Thursday night was opening night of OM 10, the 10th annual Other Minds music festival. I signed up to volunteer at the reception, which meant I got to open countless champagne, sparkling cider, and Pellegrino bottles. It was literally a case of "pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain", since that's where the ice buckets with all the bottles were, behind the bartenders. :) Despite this I still got to say hello to Mary Chun, Lisa Petrie, Amy X. Neuburg, Herb Heinz, Pamela Z, Ellen Fullman, and Nicole Paiement.
The Thursday night concert was preceded by a symposium featuring composers and performers from the concert. I sat with Ellen and Celeste's dad, Ed. Then came the concert itself. I had come particularly to hear Hanna Kulenty's Flute Concerto No. 1 performed by Anne La Berge and the Parallele Ensemble conducted by my former prof Nicole Paiement.
Anne La Berge played the quarter-tone flute and alto flute. The ensemble backing her up was all winds except for piano, marimba, and electric bass. Most of the winds were brasses, too, which made for an unusual sound. Sometimes they played muted, and sometimes not. The flute solo was amplified and treated with reverb. It was interesting to hear the solo with reverb with everyone else dry.
The piece had a lot of sequences in it. My favorite part was the cadenza, which was slow, haunting, and expressive on the alto flute.
In other news, it looks like I will get to record the flute part I wrote for Will Grant's piece, plus write an article for the About.com poetry site, and start working with the Punk Rock Orchestra as a composer-partner!
Sunday, March 07, 2004
Friday, February 20, 2004
Proud to be a San Franciscan
It goes way beyond proud -- I'm deeply thrilled and honored to be a San Franciscan. It is amazing witnessing the next chapter of the civil rights movement.
I'm proud to be able to say that I know Gillian Smith, who hurried down to City Hall with her beloved Sarah, to become the second couple to be married there. I'm proud of Gavin Newsom, who I thought was a milktoast centrist Democrat all this time.
I shake my head at those doofus Democrats who are wringing their hands. Don't they recognize history when it's being made? Don't they know we will look back on this heroic moment in time someday and realize that this is how it began? In the future, when all my friends have the same rights that I do, I will be able to say that I was there and I saw all those people standing out in the rain in tuxedos and dresses two by two in a long line waiting to be married.
I got married once upon a time, and it was something I could just go over to the courthouse and do, get a marriage license. I happened to be born a certain way that made it all right. If we are really all created equal in this country, anybody should be able to do that. The mysteries of life and love are the same no matter who it is steals your heart and inflames your passion.
I did not ask to be born such an enthusiastic heterosexual, but it has certainly provided me with a lot of song material the past few years.
I'm proud to be able to say that I know Gillian Smith, who hurried down to City Hall with her beloved Sarah, to become the second couple to be married there. I'm proud of Gavin Newsom, who I thought was a milktoast centrist Democrat all this time.
I shake my head at those doofus Democrats who are wringing their hands. Don't they recognize history when it's being made? Don't they know we will look back on this heroic moment in time someday and realize that this is how it began? In the future, when all my friends have the same rights that I do, I will be able to say that I was there and I saw all those people standing out in the rain in tuxedos and dresses two by two in a long line waiting to be married.
I got married once upon a time, and it was something I could just go over to the courthouse and do, get a marriage license. I happened to be born a certain way that made it all right. If we are really all created equal in this country, anybody should be able to do that. The mysteries of life and love are the same no matter who it is steals your heart and inflames your passion.
I did not ask to be born such an enthusiastic heterosexual, but it has certainly provided me with a lot of song material the past few years.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
Shaky hands
My doctor ordered me off caffeine in September of 2002. This was a very tough transition marked by splitting headaches, low energy, and all the things you'd expect. Overall it has been a great help though. It's great that in the 21st century in the San Francisco Bay Area, a switch to decaf doesn't mean a taste sacrifice!
Nearly a year and a half later, my body responds very differently when I do consume caffeine. I have to be very circumspect about it on those rare occasions. I forgot about that this morning and added about a third of a cup of regular coffee to my decaf at the cafe I habitually go to on Sunday mornings, and now my hands won't stop shaking! It's really dramatic. On mornings when I don't get enough sleep, I'm tempted to add a little regular coffee to the decaf and along with the alertness, I often get anxiety and other side effects.
