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.

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 12 - Happy Birthdays!

Happy birthday to Bette -- so beautiful and wonderful on this milestone date!  Wishing you many more years of happiness, great to catch you in for a telephone chat this morning, sending all our thanks and love across the miles!

Some of the way locally being over the Petaluma Plain to

Marin to rendezvous with Crystal.

But where is she?  Not at Crestwood or Ridgewood, with -- after a brief swing to San Anselmo for multiple financial greetings -- an empty residence parking lot as well.

Last ditch effort, back to the Open Space, where, lo, her car is now parked, so, take a gamble (only 15 minutes left to spare before the journey to Diablo Valley College for the Music Theory Exam will need to occur) and take a stroll up the trail (figure 7.5 minutes forward is all that can be spared).  Magnificently, there she is with Stanley, 6 minutes into the jaunt, so we get a 9 minute chat together on the way back -- well worth it!

Onward to the final, where the faithful are mostly assembled (all 26 eventually arrive -- perhaps a record, or at least close to such -- a wonderful group all semester)!

Back to the

local area, pick up the equipment for the

Underground 

Sound

multi-faceted

show (the ladders take up one side of the car interior, so Harriet has to sit in the back, but we manage nonetheless),

the reverse course making towards a

striking

sunset

and San Francisco to

Stage

Werx.

Turns out that the back wall can serve as a suitable projection screen, so we proceed apace with soundchecks along with fellow artistes

Tom Shay and Bruce Pachtman,

before the capacity audience arrives, which welcomingly includes Lucas, Marie, and a charmingly dynamic

MC.  A very multicultural assemblage, and there's a bit of concern as to how this material, with its allusions to various esoterica of graduate school, will go over.  But hey, Business As Usual (the interior trilogy-of-trilogies of the trilogy rubricked as L.A. Stoies) is also about musical nerds, drunken revels, the certainty of death, totalitarianism, academic pomposity, violence, overconfidence, futility. and land preservation (and the music doth hath its charms, too, despite or perhaps even partly because of its polished pointy-headism and rusticity) -- so it all happily goes over well.  The enthusiastic auditor/spectators (there are the nine new videos, after all) are given to enthusiastic outbursts, as if in a revivalist church, and, in the intensity of IIc. Information Wanted (after the over-the-top screaming), someone sings out with "Welcome to my world!"  Yes!  Marvelous response!

Tom and

Bruce also acquit themselves nicely, Senor Shay delivering his "deceptive girl encounter" song even more appealingly than in the last outing heard several months back when Stage Werx was located downtown + the duo deliver a feverishly virtuosic kinda country-rap.

Also brilliant are the incredible members of MWE, a Turkish-instrument group -- in this incarnation: zorna, two clarinets, and a souped-up bass drum that comes across authentically as a basso dumbek -- whose demonstrative drones, animated rhythms, and sheer virtuosity bring down the house.  Wow!  Among the confirmations: very loud can be very great!

Home thereafter for more musical insanity (pdf page 10 Street Songs, composition second sheet of Psalm 82).

September 26 - Clouds on the Horizon, Maybe

Off on more dangerous missions, the stratus from yesterday clearing

to the south, for Week 7 with the Theoreticians -- Glen Appel additionally in attendance (a minute or two after the witching hour) re a fourth standard evaluation (second together, the other two from Rory Snyder and Monty Bairos, scattered over the last almost-ten years...) -- so the W.A. Mozart Sonata in C Major, K. 545, first four bars as dictation / keyboard-solfege / board harmony is accomplished early, plus sign-singing on the blog from early organ works of J.S. Bach, the "ear-training" Requiem: Confutatis scene of Amadeus, and a bit on brass technique.

Head

towards the peninsula thereafter,

to pick up a couple of maps (Truckee, Martis Peak, Mt Rose) at the

U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park,

then over to

Stanford to

look over the

situation.

Parking by the

oval, the way to

Braun Music Building is a scenic one,

via

Memorial

Court (with its

Rodin  

Burghers of Calais) and

Chapel,

all watched

over by

Hoover

Tower,

then southeast to

Lausen Mall and southwest to the scene of the action.

In due time,

loop around the back side of the church,

taking in the Main Quad,

etc., from

different perspectives, returning down

Palm Avenue to El Camino Real.

From here, it's westish on Page Mill Road,

north on 280,

west again on 84,

up and over the Santa Cruz Mountains at

Skylonda,

down the coolish-coastal side-slide into

La Honda,

across

San Gregorio

Valley to the

Coast,

northward

on

Route

1,

past

Tunitas

Cliffs

and

Canyon,

to pick up the course of the walk

south

from

mossy /

piney /

cypressy

Verde /

Purisima Creek Road,

via

Cowell

Purisima

Ranch

and

Bob's

Pumpkin

Farm,

to

Verde /

Lobitos /

Myne

Roads.

Accomplishing this, hop back in the car in the fading light,

beyond Half Moon Bay,

Montara

Mountain,

Devil's

Slide,

Gray Whale

Beach,

Pacifica

(Linda

Mar /

Rockaway

Beach),

Daly

City,

San

Francisco

(The

Great

Highway /

Sutro

Heights /

Point Lobos

Avenue /

Seal Rock Drive /

Lincoln

Park /

El

Camino

del

Mar /

The

Presidio), the

Golden

Gate, and

Marin

homeward.

Is there time for music?  Sure.  How about fourth page composed for The Cop and the Anthem, plus beginning composition of Psalm 74 and page 9 pdf re Sinfonietta: II.  Sure, sure...