la vie boheme

i want pockets full of firecrackers. i will, however, settle for the sounds of a strummed guitar in the midsummer night air. last week i played with anchoress at local 269, a bar on east houston frequented mostly by jazz groups and rock bands. it was our debut show, and the bunch that stuck around till 11 pm to hear us play were true troopers! it's a bit weird, focusing that late at night, but ultimately we - that is, lisa dowling, bass, charlie rauh, guitar, and me on flute - are about listening. i made it through despite a pounding headache.

i've recently spent some time at the office for which i used to work full time; the pace of the day and the tight-knit community are quite different than the arts world. in a way, creative relationships are founded on an immediate and steadfast respect. in the corporate world, it takes more time to establish those connections, but the strength of the ties is the same.

i've been working towards a two-woman show with lydia love in november; i over-intellectualize everything about my art. i blame my psycho-analyst mother. does that imply a freudian affiliation? mental health professional. so i'm trying to get into a place where i can be true, safe, and vulnerable. does such a place exist for everyone, accessibly?

intrigue

as the summer wears on, my life has begun to take shape. of late, i've been involved with the institute and festival for contemporary performance at mannes (concert details on my site here), where freelance contemporary musicians gather to work intensively for 10 days. while in the building, one has the sense of new music limbo, a plane that is rarely interrupted by outsiders. i've been on the prowl for work; i've come to the realization that i need something flexible to accommodate my various projects, be it curating chamber performances with guitarist jordan dodson and conductor/percussionist kyle ritenauer, developing concepts with composer/dancer anne goldberg, improvising on tunes of hildegard von bingen with bassist lisa dowling and electric guitarist charlie rauh, or ruminating on solo recital ideas for the winter.

running on fumes, underslept and underpaid, this is the life i have chosen for myself. a sage friend recently articulated the philosophy that we should do what we're passionate about. in the city that never sleeps, there are endless creative possibilities and ever-expanding artistic communities; the challenge is to negotiate a distinctive and committed identity - a bright light that shines through the fray.

kandinsky, color study of squares

sleeping to dream

i checked out the brooklyn-based sleeping giants show the other night at littlefield; bits of it were entertaining but not earth-shattering. i could have had less of ted hearne screaming mixed up pop lyrics with live electronics and more of violinist tema watstein providing echoes of italian cathedrals.

but really, folks, these days i sleep deeply, idly dreaming of scenes i can't have in the city. here are a few more by elizabeth bishop.

Elizabeth Bishop, "Summer's Dream"

To the sagging wharf

few ships could come.

The population numbered

two giants, an idiot, a dwarf,

a gentle storekeeper

asleep behind his counter,

and our kind landlady—

the dwarf was her dressmaker.

The idiot could be beguiled

by picking blackberries,

but then threw them away.

The shrunken seamstress smiled.

By the sea, lying

blue as a mackerel,

our boarding house was streaked

as though it had been crying.

Extraordinary geraniums

crowded the front windows,

the floors glittered with

assorted linoleums.

Every night we listened

for a horned owl.

In the horned lamp flame,

the wallpaper glistened.

The giant with the stammer

was the landlady’s son,

grumbling on the stairs

over an old grammar.

He was morose,

but she was cheerful.

The bedroom was cold,

the feather bed close.

We were awakened in the dark by

the somnambulist brook

nearing the sea,

still dreaming audibly.

zoom

yesterday i attended a first tuesday cma seminar on group identity. this will be useful in articulating the mission of our collective, which debuted in may. it's interesting to think of chamber music as a family - in collaborative musical relationships, as in friendships, there here has to be a kind of tensile synergy that encourages dialogue. successful projects are ones that convey that energy in a meaningful and accessible way. i suppose this is a *no duh* moment for many of us, but it's something to which every ensemble - ou bien, relationship - should strive.

the days wear long and hot-i find evenings better times to get a lot accomplished.

looking forward to my bandmates' performance of messiaen's quatuor pour la fin du temps at brooklyn conservatory this evening; should be transcendent.

uncut

last night i attended a double cd release at the gershwin hotel (contagious sounds series) - andy akiho, a steel panner who graduated with the first class of msm's cpp now on innova, and vicky chow, pianist of bang on a can, on zorn's tzadik label. it was packed (no surprise)-i was particularly taken with the quality of musicianship. andy's band played like a jazz group that has gigged weekly for decades, and vicky ripped through ryan francis's roaringly difficult piano etudes as if hanging a sweater out to dry on a windy day. the film that showed between sets, of andy and cellist mariel roberts, was incredible. the director had an eerie way of spinning the angles (outside, on some rooftop that looked like the bronx on a grey semi-spring sunday) like a wizard. i missed the end of it, but it will be posted next week sometime on andy's website. his music took me to a beach where polyrhythms were mixed into the tequila shots and complex timbres were the salt rimming the margarita glasses. really guys, impressive.

