circumference

Roughly 5 years ago I was a career minded budding young composer in my first semester at New England Conservatory. I went to a concert of the music of Brian Ferneyhough in New York one night and heard Tony Arnold sing, she is spectacular. Today, five years later, she arrived in Santa Barbara where I found myself beginning to approach a sense of what a mature composer is and seeing how I might evolve to that. I had the amazing fortune to hear her sing Kafka Fragments by Kurtag and it was a relentless tour de force of solid 20th century virtuosity. After the performance, which I was instrumental in organizing and facilitating I had the opportunity to speak with Tony. It felt almost surreal to realize all that has happened since I last saw this person and to realize that I am no longer on the outside looking in, but that I am someone who is respected and appreciated as a member of the music community. Seeing Tony helped to remind me of the distance traveled and to remind me of what a wonderful and stunning talent she is.

The other components of this concert, the part which I was thoroughly involved with was the creation of the tape part for Gyula Csapo's Krapp's Last Tape. This is one of the few pieces that approaches the elegance and reductionism of Feldman while maintaining the voice of the composer and not some pale imitation. In fact, I am thinking I would like to perform this piece in due time. The other component of this piece was that I worked with Movses Pogossian a truly remarkable violinist. We spent many hours making the tape part which accompanied his performance tonight and it was very rewarding to create this electronic sound and project it in concert.

To top it all off, Clarence threw a wonderful Hungarian themed reception after the concert. Here I savored a glass of wine while rolling into my 34th consecutive hour awake.

I should note, that the hat that I am wearing in the above picture is in the process of being retired as my parents replaced it in honor of my 33 + 3/3's years of existence. On top of that, the picture features my absorbing sun on the beach where I learned to surf and also where I took my parents when they visited several weeks ago, that was an amazing afternoon, following our breakfast at Cody's Cafe. I will report that Carl and Laura even went kayaking, in the ocean!

UPDATE.... The fabulous wife reports that she had artistic vision, so she took the photo. I have never heard of a woman refering to me as the classical vision of pure artistry, but then again.....