Madison

Madison, WI is home to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and it's known for liberal politics and hard partying. My plane came in towards it by night, and the state capitol building was all lit up. It was a cool way to kick off my time there.

The Madison Flute Club had its third annual festival in a university extension building on campus. Organizers and volunteers worked very hard to make everything go smoothly and make the presenters feel welcome. I had some A/V drama early on, but it got resolved before I gave my workshop. It was fun to see Jim Mildrew's film on a big screen in the lecture hall.

I heard a presentation by Dr. Mihoko Watanabe, the flute professor from Oshkosh. She has interviewed the composer Kazuo Fukushima and found out, contrary to everything the flute community has believed for many years, that his famous piece "Mei" wasn't inspired by the shakuhachi flute after all, but by the noh-kan, a flute used in the orchestra for traditional Noh theater. Mr. Fukushima doesn't even like the sound of the shakuhachi!

I met up with my friend Caen Thomason-Redus and had lots of fun hanging with him and Mihoko too. I roomed with Emily Butterfield, a flutist from Columbus. She gave her presentation on Clement Barone, an eminent piccolo teacher who has recently passed on but who's left a lasting mark.

Speaking of the piccolo, I was amazed and awed by Kate Prestia-Schaub, who gave the piccolo masterclass and performed the first movement of the Lowell Lieberman concerto in the Gala Recital. Kate is a rock star -- there are no two ways about it. The piccolo is the easiest instrument in the world to play badly. I have heard a lot of bad piccolo playing (most notably coming out of ME. I suck at the piccolo). Sunday night was the first time I really truly HEARD the Lieberman concerto and its beauty, because Kate has a mastery and sensitivity far above anyone else I've heard. Not even at the piccolo masterclass at the NFA convention (in which I didn't play, mind you--I was the door monitor) have I heard the picc played so well.

The Gala Recital was really cool because half the pieces on the bill were by living composers. My performance of "Three Visions" went really well. Iwona Glinka played a piece by a Greek composer that was full of extended techniques, and Kim Dorr played Ian Clarke's "Zoom Tube". I was impressed that there was so much good challenging material in the recital.

On the plane back they showed "Chronicles of Narnia". I hadn't seen it before, and it's beautifully done, and it seems very faithful to the book. Unfortunately, this means that there is only one powerful female character in the film, and she's evil. In this day and age it's super annoying to watch all the female characters on the "good guy" side end up in jeopardy all the time. This is, alas, the way C.S. Lewis wrote it.

Vinny Golia: Music for Large Ensemble

That was the official title of the concert I was a part of last night. There was an official list of 47 of us, although I didn't count everyone last night, and I noticed at least one person missing.

A quartet consisting of Philip Greenlief, Jon Raskin, Chris Brown, and Tim Perkis opened the show, with the first two on saxophones and the second two on electronics. My taste in improvised music runs to the introspective, subtle, and atmospheric -- not so much the high-volume technical displays -- so there was a lot to like about their set. It was great to be able to hear each individual part clearly, and to hear such well-chosen sounds weave together. The four players were a nice energy combination too. Even the Glenn Campbell sample seemed to fit.

The large ensemble started setting up immediately afterward. Vinny Golia had brought his own instruments which he arranged around his conducting area. He has a Kingma bass flute, which he invited me to try, and I was tempted, but I didn't feel very good about leaving my own instruments unattended while such a big crowd of musicians and audience was milling around. I worried they'd be knocked over.

The show was well attended, which was awfully gratifying. There were some good introspective moments in the Large Ensemble set, too, in between the high-volume technical displays. I particularly enjoyed the efforts of the flute section: David Slusser, Maryclare Brzytwa, Philip Gelb, Tom Bickley, and me. Tom had a two-measure soprano recorder solo which, I was happy to find out, was still audible even with 47 people improvising. Or maybe it was audible because I was sitting right in front of him. ;) Phil played a beautiful shakuhachi solo.

Matt was there chatting up string players for his own Conduction gig on Sunday. I would be part of that if I weren't already committed out of town. I will be getting on a plane tomorrow morning to present at the Madison Area Flute Festival. I'm looking forward to seeing Caen Thomason-Redus and catching him up on everything, including the Fling piece I created with Shiloh.

Gig dream

I had a dream last night that I was part of a big environmental improvisation project performance in some kind of big-box retail store, a huge place with endless aisles full of products. Many people from the new music community were there. I saw Philip Greenlief and Jon Raskin and Thomas DiMuzio and Matt Davignon and lots of other folks I know.