Celeste commented a little while ago, in a voice tinged with suspicion, that I was "so clean-living". I assured her it was only because the doctor read me the riot act, and that I used to be as wired as everybody else.
Last night the Lads and I met for rehearsal at Jim's place on the Stanford campus. Jim offered me a bottle of water, and when I opened it I found it was carbonated. I have never been able to drink carbonated beverages, because they always hurt my throat. I have tried them from time to time throughout my life and it's always been that way. Jim didn't know this of course because it's never come up.
When Grant arrived I offered him the bottle of water. He was surprised to hear of my beverage deficiency. I told him it was very sad and it isolated me from my peers. He said I could form a support group for non-carbos, but that I would probably get a bunch of Atkins diet folks.
Nearly a year and a half later, my body responds very differently when I do consume caffeine. I have to be very circumspect about it on those rare occasions. I forgot about that this morning and added about a third of a cup of regular coffee to my decaf at the cafe I habitually go to on Sunday mornings, and now my hands won't stop shaking! It's really dramatic. On mornings when I don't get enough sleep, I'm tempted to add a little regular coffee to the decaf and along with the alertness, I often get anxiety and other side effects.
Celeste commented a little while ago, in a voice tinged with suspicion, that I was "so clean-living". I assured her it was only because the doctor read me the riot act, and that I used to be as wired as everybody else.
Last night the Lads and I met for rehearsal at Jim's place on the Stanford campus. Jim offered me a bottle of water, and when I opened it I found it was carbonated. I have never been able to drink carbonated beverages, because they always hurt my throat. I have tried them from time to time throughout my life and it's always been that way. Jim didn't know this of course because it's never come up.
When Grant arrived I offered him the bottle of water. He was surprised to hear of my beverage deficiency. I told him it was very sad and it isolated me from my peers. He said I could form a support group for non-carbos, but that I would probably get a bunch of Atkins diet folks.
Saturday, January 17, 2004
Returning to SFSU
Will Grant and I played music at a silent art auction last night, which was a benefit for the SFSU Marin Headlands MFA program. The event took place in the Fine Arts Gallery in the new Fine Arts building. When I was attending SFSU (longer ago than I care to reveal), that building hadn't been built yet. It was actually my first time inside it. It is very dramatic how new the new buildings look, and how old the old buildings still look, on that campus. I found I still knew my way around the campus pretty well, despite the huge new buildings taking up what used to be open space.
Will and I dealt with technical limitations and the way the space changed when people came in and filled it up. I had written a flute part to go with his electronics and voice piece, Dreams, which has a text by Rose Lobel. He had sent me an mp3 of the electronic background, and knowing there was also a lead vocal part, I wrote myself something that was still in the background but which complented the electronics. This wasn't hard to do. Will's electronic music was really nice and had dramatic movement to it and it was easy to see where the flute would fit.
We'd both been led to believe there was an input on the soundboard for my mic, so I wrote multiphonics and whisper tones, which are really soft and need to be amplified. It turns out there was no input for my mic. I had to go directly into the back of one of the speakers, but that meant Will couldn't hear the electronics very well when improvising his vocal part. So the first time we did the piece, it didn't go so well. I said, I'll do something that is louder so you don't have to amplify me, and then you can hear better. So we made that adjustment and instead of multiphonics and whisper tones, I played with regular flute tone using notes from the multiphonics, and changed the whisper tone melody to regular flute tone also. It went a LOT better that way, and the piece came together in a way it hadn't the first time.
For never having collaborated before, I thought it was a really good start. I hope the MFA program made some money!
Will and I dealt with technical limitations and the way the space changed when people came in and filled it up. I had written a flute part to go with his electronics and voice piece, Dreams, which has a text by Rose Lobel. He had sent me an mp3 of the electronic background, and knowing there was also a lead vocal part, I wrote myself something that was still in the background but which complented the electronics. This wasn't hard to do. Will's electronic music was really nice and had dramatic movement to it and it was easy to see where the flute would fit.
