60 x 60 Project: new dates

If you want to hear my piece "Cold Blood", and 59 other short pieces, check out the dates below. There have been some new ones added and they're in bold.

February 9th, 2006 60x60 Project at the University at Albany, Albany, New York
December 17th, 2005 60x60 Project at Forest Park Community College, St. Louis, Missouri
December 14th, 2005 60x60 Project at The Essl Collection, Klosterneuburg, Austria
November 19th, 2005 60x60 Project at Los Angeles Harbor College, Wilmington, California
November 16th, 2005 60x60 at Goldsmiths College, London, United Kingdom
November 12th, 2005 60x60 Project at the Auditorium of the National Conservatory of Region of Lille (CNR), Lille, France
November 11th 2005 60x60 (2005) at Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois

November 6th 2005 60x60 Project at Collective: Unconscious, New York, New York
November 5th, 2005 60x60 Project at Galapagos, Williamsburg, New York
November 3rd, 2005 60x60 Project at Collective: Unconscious, New York, New York
October 22nd, 2005 60x60 Project Kansas City Community College, Kansas City, Kansas

O my FRAGGING god.

http://www.rspca.org.uk/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RSPCA/RSPCARedirect&pg=sharkbait

Brace yourself.
And then sign the damn petition.

"Cold Blood" selected for the 2005 60 x 60 Project

My piece, "Cold Blood", which was written for the Pax Recordings compilation "Voices in the Wilderness", has been selected to be a part of the 2005 60 x 60 Project run by the NYC-based Vox Novus collective. For more information about the project and who the other 59 selected composers are, use this link:

http://www.voxnovus.com/60x60.htm

The original "Cold Blood" was about a minute and thirty seconds long, so to meet the 60 x 60 requirements, I had to re-record it and make it exactly one minute long. (Pieces can be 60 seconds long or shorter.) So I had to edit Will Grant's electronica background and re-record the vocal part while speaking faster. All the words are still there though.

Here are the upcoming concert dates for the 60 x 60 project:

02/09/06 - 60x60 Project at the University at Albany, Albany, New York
12/17/05 - 60x60 Project at Forest Park Community College, St. Louis, Missouri
12/14/05 - 60x60 Project at The Essl Collection, Klosterneuburg, Austria
11/19/05 - 60x60 Project at Los Angeles Harbor College, Wilmington, California
11/12/05 - 60x60 Project at the Auditorium of the National Conservatory of Region of Lille (CNR), Lille, France
11/05/05 - 60x60 Project at Galapagos, Williamsburg, New York
11/03/05 - 60x60 Project at Collective: Unconscious, New York, New York

Aviation music

An effort that has taken up most of this year so far is finally coming to a head! This Saturday evening, October 8, will be the world premiere of my piece Remove Before Flight.

The scene will be the annual fundraising gala at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, CA. The gala is sold out, so there will be 300 people there having dinner and listening to aircraft designer Burt Rutan speak. At the beginning of dinner, 4 flutists will take the stage -- myself, Amy Likar, Julie Burkert and Sarah Holzman -- armed with 2 C flutes, an alto flute and a bass flute.

Ten minutes later the crowd will have heard the two movements -- a slow one called "The Breeze" and a fast one called "Takeoff" -- and we'll see what the reaction is to the very first piece of new music commissioned by the Hiller Aviation Museum, supported by a grant from the American Composers Forum's Community Partners Program.

This week is probably going to rush by at a high rate of speed towards Saturday. I'm sure it will be over so fast I won't remember a thing about it. :)

The Eye of Sauron

I remember the morning of 9/11. I was in Eugene working on my 3rd album. The impression I got on that day was that the attack was going to awaken the right, and focus its attention on the West Coast. It would give the right an excuse to come after us and everything we hold dear. I imagined something like the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings, gazing balefully on the Bay Area and resolving to take our progressive enclave from us.

And sure enough last night, House Republicans rejected a Democratic resolution to name a post office in Berkeley, Calif., after a longtime local activist and city councilwoman. Usually it's routine for post offices to get named after local luminaries, and these renamings get approved without incident. But those Republicans said Berkeley couldn't have a post office named after 94-year-old Maudelle Shirek. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, led the opposition and said Shirek's background "sets her apart from, I will say, the most consistent of American values."

The SF Chronicle says King gave no details in a speech on the House floor beyond citing Shirek's support for freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted for the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer. In an interview later he said Shirek had an "affiliation with the Communist Party," citing her sponsorship of a Marxist library.

Shirek is actually an advocate for civil rights, seniors and peace and served eight terms on the Berkeley City Council before losing a write-in bid for a ninth term in November.

This is the first I've heard of it, even though Barbara Lee has been trying to rename the downtown post office after Ms. Shirek since 2003, each time getting shut down by Republicans who've kept the resolution from coming to a vote.

So are Republicans going to tell us what we can do out here? Wouldn't it be strange for Californians to start bombasting about "states' rights?"

Back into the studio

I'm excited about my upcoming sessions in November. The Company will come together for another studio stint in Eugene.

Dan the pianist and I have been rehearsing piano parts. Dan will be emailed up there as data once more. Jim is making the trip out from Kentucky to play bass, which I'm REALLY excited about. Will Grant will be there as .wav files. Jeff will supply drums and engineering wizardry. I'll be handling the flute, bass flute, vocals and acoustic guitar.

The tunes that will be recorded are "The Jaguar", "The Great Highway", "Not Made of Stone", and "Suspension". All the lyrics to those can be found here.

Before the sessions start though, I'll get to spend some time visiting K in Portland and FocalAxis in Salem. I'm also hoping I'll get to hang out with Sharon Floyd a bit while I'm in Portland. She rocks. We are thinking of maybe collaborating on a performance art piece about salmon.