i'm trying to balance my life these days - alternating between downtown shows and quiet brooklyn evenings; my sleep schedule, ever since the cornelia st. gig with neoLIT has been bizarre. i need to get back to this time zone somehow by sunday...

hopelessly devoted

all is not lost, mes amants. marteau en entier will go up in november; now we must decide on a few solid companion pieces. i recently went to an art performance at 12th and avenue a and was assaulted by pennies. i like the ghettoblaster portrait up at ad projects this week a bit better. i am not of that world, so i struggle; somehow the violence of the performance fell flat-a waste of a lord of the flies foghorn, if you ask me.

this city makes you feel like you always have something to prove, no matter what the context; i was idly thinking of paris this afternoon, as i do, and recalled lazy sunday family lunches that seemed to make time stand still - pâté followed by salad dripping in balsamic vinaigrette, to be lapped up by crusty baguette, then a fish or poultry course lightly prepared; cheese course; coffee in the salon.

and so i defended my line of whimsical collaboration following a trail of archetypal conservatory training as we strolled towards essex last night and thought: where do we draw the line? when is it this not that? these types of curatorial decisions are what define us in the artistic community, and yet we are not schooled to be tastemakers. perhaps in the end we should nab some decent speakers and listen together to hours of music to find out what makes us tick, so to speak, to calibrate our collaborative clocks.

for me, most times, it's jessye norman's third last song by strauss, where she literally transcends the symphony orchestra, ian bostridge's bach cantatas, hilliard's take on pérotin's viderunt omnes...take home lesson is that we all have different palates. when collaborating it is not only important to recognize the palate of another but also to complement (and consciously defy) it.

parting thought:

elizabeth bishop, "insomnia"

The moon in the bureau mirror looks out a million miles (and perhaps with pride, at herself, but she never, never smiles) far and away beyond sleep, or perhaps she's a daytime sleeper. By the Universe deserted, she'd tell it to go to hell, and she'd find a body of water, or a mirror, on which to dwell. So wrap up care in a cobweb and drop it down the well into that world inverted where left is always right, where the shadows are really the body, where we stay awake all night, where the heavens are shallow as the sea is now deep, and you love me.

renewed

i've been out of commission...ish. riding the wave of my first year at manhattan school of music's contemporary performance program, now knee-deep in planning for the summer. i need a jumpstart.

when it comes to culture in new york city, who do people trust? i go directly to the venue websites, full stop. i don't trust all curators, all the time, nor do i the taste of timeout, new yorker, or the discretion of those choosing who to list on the WQXR Q2 concert listing.

i've learned, hard and fast, that i can make things go. i dream of creating something à la monday evening concerts in LA. they've been going strong since the late '30s-and have access to deep pockets.

since getting out of the full-time work game and stumbling purposefully into the freelance new york music scene, i have been working on meaningful projects but fail to fully grasp the flow.

in other news, i need a new laptop. my keyboard is fritzing.

betwixt

i want to be your

breath of fresh air

evasively elusive

lavender in rain

the summer is slogging along, lead-footed. i finally have air conditioning and netflix, so...it's really not as bad as all that. i will be attending msm in the fall for the contemporary performance program...my brain is steadily waking to the fact that i will have to re-look at a lot of music history and theory that has fallen through the cracks over the last year (or so).

i'm dreaming of madeira and bordeaux in late summer; will i get to see the autumn leaves fall in my backyard for my birthday? skip about the lonesome beaches of the philippines in early winter? i am intrigued to see what jobs i can fit into my class schedule, and a critical question hangs in the balance: will i be able to keep my idyllic brooklyn apartment and comfortably commute to harlem 5 days a week? time will tell.

matter of months

i have been remiss, having steadily worked and attended concerts over the last few months. friday night i went to pala and saw "girl with the dragon tattoo" at sunshine, with a nutella crêpe from ludlow st to finish. it made me nostalgic for place st michel crêpes in an envelope so hot you can't eat them for minutes. last weekend i saw music divine sing josquin's missa de beata virgine. i'll be auditioning for that group as well as several others in the coming weeks. no decision yet about msm. i hope the summer will bring a few days at the beach on long island, some interesting musical projects, yoga training...change. making s*** happen.

tomb of judith

date: 1/30/2010 time of death: 8 p.m.
scene of the crime: carnegie hall
primary suspects: pierre boulez, mathieu dufour, chicago symphony orchestra

ok, that concept has been exhausted:the first piece on the evening's program was ravel's tombeau de couperin. isakov, chicago's principal oboist, responded poignantly to boulez's delicate direction. morgan, an oboist friend i met at domaine forget this summer, was in from montreal this weekend; we got $10 obstructed view rush tickets - but we still had a view of the wind section. that's all that counts.

