Probably, They're Just Not That Into My Work

I also dreamt that intoxicating someone so that his testimony in court would be compromised, was a practice known as “loading the witness.”
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

I would like to point out that stores are running out of ivermectin so that cows and horses and sheep are going to suffer because the so-called higher species can be stupid.

— Chas. Pierce

Art is both an object created with skill but also a medium of connection. As a composer, when I finish a composition, I am pleased, yet there is a sense in which it is not actually music, until an audience has heard it. The finished score is as yet but the promise of music. When a performer creates the piece, and an audience hears it, that promise is fulfilled. There is thus a predicate connection before the music can reach the audience: the composer’s connection to prospective executants. As a clarinetist with various musician friends over the years, I have enjoyed the privilege of hearing quite a bit of my chamber and choral music performed. As a local composer with no name, the challenge has been to expand my audience so that it is a circle larger than those whom I happen to know personally. Imagine if the music of John Williams or John Adams were listened to only by people they know personally. That requires a stretch of the imagination because they are both celebrity composers. Whatever my virtues may be, I am no celebrity. If you are reading this blog post, I am grateful to you for your time and kind attention. As noted earlier on this blog, I am making an effort to send my music out to divers calls, and it remains to be seen if anything will come of them at all. I’ve also reached out via “cold calls” (e-mail messages, really) and two colleagues have responded, which is of course better than no one has responded. Here again, it remains to be seen &c. This summer two dedicatees of organ solo pieces have written to say they plan to perform their respective pieces, which is gratifying. Three people of mild acquaintance initially expressed an interest in seeing/hearing my work, but I hear figurative crickets. The negative response from “cold media” is disappointing enough. It stings a little more when you thought there was a connection. Of course, the flagship of such disappointment is the Opus 148 Band Symphony.