aces

brahms piano trio in b major, op. 8 no. 108
calvin wiersma, violin
julia lichten, 'cello
paul ostrovsky, piano

purchase college conservatory of music - 11/13/07 - 8pm

brilliant, stunning. something in julia's playing is so alluring...playing brahms chamber music must be like skinny dipping in the daylight, vulnerable and chased.

i had a bit of a conversation with kevin lubrano tonight. he said it sounds like i'm exploring. lately i've been feeling pinned down, but maybe it's a trick of mirrors.

i need a haircut and a good glass of pinot noir. maybe not simultaneously.

saturday the plan is to go to the city, drop off my musicking things at clio's before salsa dancing, location tba. i have a lesson at tara's house uptown on sunday. it would be a waste of a round trip train ticket and a few hours' sleep to not stay.

sometimes my soul craves silence. maybe the suburbs are what i need right now. someone told me once that new york city would be too overwhelming for me, too soon. what i loved about paris was the possibility. i don't know what thriving feels like.

tara and cat cantin have both said that the flute comes easily to me for some reason, which means i have to give that much more to make the music happen. interesting that that has been said twice in the span of a year in two different countries and languages.

designs

gregory maguire's confessions of an ugly stepsister, set in haarlem, netherlands, hometown of our very own jp.

we talked about our interviews, and i was reminded of my plank research paper from last year, for which i spoke with l. dean nuernberger, the incredibly inventive original conductor of collegium musicum at oberlin. i sent it to a bunch of friends, old compadres from collegium, while i was in paris, trying to stir some interest. mary larew suggested i send it out to early music america. i'm planning to get a draft of it to jp next week to see how it can be reworked. i don't know if nuernberger would grant his permission to publish it, though. he's modest to a fault.

alice and i had our first rehearsal with cal (faculty violinist at purchase) for brandenburg 4 this afternoon. derek, crystal and i went to the cobblestone for a drink. hot toddy=tea+shot of jack. (too strong for me tonight) good when you're sick and need a drink (think finals week, meeting clio for a drink at the feve, december 2005, bleary eyed and sniffling).

one more mandelbaum gig to go (slight groan)..."paris is as paris was, my son..."

dave's jokes:

how do you get a musician to complain?
give him a gig.
how do you get a musician to complain more?
pay him.
...and more?
feed him.

what's the difference between jazz and blues chords?
blues is 3 chords for 1,000 people; jazz is 1,000 chords for 3 people.

my days are scattered, frayed. i'm not sure what to do with the time i have. hopefully rebecca's errands will fill up a few hours a week, maybe playing a few more gigs...the weather here is drippy, moorish. i want to hibernate, away from the damp, dark cold.

next week, denisov. marc wolf and i bravely take the stage (well, the floor) of the pcom recital hall (nov 15, 8pm) to play some weird amorphous quarter-tone music. stay at least for the 2nd movement nocturne.

stay tuned.
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Now playing: Marcos Valle & Joyce - Valeu
via FoxyTunes

renaissance revolution

i was supposed to work a dinner shift at the restaurant last night, but apparently there was a scheduling mishap, so handwashing my apron and drying it at the laundromat was in vain. i hate that, disruptions in what i expect of my day. i went home, watched crappy tv, ate eggs and leftover squash, and rented a dvd for $1 called renaissance. it is an animated film noir, with paris cloaked in a murky, smog-ish darkness, something about scientists perfecting an elixir for immortality. i chose to hear the dialogue in french with english subtitles. my french is sore, strange and heavy. i catch snippets of paris in my dreams, slices of what seems now a faraway life.

current books: i was lucky enough to snag purchase's copy of the memory keeper's daughter, so i'm into that, also a book of short stories by raymond carver (i read somewhere over the summer that he was pretty good). the time traveler's wife isn't doing it for me.

the rehearsals for tito's gig are tiring, the music is beautiful at times, but is also often abstruse. i don't know if all the rep will come together in time for the competitions.

what do i want, actually? it changes by the hour.

chagall's memoir is cute, stream-of-consciousness-like. he knew he wanted to create art. i am not as confident in that.

below, chagall's stained glass window at the UN. i saw it when i played the gig there and thought it was tiffany.

