcome re-acquaintance!

After the day's pdf'ing and composing (seventh system for Street Songs; 63 and M9 for The Cop and the Anthem and Psalm 81),

rendezvous

at

DVC with Zoli

Harriet, Branislav, and

Sarita to record Matthew Owens's City of St. Francis Act I Scenes 1 and 3, thanks to welcome assistance from Doug (setting the stage yesterday) and Francisco.  Late night mixing before return.

November 29 - Beacons

Another day of foggy / clear / foggy,

careening

forth to

Diablo Valley College for the second day of student teaching.  End of third round of compositions, so a presentation of Business As Usual: IIc. Information Wanted, rounds out the class, followed by an afternoon inversion of above as

clear /

foggy /

clear (the 680 corridor hangs tough with the clouds all day).  By evening, after typical musical endeavors (Street Songs pdf system 3, more composition re The Cop and the Anthem [page 59] and Psalm 81 [M5]), we head the door sequentially in the returned

stratus for

Berkeley

and

another

Kurt Weill

Project 

performance,

this

time

with

a

significant

portion

of  

The Threepenny Opera (featuring accordionist John Bilotta, artistic director Harriet March Page, and pianist Martha Cooper)  including The Ballad of Mac the Knife,

Instead of Song (Alexis Lane Jensen, Sibel Demirmen, Zoltan DiBartolo),

Barbara Song,

Jealousy Duet (Demirmen, Michelle Jasso),

Cannon Song (DiBartolo, Branislav Radadovic),

Pirate Jenny,

First Threepenny Finale, and the choral-reprise version of

Mac the Knife (Page, Lane Jensen, Dimirmen, Jasso, Radakovic, DiBartolo, Molly Mahoney, and Justin Marsh).  Excellent performances; with lots of familiar, friendly folks in attendance, including

Allan and William Crossman, Peter Josheff, Eliza O'Malley, John Veich, and Wayne Wong;

and a great time is had by all.

Homeward

lateward.