This and That

I’ve just learnt of an ensemble formed by “a dozen restless artists.” I still don’t feel at all guilty for getting to bed early last night. Also, Last night was the first time I dreamt that I was driving a sports car, it was a sleek bronze Beta Romeo.
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Americans don’t need somebody to play more Brahms or Beethoven. They need to know that there is very important music out there that they’re not listening to—because our ears and spirits need constant renewal.

— Conductor James Conlon (remarks occasioned by the Britten centenary)

I continue to send scores out in the hope … well. In the hope. I’ve found a call to which I could (and did) send The Heart and The Lungs from the Opus 148. There’s another band music call to which I should like to submit the original scoring of Ear Buds, but I have been waiting on a response to an e-mail query. I’ve found an alternate (or oblique) e-mail address to inquire about my query. We shall see, shan’t we? I even found a call for which the “Pierrot-plus” scoring of Don Quijote suits, so I’ve sent; my hopes are not high, as one member of the judges panel is known to me, and they have not responded at all sympathetically to my work, but hey! You never know. Still, it is not the only way in which the Boston musical ecosystem makes it known to me that I never belonged to the right clubs. I sent the Opus 175 to an old friend, to see about its suitability for an organization with which he is now affiliated. His detailed reply is illuming. I was desirous of the conductor’s feedback (which is yet to come.) The conductor has, I think, more than one assignment, so I wasn’t necessarily proposing the Op. 175 for this group, though that would of course be wonderful. The gist of the present email is eminently practical: a 25-minute piece by an unknown composer is “a big ask” and so substantial a piece for which the winds all sit out is a further consideration. I felt that I was being discreetly guided to send something for which these proscriptions would not obtain. At first, I thought of finding a scene from White Nights, but then, I remembered the orchestral adaptation of Ear Buds. Accordingly, I betook me to (I nearly wrote FedEx Kinko’s, since—as I worked long ago at the Kinko’s on Mt Hope Avenue in Rochester, NY—I have been slow to learn that their brand is now FedEx Office) to have the score printed out. On Saturday I went to a concert by Ensemble Aubade in Belmont, and my friend and much-esteemed colleague Peter kindly brought an envelope. He graciously offered too, to mail it off. Now, I almost don’t remember the work of the arrangement, and after I arrived home (having handed off the score) an anxious doubt crossed my mind: Did I actually write aught for the strings to play? The piece is minimalist in a way, lots of sustained tones and Klangfarbenmelodie, not at all string writing typical of the orchestra, and I was suddenly worried that I had left the string staves blank. Of course, once I was home and could open my duplicate of the score, and see that the strings do, of course, have music to play.