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Now playing: Bonnie Raitt - Walking Blues
via FoxyTunes

geek chic

according to the ever-wise (and hilarious) jordan, i am "geek chic." maybe i should start designing clothes. i draw the line at cigarettes, real ones or jean material, unwashed hair, and angry cause-blazing haters. my idea of politics is fairly simple: support with conviction, and don't criticize those who don't give you the time of day. people find their own way into communities. it's a passive principle, but that's what i believe. so today, o embittered students for "save darfur," you came up short. no signature for you.

for 2 days i have felt like i have a swollen golf ball settled in my collarbone. ginger tea? sleep? tara suggested a gargle with salt, but hopefully some strong ginger infusion will do the trick. "heroes" + dinner involving squash, garlic, mulled apple cider, and milano cookies. not necessarily in that order.

upcoming:
nov 5: interview with patti monson for research&writing class;
nov 6, 11: music of joel mandelbaum at queens college and hunter college under tito muñoz;
nov 8: handdrumming performance (suny-purchase);
nov 15: denisov sonata for flute and guitar (mvmts 1+2) with marc wolf at suny-purchase;
nov 28: berio's sequenza (orig.) for paula robison masterclass at diller-quaile in the city.

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Now playing: Fred Hersch - At The Close Of The Day (live)
via FoxyTunes

spacey

fall still doesn't feel right.

last night a group of us went to see charlie neidich play the brahms clarinet quintet with the juilliard string quartet near lincoln center. the concert was briefly interrupted for a false fire alarm (they restarted the shapey quintet, which was a little abstract and abstruse, even posthumously). also on the program was elliott carter's second string quartet. a great piece, but as nick gallas wisely interpreted, is too dense to really understand at first hearing. it takes a good study to approach it. i read him for fischer's class at the sorbonne, i'm quite enthusiastic about the way he conceptualizes music, but then somehow his music makes me come up empty.

the most impressive part of the performance was the instrument neidich played on. he had it modeled after mühfield's, the clarinetist brahms heard play in meiningen. he even had it cut from the same vintage wood. the idea was to best recreate the quintet sound brahms must have heard at the end of his life. amazing, actually. the juilliard quartet is a great vintage ensemble. i especially liked the second violinist.

we had our first brookshire midterm (blech), long and moderately painful. bridget, susan and i are going to see STOMP on broadway tonight, taking the train and transferring to union square. derek recommended a great indian restaurant nearby called raj mahal (the east village is his 'hood).

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Now playing: Missy Higgins - The River
via FoxyTunes

approaching...

friday: classes, second shift at rebecca's.

saturday: parents. my birthday. dinner. lucia di lammermoor at the met (not dessay). possibly the pepsico sculpture garden, or the bronx botanical gardens for some japanese chrysanthemums.

things seem joyless, grey around the edges. the change of weather, flipflopping crisp and warm, makes my bones creak. maybe fleeing the scene of this life is the solution. for now, i'll read more allende and the time-traveler's wife to steal me away from the earth.

i tried love in a time of cholera, but it didn't stick; of love and shadows on the other hand, was almost epic. i almost think what irene and francisco have doesn't exist in the real world. it's that much more beautiful on the page.

below: kiku, queen of Japanese flowers.

as of late

the concert went pretty well - good turnout, confused applause for the messiaen, coughs at the wrong times in the debussy. i think maestro dunkel was pleased.

recent reads: vanishing acts by jodi picoult, a tree grows in brooklyn by betty smith, the sea and the bells (poems) by pablo neruda.

from "ode to salt":

Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receives a kiss
from ocean night:
taste imparts to every seasoned
dish your ocean essence;
the smallest,
miniature
wave from the saltcellar
reveals to us
more than domestic whiteness;
in it, we taste infinitude.

i'm pumped to find, on iván's recommendation, chagall's autobiography, entitled (in english), my life. there's a copy at the purchase library!


i love the smell of old books. i caved and bought copies of the master and margarita by mikhail bulgakov (knowing my parents, they probably bought me a copy for my birthday), as well as naked lunch, william s. burrough's chef d'oeuvre, at the campus bookstore. i don't have the money to spare, but...somehow, it seemed right.

this week marks my first of rehearsal freedom - more time to learn daphnis and practice my quartertones for denisov.