December 31 - New Music New Year's Bash

Update 21st-Century Music with several Calendar items (first journal in quite a while to feature such listings), do pdf for page 24 Street Songs, compose a second system of Psalm 83,

prepare for publication Christmas Carrels - A: Lang Syne (a collision of the New Year's melody with Georges Bizet's Carmen: Habanera), and do last-minute promotions and otherwise make ready for the New Music New Year's Bash, before heading out the door with Harriet to the event.

Wedge ourselves into a space right in front of Community Music Center on a mild moonlight night, greeting Phil, Eliza, Ji, and others who are already on site just before the house opens for dress and tech.  Two hours is barely enough time for final rehearsals, etc, but we are ready as audience and more participants stream in, for a vibrant show including

Nancy Bloomer Deussen's Adirondack Morn;

John Bilotta's Yeats Songs, with Tristan Robben; Philip Freihofner's Where My Breathing Whispers (Diane Frank), with Eliza O'Malley and Kelsey Walsh;

Ji Yoo's performance of Motherless Child;

Kurt Weill's Lonely House (Annemarie Ballinger) and  

First Threepenny Finale (Harriet March Page);

Martha Stoddard's Quartet for Two Oboes and Two Bassoons and Duo for Bassoons (with Philip Freihofner, Mark Alburger, and Michael and

Lori Garvey);

Dylan Greengard's Bullfight with Self, The Plight of Josef K., and  

The Wrath of Poseidon (the latter in which the composer-guitarist is joined by violinist Asuka Yanai;

Mark Alburger's Business As Usual and

Rozalina Gutman's Music.  We wrap up official proceedings at 11:45pm, toasting the coming year with a theme-and-variations playlist of multiple Auld Lange Synes found online including --

Andrew L
Andre Rieu
A Beautiful Lotus
Harry Koizumi
Jack Ingram
Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis
Anne McGinty
Kenny G
Alfred Publications

-- counting down to the witching hour, shouting,

dancing, and singing

Christmas Carrels - A: Lang Syne.  Home late, listening to Philip Glass's Akhnaten both directions and finishing up a re-reading of

Fifty Hikes in Eastern Pennsylvania (probably the last debriefing from the October trip).  Check the e-mail, and many folks have checked in for the new year, including Lukas Ligeti, Lola O'Rourke, and

Heather Tyreman and company from her bed and breakfast in Joseph, OR.

And, after a year on this blog, at 767 MB (74.91%) of 1024 MB total...

So, best wishes to all in 2012!, where this chronicle will continue at markalburger2012.blogspot.com.

September 24 - Masks

Up early to establish a blog for Goat Hall Productions / San Francisco Cabaret Opera at http://goathallproductions.blogspot.com/.  Also Finish parts for Suite ("Sol[ar]"): IV (as much as is slated for Swarthmore), produce seventh-page pdf of Sinfonietta: II, and compose page 8 of Psalm 73 and 2 for The Cop and the Anthem.

September 23 - Clear Before the Darkness

Produce new parts for Suite ("Sol[ar]): III, sixth-page pdf for Sinfonietta: II, plus compose page 7 of Psalm 73 --

before heading out in the evening with Harriet,

down the

80 corridor to

Berkeley for the monthly

Goat Hall Productions / San Francisco Cabaret Opera board meeting, now at Chamber Arts.  Afterwards, begin composition of The Cop and the Anthem, Op. 198.

July 30 - The Show

Do the daily musical tasks --

tenth and final of the Missa "The a Deux": III. Credo pdf's
second page composed for Psalm 68
72nd orchestrated page of The Countess Cathleen
tenth video of The Bald Soprano edited

 
-- while Harriet readies for a Kurt Weill Project performance,

then

we

are

off

to

Flux

53,

to

join the

rest of the Goat Hall cast in a show that also includes

gymnasts

and

composer-performers.

The presentation

is a

big success

and favorably reviewed in the Bay Gardian.

July 23 - Art and Artifice

Off to San Francisco, after score study all morning, towards a Goat Hall Productions reading

su casa de Sharon

Wolters

re

Matthew Owen's impressive City of St. Francis, with

Keisuke Nakagoshi, Raina Simons, Harriet March Page, Brian Rosen, Sarita Cannon, and Justin Marsh.

Return via Pacific Heights,

Corte Madera,

San

Rafael,

Puerto Suello and

Pacheco Passes,

Marinwood,

Silviera Ranch,

Petaluma River,

Sears

Point,

Vallejo

Cliffs

and

Grade,

American Canyon

St. John Mine Mountain Ranch,

Sentinel Peak,

Poverty Hills, and

Lagoon

Mountains to the usual work regimen (Pdf for Missa "The a Deux": III. Credo [part 3], sixth page composed for Psalm 66, Page 65 of Countess Cathleen orchestrated, third video of The Bald Soprano edited).