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.