We all got there early and the show was supposed to start at 6:00. In the dream I fell asleep and when I woke up, it was 6:10. I was worried because I was supposed to perform first, but everyone else seemed unconcerned. I took my flute and my bass flute over to the place where I was supposed to play, but nobody was there yet.

I then noticed that the area of the store where I was supposed to be playing had a floor made of ice. It was then revealed that the show had an opening act. It was a woman figure skater dressed in a hot pink costume, and she skated around in the area where I was supposed to improvise on the flute right after her. There was no room for her to do any jumps or spins, so she did the same footwork pattern over and over. The song she skated to was "Waiting Forever" by Hot Rod. It was very David Lynch.

Alas, I woke up before I could do my improv set.

Just for the record, I am not naked.

In the photos Daniel took of me, that is, which are on my web site and in my Tribe profile.

(I'm sure some of you smart-alecs and smart-alexas are responding to my subject line either with "Damn!" or "Thank God!")

I'm having to ramble on about this because of the owner of the Luggage Store Gallery, Laurie Lazer. She was there when I arrived at the LSG last night to have dinner with Matt Davignon and help with the concert. I came in the front door and saw her and she asked me, "What were you wearing in the photos on your web site?" And I said, "Pieces of fabric!"

Matt told me as we were headed for the Vietnamese place around the corner that when he told Laurie I was coming over, Laurie said, "Oh, is she the naked one? Will she be wearing clothes this time?"

So I offer congratulations to Daniel Malone. It looks like his photos made a big impression.

I normally work with the following definitions:
1. naked = wearing nothing
2. nude = wearing nothing for artistic or naturist purposes.
3. skyclad = wearing nothing for ritual purposes.
4. nekkid = wearing nothing, AND you're up to something. :)

I'm left to amuse myself with a new definition of "naked" though. I guess Laurie thinks it means, "not wearing clothes", and pieces of fabric, like Daniel gave me to cover myself with, don't count as clothes, and therefore she considers me naked, even though I'm covered up?

It seems like skin really is a blank canvas and pretty much anything can be projected on it. Even showing just a certain amount of skin creates a place where the viewer can read something into what is being shown.

I'm not complaining about Laurie's remarks at all -- I think they're fascinating. It's almost as though, with Daniel's photographs, I've succeeded in doing with my body what I consciously try to do with my lyrics, which is make them abstract enough for the listener to project themselves and their experiences into them.

Perhaps even before any given person has a chance to hear one of my recordings or come to one of my shows, they're already a part of my performance art.

It was a dark and stormy night...

...but people still came out to hear an unusual music concert at an art gallery in a gritty part of San Francisco. This was very gratifying for the performers! Ferrara started things off with his haunting , evocative, and menacing ambient music. My set with Jon and Jim went very well. We had no technical difficulties with my headset mic (at last!) and the new instrumentation for the older material went over really well.

Paul was our able road manager and sound engineer. He is always so on top of things, so motivated, and so together. I have been spoiled for going on ten years having him in my corner at performances.

All you other musicians out there -- if you got him to help you with road management and sound, you would reduce your stress level immensely.

I got to meet and talk to Jim Ryan, who is the presenter of the Art Performance Lab series. We have a spot on this series coming up on May 12. Jim and I talked a bit about my planned set, the Subjects of Desire set, and how we might put together an intersecting piece for in between them. It should be a really interesting show.

Jim Carr has flown back to Kentucky but he will be back for our gig on May 12. It was really great to see him and work with him and hear stories of his busy musical life.

In other news, the piece I co-created for the Fling exhibit -- called "Sex, Love, & Expectations" -- has made the cut for a long-term exhibition of pieces from the show, at 180 Capp Street in San Francisco. I'll post more details when I know them.

A section of a poem by Galway Kinnell

I read many blogs and on one of them, its author posted a very moving poem she liked. I thought I would do the same with a different poem. It's meant a lot to me. I first read it posted on the wall at Escape from New York Pizza in the Financial District in San Francisco.

If one day it happens
you find yourself with someone you love
in a café at one end
of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar
where white wine stands in upward opening glasses,

and if you commit then, as we did, the error
of thinking,
one day all this will only be memory,

learn,
as you stand
at this end of the bridge which arcs,
from love, you think, into enduring love,
learn to reach deeper
into the sorrows
to come – to touch
the almost imaginary bones
under the face, to hear under the laughter
the wind crying across the black stones. Kiss
the mouth
which tells you, here,
here is the world. This mouth. This laughter. These temple bones.

The still undanced cadence of vanishing.

-- Galway Kinnell