We'd both been led to believe there was an input on the soundboard for my mic, so I wrote multiphonics and whisper tones, which are really soft and need to be amplified. It turns out there was no input for my mic. I had to go directly into the back of one of the speakers, but that meant Will couldn't hear the electronics very well when improvising his vocal part. So the first time we did the piece, it didn't go so well. I said, I'll do something that is louder so you don't have to amplify me, and then you can hear better. So we made that adjustment and instead of multiphonics and whisper tones, I played with regular flute tone using notes from the multiphonics, and changed the whisper tone melody to regular flute tone also. It went a LOT better that way, and the piece came together in a way it hadn't the first time.
For never having collaborated before, I thought it was a really good start. I hope the MFA program made some money!
Monday, December 29, 2003
Celeste is back!
Celeste is back from Connecticut for winter break, and she'll be here until January 18. She and I had dinner over the weekend and it was so cool to catch up with her. We talked about Joan of Arc, and Liturgical Drama vs. Mystery Play, specs of medieval bells, Robert & Jaron's album (which she can apparently compel the Wesleyan library to buy, and I hope she does), Ellen Fullman and her fabulous new album, a piling up of Planet Organics boxes, and much else. We went to Starbuck's in San Bruno (thereby compromising her principles) so Paul could say hi to her too. Paul was there geeking away on his laptop and my laptop, too. We all talked about the Orange Alert and the closed bathrooms on BART, and how much warmer it is here than in Connecticut. Xena the brown dog, it was revealed, is spending winter break in West Virginia chasing squirrels.
In other news, it looks like Will Grant and I will collaborate in a live performance on January 16 at the SFSU Fine Arts Gallery.
In other news, it looks like Will Grant and I will collaborate in a live performance on January 16 at the SFSU Fine Arts Gallery.
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
My friend Sean
Sean is a poet, and I really admire his work. Here's his bio. Go check out his stuff!
Sean Mclain Brown enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm as a jet engine mechanic on AV8B Harriers. Much of his writing is influenced by his experiences in the military and living abroad. He was formerly the Poetry Editor and Managing Editor for Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review. He is two-time winner of the Mark Linenthal Poetry Award and a Finalist in the Ann Fields Poetry Prize. Currently, he is a member of Maxine Hong Kingston's Veterans Writing Workshop. Read Vietnam Veteran and Writing Workshop member John Mulligan's testament. "Art," says Maxine Hong Kingston, "is the transformation of feelings and experience into meaning. Writing is a tool for accessing events and memories and giving them meaning ...we have lived with war experiences in our hearts. Now we can put them through the process of art. Now is the time for the healing and the coming home." His poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in EM, First Intensity, Fourteen Hills, Indiana Review, LUNA, Mobius, Potpourri, Sentence, Small Town and Transfer magazines. His first book, Manufacturer's Specifications and Guidelines is forthcoming from Blue Barnhouse press. You can read his work and current projects at www.seanmclainbrown.org
Sean Mclain Brown enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm as a jet engine mechanic on AV8B Harriers. Much of his writing is influenced by his experiences in the military and living abroad. He was formerly the Poetry Editor and Managing Editor for Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review. He is two-time winner of the Mark Linenthal Poetry Award and a Finalist in the Ann Fields Poetry Prize. Currently, he is a member of Maxine Hong Kingston's Veterans Writing Workshop. Read Vietnam Veteran and Writing Workshop member John Mulligan's testament. "Art," says Maxine Hong Kingston, "is the transformation of feelings and experience into meaning. Writing is a tool for accessing events and memories and giving them meaning ...we have lived with war experiences in our hearts. Now we can put them through the process of art. Now is the time for the healing and the coming home." His poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in EM, First Intensity, Fourteen Hills, Indiana Review, LUNA, Mobius, Potpourri, Sentence, Small Town and Transfer magazines. His first book, Manufacturer's Specifications and Guidelines is forthcoming from Blue Barnhouse press. You can read his work and current projects at www.seanmclainbrown.org
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