First Ears of the New Year

Parenthetically, and not as if I am near that point in the Clarinet Sonata (I am not, as yet), there must be clangor at the outset of Boulez est mort.

There was a meeting of three-fourths of 9th Ear Wednesday night, basically to firm up the programs for 18 March at the Church of the Advent (at which we have, say, 20 minutes of a composite concert) and 19 March at the Nave Gallery (a/k/a Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church, a full concert all our own). Jim Dalton, Charles Turner, and yours truly attended.

18 March program to include (in part):

Dalton: new piece for clarinet and guitar
Turner: Suma Beach for soprano and shakuhachi
kh: just what everyone was expecting, as arranged for clarinet, mandocello & double-bass

19 March program to include (in part):

Dalton: new piece for clarinet and guitar
Dalton: Thoreau songs for voice & guitar
Dalton: The Learned Astronomer for choir unaccompanied
Dalton: Quem quaeritis for choir unaccompanied

Turner: Sonnet to Sleep for soprano, viola and piano
Turner: Suma Beach for soprano and shakuhachi
Turner: KOAN, a miniature opera for two singers and chamber group
Turner: O miei dolci animali for choir unaccompanied

Henningmusick:
just what everyone was expecting, as arranged for clarinet, mandocello & double-bass
Things Like Bliss for clarinet, two guitars & double-bass
Three Things That Begin With 'C' for clarinet and horn
Agnus Dei for choir unaccompanied

Last year, I began writing Darkest Doings, on the chance of it being suitable for the 19 March program; but I left the score for months in that just-begun state, pending this late meeting, because the finished piece must likely run to 20 minutes, and I deemed that such a piece would too much dominate the concert, and therefore be unsuitable. What I shall at last do with the Doings, I am not at present sure. At some point, I may slightly rescore it so that it would suit a k a rl h e nn i ng Ensemble program; I certainly still like the idea of setting that scene from "the Scottish play."