second on the program was dalbavie's flute concerto, premiered in 2006. pahud's recording doesn't do the piece justice. i haven't read about or heard enough of dalbavie's music to qualify this statement, but the timbral effects - spectral or otherwise - were spectacular. dufour was in true form.

the second half consisted of one work, which i saw staged in paris: bartók's bluebeard. voiced by mezzo michelle deyoung and bass-baritone falk struckmann, the chicago brass and acting principal clarinet shone brightly. if i shut my eyes, i could envision the minimalist staging in paris, all inky black and resplendent light. the program overall showed the depth of both the symphony's capacity for understatement as well as boulez's command of the repertoire (well, duh, maybe). i've never seen chicago live - and this was an unforgettable concert.

i awoke in the dark to take my friend to penn station dreaming to tombeau - and that, mes amis, is magic.

havana, cuba

the nickname of my room, which feels, on a good night, like the tropics - at least 10º warmer than the rest of my apartment, due mainly to the fact that i keep my door shut at all times for fear of clay, our black cat, or rather for fear of his hair all over my things.

new york is so cold my face hurts. the wind is raw, uncompromising: winter is here to stay, friends. snuggle up and hold tight.

i have fought (mostly on the phone) the last few days as a patient advocate for myself. pharmacies can be frighteningly against the welfare of their patients. my conclusion: duane reade is the devil. meditate on this next time you swing by to nab a new prescription...

2010 is fast approaching; what will be in store? on my docket are a solid translation of goethe's faust and jonathan harvey's nataraja (for flute doubling piccolo and piano) whilst training to tutor for 826nyc, dave eggers' outfit in the back vault of the brooklyn superhero supply.

and so it goes, it goes.

fresh

i've met the merry band of musicking kids with the newly minted juilliard historical performance program, and i must say i'm impressed. they played a concert at paul hall last week to a nearly full house...i am in love, so much love, with telemann's paris flute quartet. adriane post (fiddle) and andrew arceci (gamba) were formidable. i look forward to increasingly daring programming and devilish music that tragically isn't heard enough in new york city.

saturday saw me between libraries (NYPL and BK central branch) dropping off scores and picking up an armful of fiction in the dying afternoon light of grand army plaza.

sunday i shopped, oh did i shop, for a few christmas presents down in the 'hood of dave eggers' adorable brooklyn superhero supply company. a can of intelligence for the office party, a copy of eggers' wild things book for lukas, a long brown corduroy jacket that fits me like a glove. it rained and rained and rained...

...and after produce at russman's i booked it to (le) poisson rouge for a hilarious show by the ensemble acjw, ever full of surprises. the nightclub setting ultimately worked in their favor - stockhausen's tierkreis swung and jostled everyone's waltzing heartstrings; luciano berio's oboe sequenza and it's ever-present b natural was evocatively spun by heartthrob and rock star james austin smith; jon deak's b.b. wolf, rendered expertly by memory by bassist evan premo in a wolf hat and tail, bemoaned the discriminatory literary tropes of the lupin creature (tango and blues, amigos...with howling); biber's sonata representativa - owen dalby, violin, with supporting cast - evoked all kinds of animals while adhering fast to the conventions of 16th century counterpoint; davidovsky's synchronisms no. 9 for solo violin - yonah zur - weaved and spun itself around the electronic sounds, which to me evoked a wind, rather than a stringed, instrument; finally, daníel bjarnason's bow to string, originally for solo cello plus a lot of prerecorded cellos and arranged especially for the ensemble for the evening's performance, proved haunting and delectable. i'd like to hear more from this guy.

and so, it seems, i am taken by this ensemble. at least in concept. with that, i leave you, fair readers (however few), to cook.

dithering, dabbling

this weekend, i returned to the brooklyn public library (grand army plaza) to return apollinaire caligrammes, iris murdoch's the black prince, peter høeg's the woman and the ape (pure genius) and italo calvino's under the jaguar sun for works by janet frame and reine maria rilke, among others.

i caught a few concerts of note:

• bang on a can all-stars and trio mediæval gave quite a performance of julia wolfe's steel hammer at zankel on saturday evening, which reminded me simultaneously-at once-of a mix between louis andriessen, arvo pärt and aaron copland. haunting open harmonies, playful intertweaving of americana and tall tale. for one guy up in the mezz with me, it was too much - he stalked out, throwing down his program about 30 minutes through.
• the latter half of ensemble acjw's turn of schubert, curated by the genial alfred brendel, who i caught at age 13 in cheltenham, england, giving his last round of performances of the complete cycle of beethoven piano concertos with the london symphony. the "notturno" piano trio was particularly stellar: i was floating, transfixed, without a sense of the moment. the concert closed with the effervescent "shepherd on the rock" (for soprano, clarinet, and piano), handled masterfully by 3 delightful young performers.

