Near the end of May, word came from Kammerwerke, and we are going ahead with The Young Lady Holding a Phone in Her Teeth. We are to read it all together (the composer conducting) in rehearsal July the 21st. At the time of the May message, the intention was to program my piece for their Winter 2017 concert. Encouraged by the news, I went ahead and finished composing the piece (which had languished at the 10:30 mark since November, I believe) on 17 June, let the score 'rest' overnight, tinkered a bit further on 18 June, and I do pronounce the piece complete.
The Op.130 done, and after our fine concert at King's Chapel on June 21, I set to finishing the Gloria (yes, at long last). Much as with The Young Lady, I reached the final double-bar of the Gloria on June 28, and left the score to cure a bit. A friend in Florida, reading the score, raised a question about the meter changes on the first page; and I agreed that there was in this case some 'visual noise' which could be clarified with no loss to the composition. With those well-advised alterations, the Gloria was finished on June 29. It is still sinking in, that now the Mass is complete.
Over the holiday weekend, I began by responding to two Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame calls: one sixty-second piece for flute, clarinet in A & bassoon, Out From the Unattended Baggage; and another sixty-second piece for flute & harp, sand dance.
I then got a proper start on the trio for Ensemble Aubade, Oxygen Footprint. (I have a three-measure sketch for flute, viola & harp from March of this year, I think; and I may use it yet, but it was no way to start the piece.) And I have resumed work on < Boulez est mort > (Wounding Silence), the second movement of the clarinet sonata. My plan now is to make gradual progress, alternating between the two pieces. When one of these is done, I begin tinkering in earnest on the piece for Olivia Kieffer, Mistaken for the Sacred, percussion and fixed media.
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