i met up with the venerable composatrice zosha di castri to share thoughts about my MSM audition, among other projects. on the docket: jonathan harvey's nataraja, a light sonata by michel blavet, and a piece for flute alone...

joining the ranks

my pace is set now: up at 7 a.m., struggling in the dark, showering blindly, drapes closed; dressing in the clothes and jewelry i'd picked out the night before; cereal and milk + a shot of orange juice; 5 minute walk to the train; picking up the W at 8:30; out at carnegie by 9:15; in the office by 9:20; solid work day with an hour's lunch, dreaming within the pages of tana french's in the woods, accompanied by a peanut butter sandwich; out on the street at 5:30; W to the R; C-town for last-minute groceries; home. bam. monday to friday, sold.

the c.e.o. of the place where i work, in one word: inspiration.

soon, amigos.

syllables

i take solace in words. unlike most i do not imagine the goins-on of a book cinematically; rather, the words flow over me like a hot shower. language - the sound and the weight of it - has long transfixed me. the exquisite translations of pablo neruda's poetry and amos oz's the same sea are gems in my ever-expanding, resplendent literary closet.

currently: the pulitzer prize-winning amazing adventures of kavalier&clay by the effervescent michael chabon of wonder boys fame; i have dipped my toe in james r. gaines' evening in the palace of reason and am intrigued.

we survive in installations, between moments, amongst one another and yet quite alone.

in a few weeks, i will toast the new york sunset on a park slope roof, smiling slightly in the face of a stranger who is my roommate. i will get a public library card, walk the streets to get a sense of place, join the ranks of brooklyn-manhattan rush hour commuters. i will thrive.

shout

• margaret (M) and her discourses on the occasion of humanity;
• B: a guiding light for we stray sheep.
  

new york was productive. heartening. i had a few job interviews. being across the street from carnegie hall, catching a few performances here and there, dreaming of being backstage, ready for my close-up...

i missed nick's show at the stone, as well as talea's joue of stockhausen's kontakte (anthony cheung, piano and alex lipowski, percusson).

i identify the ride from new york to b-more with fried chicken, biscuits, baked beans, and (a new addition) chocolate milk.

now, to the grindstone, of sorts. making decisions about auditions, repertoire, strategizing for the imminent. perhaps an october weekend in montréal with natalie carducci in tow?

in search of:

an inspiration. a sign. a bolt of lightning. my late-night interest in david copperfield wanes; amos oz's the same sea waits on my deep yellow shag carpet, untouched.

shortly, i will away to new york, stay with charmaine uptown, work for the league for a few days, visit old friends up at purchase, lay down a few funky flute sounds for marc wolf, and on my way out miss nick's solo stone gig.

newly minted: my own fancy flash website. (in progress)

discovery: the very cool, sparse yet rich art+culture site.

pattie

i would like to know a guy named paulie and ride a bicycle with a peppermint stick in my mouth. to roll with the punches.

predicting

being jobless, young, without much work experience, with too many degrees, in this economy, is risky.

i am passionate about tutoring, teaching flute to kids who haven't been touched by the rampant adolescent jadedness, working on musicals where everyone has good creative energy, and playing music that forces me to take a second, or third, look.

i struggle not to take personally every absent email or call from a potential employer. i'm qualified to do this work; why not call me? you stand to gain more than you stand to lose by doing so. it's a tough scene; i should've set myself up for it better.

lynn's compadre from her madrigals group at the rennfest yesterday liked my self-dubbed moniker: "marauding martha."

this week: wednesday, "glee" party with richard, pizza, twizzlers, ice cream...is this what i wish high school had been? sticky fingered sugar high, tripping on my own pretend happiness? it truly was the apex of our teenage lives, with a relentlessly regimented schedule, like the army with more social hierarchy and less yelling. i've convinced myself over the years that the few mentions i got in our senior year yearbook signified that i had made something of myself. now i realize it was only in mr. wright, our militaristic, baptist preacher of an AP english teacher, who saw beyond what we were and peered into what he hoped we would become.

wince: reality

i've been home a few days now and know that traveling this summer was the right, if untimely, decision. i risk nothing by sending out a few resumes, putting out feelers.

between new mexico and europe, i crashed for a couple of nights at jake's apartment in queens. i knew that i would be without constant access to a computer for nearly 2 months, which was exhilarating....free! unbound! unreachable! myself.

i came across the inimitable nick at quiet jam session in new jersey on a raining june evening and can't (won't) forget it. 

returning to france - specifically, to paris - after two years' absence was a poignantly nostalgic experience. nothing, and everything, had changed. 

someday i would like to play music with mira benjamin's beautifully reckless abandon, alexandre's expansive curiousity, and nick's incorrigible exploratory thirst. i can only strive.

now playing: ali farka touré, "tchigi fo"